S&W Model 69 Trigger Job?

[FizzyP]

I'm going to buy a new S&W 69 and I'd like it to have a decent trigger. What should I do? (please read the "catch" below before commenting, because it's important).

* Get the work done by the S&W performance center from the factory? (what is the exact difference between the "combat revolver" and "master revolver" packages anyway?)
* Get the work done by a local gunsmith?
* Buy a spring kit and polish up the internals myself?

A 686 I handled in a gun shop recently had an absurdly heavy trigger. Must have been most of 10 lbs SA and 20 in DA (significantly heavier than any other DA revolvers I've ever touched). My concern is the 69 will be similar. This is not a carry gun. I'd like a light SA trigger for hunting/target shooting and DA trigger that's stiff enough to be good trigger control practice but still pleasant to operate.

Here's the catch: legally I'm a Florida resident but most of them time I thousands of miles away from there. So to get this gun I'm going to swing through Florida and stay there for about a week. I have a short window to get everything right. After I've left Florida I can't ship the gun to S&W or another gunsmith and have them work on it because they can't legally ship it back to me.

[Roughedge]

I done mine myself but I am a gunsmith. be sure to get the kit with the longer firing pin so you don't have light strikes. Cant remember if I bought a kit or just parts
https://www.brownells.com/handgun-pa...n__L%2520Frame

[T. O'Heir]

"...there for about a week..." It's highly probable that will be an issue. Most good smithy's are very busy guys. Custom work can take months and months. A week isn't enough.
"...absurdly heavy trigger..." That's due to frivolous law suits. The MBA's running the firearms companies are justly terrified of 'em. Even when they win it costs money. So they don't finish triggers to be "light". Or smooth.
Doing the trigger on a Smith isn't difficult(an 'L' frame is an 'L' frame), but you need one special tool. That being a Rebound Spring Housing tool. $19.99 at Brownell's.
https://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-t...526%2520Wesson
The only other question is do you have a buffing wheel and some jeweller's rouge. That's the easiest way to polish the innards. Wet/dry sand paper works but it takes longer.
Keep in mind that just changing the springs will help. And it doesn't take a lot of time. You still need a Rebound Spring Housing tool though.
Wolff Springs is your friend.
https://www.gunsprings.com/SMITH%20&...3/mID58/dID264

[Bill DeShivs]

Mr. O'Heir's drive-by gunsmithing advice is simply wrong.
All you need to remove the rebound slide is a screwdriver, and you should never use a buffer on any firing group parts.

[FizzyP]

@Roughedge Thanks for the advice on the firing pin. I did not know about that. Do you care to weigh in on the "buffing" controversy?

@T. O'Heir If I take the handgun to a gunsmith in person it doesn't have to be in Florida. It's just that I can't do something like mail it in to S&W to do the work. So if I want them to do it I have to order it that way from the factory.

[jglsprings]

I’m always up for custom gunsmithing work. But, the 69 I had and loved was great right out of the box.

YMMV

[ChiefTJS]

You need to be a legal resident of the state where you buy the gun from an FFL, after that you can ship it yourself to S&W or a gunsmith and they can ship it right back to you anywhere in the country. Shipping will cost you more to do it yourself but residency doesn't matter unless going through an FFL. Personally I've had the Custom Shop do an action job and they'll never get the chance to do another, send it to Frank Glenn down in Arizona and you'll love it forever.

[bipe215]

Jerry Miculek’s trigger job DVD is excellent.

[zeke]

My 69 had very heavy da pull, fixed by slightly lighter return spring and some inside polishing. It will never equal older style triggers, but much better now. Am guessing the heavy return spring was to overcome the lack of finished internals.

[Edge]

I have some $1,000+ revolvers (one of which - a Performance Center gun - I had a trigger job done on before I took home). My 69 came straight with one of the best triggers I've felt. I know I got lucky; but you might want to try it out first before assuming it will be bad. If timing that big an issue, there are probably some smiths who will do it same day if arrange in advance or you could probably do it yourself with a few tools and videos.

