Post by matt56 on Jan 15, 2021 17:24:15 GMT -5
This is cross posted on the S&W forum but I thought some of you guys would like to see my latest little project here too.
2 years back I picked up a 686-1 that isn't the gun I would usually buy. It had a bead blasted finish and I usually try to stay away from refinished guns. This wasn't too bad though and the price was right. I threw a set of Hogue's on it and I figured it would make a good shooter.
The only thing I didn't really like was the way the action felt. There was a hitch at the end of the DA pull or when cocking the gun manually. I came to find out later this was likely due to the floating hand S&W used in the mid to late 80s. I had planned from that point on to change it out eventually. One plus with the gun is it had the M stamp indicating it had returned to the factory for the hammer nose / firing pin bushing recall. I also wondered at that point if the bead blast had perhaps been done at the factory.
I never planned on this being a project gun until one day I stumbled across a factory 4" S&W 686 barrel from a CS-1 on ebay. The CS-1 was a gun built for the US customs service in the 80s. These guns were supposedly built to tighter tolerances than a standard 686 but that did not come without issues. The identifying features of a CS-1 were a pinned in black ramp front sight, round butt and bead blasted finish. These guns command a premium today, way more than I would want to pay for a 686.
I thought finding a rare barrel was exciting but the truth is probably almost no one would have recognized it from any other 686 barrel. I did though and couldn't click buy it now soon enough. I got it for around $80.
So it comes in the mail and I'm not decided on what do with it yet. It sat in the safe for 2 years while I waited around to make sure no CS-1s were gonna show up with bad barrels. I knew all along that the finish on the barrel and the finish on my 686-1 were really close, I figured maybe one day I would switch it out because I prefer the black ramp for shooting in the sunlight, which I mostly do.
Then the day came a few weeks ago when I was bored and I started thinking about this project again. Ultimately I decided no new guns were probably in my future for a while so I took the barrel off the 686-1 to see what I was up against.
The CS-1 barrel was a really close match finish wise. I could really tell now with it hand tightened into the frame. All it needed was the shoulder trimmed a little bit so it would index about 1/10 of a turn to tight. I had a hard time deciding to waste the barrel on this gun but it was time to use it.
Got it tightened down, lined up good, match range rod passes through the bore with no restriction, and the barrel to cylinder gap was .004 without trimming the face.
Now I had to decide what to do with the hand. The floating hand is .091" and carried up pretty good. I knocked the pin out of the trigger but I didn't have any extra hands so I took one out of my 686-4 and it also happened to be .091". The problem was it was slow on 2 holes. I peened the 2 teeth and got them all even but it was still a little slow on all of them. I wound up ordering a few standard sized hands from midway hoping one would be a little wider. 2 weeks went by before they showed up but I got lucky and one came in at .093". That hand went in, filed 2 different ratchet teeth that were long and all is good. The match range rod enters all the chambers without touching.
Here it is. All back together with a nice set of PC magna stocks. Everything went well with it, I’ll hopefully get a chance to shoot it in the next few weeks
2 years back I picked up a 686-1 that isn't the gun I would usually buy. It had a bead blasted finish and I usually try to stay away from refinished guns. This wasn't too bad though and the price was right. I threw a set of Hogue's on it and I figured it would make a good shooter.
The only thing I didn't really like was the way the action felt. There was a hitch at the end of the DA pull or when cocking the gun manually. I came to find out later this was likely due to the floating hand S&W used in the mid to late 80s. I had planned from that point on to change it out eventually. One plus with the gun is it had the M stamp indicating it had returned to the factory for the hammer nose / firing pin bushing recall. I also wondered at that point if the bead blast had perhaps been done at the factory.
I never planned on this being a project gun until one day I stumbled across a factory 4" S&W 686 barrel from a CS-1 on ebay. The CS-1 was a gun built for the US customs service in the 80s. These guns were supposedly built to tighter tolerances than a standard 686 but that did not come without issues. The identifying features of a CS-1 were a pinned in black ramp front sight, round butt and bead blasted finish. These guns command a premium today, way more than I would want to pay for a 686.
I thought finding a rare barrel was exciting but the truth is probably almost no one would have recognized it from any other 686 barrel. I did though and couldn't click buy it now soon enough. I got it for around $80.
So it comes in the mail and I'm not decided on what do with it yet. It sat in the safe for 2 years while I waited around to make sure no CS-1s were gonna show up with bad barrels. I knew all along that the finish on the barrel and the finish on my 686-1 were really close, I figured maybe one day I would switch it out because I prefer the black ramp for shooting in the sunlight, which I mostly do.
Then the day came a few weeks ago when I was bored and I started thinking about this project again. Ultimately I decided no new guns were probably in my future for a while so I took the barrel off the 686-1 to see what I was up against.
The CS-1 barrel was a really close match finish wise. I could really tell now with it hand tightened into the frame. All it needed was the shoulder trimmed a little bit so it would index about 1/10 of a turn to tight. I had a hard time deciding to waste the barrel on this gun but it was time to use it.
Got it tightened down, lined up good, match range rod passes through the bore with no restriction, and the barrel to cylinder gap was .004 without trimming the face.
Now I had to decide what to do with the hand. The floating hand is .091" and carried up pretty good. I knocked the pin out of the trigger but I didn't have any extra hands so I took one out of my 686-4 and it also happened to be .091". The problem was it was slow on 2 holes. I peened the 2 teeth and got them all even but it was still a little slow on all of them. I wound up ordering a few standard sized hands from midway hoping one would be a little wider. 2 weeks went by before they showed up but I got lucky and one came in at .093". That hand went in, filed 2 different ratchet teeth that were long and all is good. The match range rod enters all the chambers without touching.
Here it is. All back together with a nice set of PC magna stocks. Everything went well with it, I’ll hopefully get a chance to shoot it in the next few weeks