[FizzyP]

This is what concerns me:
@Edge "My 69 came straight with one of the best triggers I've felt. I know I got lucky"
@zeke "My 69 had very heavy da pull"
The take home here seems to be: it's not worth getting performance center to do it (@ChiefTJS). Just pick up the gun, see how it shoots, if you want to improve it do it yourself or find a reputable gunsmith.

[FizzyP]

> Jerry Miculek’s trigger job DVD is excellent.

They're going for $19.99, but it's two hours long. Wow.

[zeke]

Own a fair number of S&W's from multiple era's. Not a one has a "bad/poor" sa trigger, and have never had, or needed, any S&W sa pull worked on. IMO, there simply isn't enough ledge for a poor sa trigger pull. The DA trigger is a whole nother story.

If circumstances permit, always good idea to see how any gun actually works before fine tuning it, after making sure the internals are cleaned and lubed. Each individual gun can differ.

[wild cat mccane]

A correction I'm going to make every time T. O'Heir repeats it (often).

A new S&W and an old S&W, the new lock doesn't touch the action.

Old actions required hand fitting because of ill created parts. MIM makes parts to precision and doesn't require hand fitting.

MIM parts and steel parts have zero difference in feel. How could they?

Old actions aren't better than new.

No facts to back that up at all.


Picking up one might be variation. S&W does have the best trigger quality control though...

[FizzyP]

@Zeke, I'm sure you have more experience with these revolvers than I do. But, how do you explain this new 686 I handled that had a horrendous trigger? It was truly unbelievable. The SA trigger was as heavy as the DA trigger on a new GP100 I looked at a week before. The DA trigger on the 686 was so heavy, at first I thought something was wrong. Then I squeezed ridiculously hard and the hammer barely moved. I dry fired it once and said "no thank you". It had, by an order of magnitude, the heaviest SA *and* DA triggers I've ever felt. Not only that, it was gritty.

[wild cat mccane]

I just bought a 686 a few months ago. Made july 2019.

The SA trigger was extremely light. The next best available is the Taurus 66, but you live with the Taurus.

Variation. That's how I explain it.


But ALSO! if you fired on only one chamber? Mystery solved.

Like that could be a binding issue. That is more likely. Once corrected, no hard trigger.

[labnoti]

To improve the trigger on a S&W, the most important work is to stone the hammer and sear surfaces. To do this correctly, you or the gunsmith will need something like a Power Custom stoning fixture. The fixture, adapter, and stone total about $300 worth of equipment, so it's not practical if you don't do this work regularly. I can recommend the Performance Center to do this work, but they can take many, many months to do it. Warranty repairs usually take a couple weeks, but PC custom work can take six months. Faster alternatives to consider might be TK Custom or Cylinder and Slide.

You probably don't want to change the springs because it will reduce the force with which the primer is struck and then either cause misfires or force you to use Federal primers exclusively. The lighter you go, the more misfires are likely. You can go to an extended firing pin and Federal primers, but it becomes impractical unless you're a meticulous, high-volume competitive shooter with no other purpose for the gun.

I have found that I can reduce the trigger return spring rate one step (using an aftermarket spring rather than cutting it or grinding it) and I still get reliable strikes and I personally don't go fast enough to over-run it. Jerry Miculek might over-run it, but I do not consistently have .16 splits. I can shoot consistent .25 splits and occasional .20 splits without overrunning it.

One other area to stone is the bottom of the frame where the rebound spring housing slides.

Some people polish the sides of the trigger and hammer where they pivot on the frame bosses, or they polish the side of the frame next to the rebound spring housing. They also polish the face of the hand. This looks good, but I doubt it has a meaningful effect unless there was a defect on one of these things which is much less likely with MIM parts.

So again, the things that have the most effect are the trigger and sear surfaces which need to be stoned by a competent gunsmith with the correct tools, and the springs which can only be altered if you're willing to give up something like firing pin force or rebound speed. All the other voodoo isn't worth much -- unless there is a defect being corrected.

This man does a good job explaining and showing many of the "trigger job" procedures.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=648V...rs3EUWh5nUP8c9

I think he does more than what is truly productive, but he does use correct procedures.

[zeke]

Am having difficulty in understanding how changing the trigger return spring affects the force of hammer? Certainly changing the hammer spring or it's tension does.

A lot of people seem to believe the mim parts are the exact same dimensions or smoother than the older parts, which they are not as there are subtle differences and certain "humps". Especially in the DA. The "lock" isn't what affects the da pull .

A basic trigger job is not that difficult, especially with minimum of tools and a good instructional book.

Please don't make me agree with O'Heir anymore than necessary.

[wild cat mccane]

The variation in a MIM/cast part will have less variation that a steel cut piece requiring hand fitting through deburring.

At very best, there wouldn't be much to any difference.

The metal itself doesn't provide a feel either...

[zeke]

Have you ever actually done a trigger job on various eras S&W's? Speaking generally doesn't cut it. If mim can hold tighter tolerances, that does not mean the basic shape of the part is the same as the tooled steel part . 1000's of exact the same mim trigger parts with the same off line hump (disrupted curve) still have the hump. And the mim parts have changed dimensionally over the years, even if all the parts in one lot are real similar.

[labnoti]

It is understood that the return spring does not affect primer strike force. It does affect trigger pull weight since it must be compressed in the trigger pull. It also affects rebound speed since that is its function.

I wrote that with a slightly lighter return spring, " I still get reliable strikes and I personally don't go fast enough to over-run it." I did not mean to imply that the lighter spring affected the strike force, but rather that it did not and hence I do indeed still get reliable strikes.

[labnoti]

I will also comment that light triggers are over-rated. The OP's estimate of 20 lb DA pull is a gross exaggeration. People who have measured the Model 69 published, 3.5 lb SA and 11 lb DA pulls.

The goal of a good trigger job is to smooth the pull. It is not to make it as light as a single-action semi-automatic like a 6-pound 1911. The long ~10 pound DA revolver trigger has very meaningful advantages. But make no mistake, it can be lightened to 8 or 9 pounds without compromising it. Learn to use it and you may prefer it above all others. I do.

[zeke]

labnoti-sorry i misunderstood you. My 3.25 in 69 with one step lighter rebound spring is bout 10 lbs. Am guesstimating that as the spring gage is only delineated to 8 lbs, and no idea how accurate it actually is. Did buy another higher rear sight to suit the 180/200 grains load used in it, and widened the notch for personal preference in faster sight acquisition.

FizzyP-can't explain it, but sounds like something definitely wrong and not worth buying that specific gun.

[RickB]

I had the Master done to my Model 22, and honestly, the only difference is the strain screw is now tight, when I had turned it out a little, before.
I still need to use Federal primers for 100% ignition.
The chamfered chamber mouths is a nice touch.

[labnoti]

One of the questions in the OP wasn't answered yet. The main difference between "Master" and "Combat" PC packages is the Combat package includes a glass bead finish. Separately, the PC charges $170 and up for this. That's why the Combat is $100 more than the Master. Since the 69 already has a glass bead finish, it's irrelevant. They won't charge you for it unless you want it redone (like if it was ruined). You don't have to buy a package either. You can simply specify what you want. I've done this and they did not rack up a huge bill. They charged me far less than I was expecting (less than half what I thought it would be).

My personal experience with the PC: It's extremely difficult to communicate with S&W period. However, the gunsmith who actually works on the gun is very intelligent. Don't expect to be able to communicate with them though. They just work on guns somewhere in the center of the Earth. There are phone clerks that talk to customers and they don't have a clue. But the gunsmiths are actually pretty clever. If you absolutlely have to have things your way, even though you don't actually know best, go to an independent smith that will do as you say. If you just want an awesome gun smithed by someone with a little creative license and solid knowledge of what actually works, give the PC a shot. I can assure you they are not ignorant or bumblers. But no, they won't even talk to you on the phone much less listen to all your desires.