Taurus 942 Innards

[jeffh]

Sept 13, 2022 8:32:33 GMT -5 bradshaw said:

S&W design except for Taurus transfer bar, presumably attached to trigger. Eliminates S&W hammer block passive safety. Are Taurus hammer & trigger through-hardened, or hard-coated?
David Bradshaw

I ended up "dehorning" the hammer spur on a new 605 this summer, because it was wearing holes in my pants and my thumb.  My (tactile) observation was that initially it was very hard and resistant to file or stone, but once I made a little progress, it seemed to suddenly be much softer/easier to file or stone.  The impression I got was that it was surface-hardened, not through-hardened.

I can't say this is true for all models, or even the one I have, but there was definitely a difference once I got past the first few strokes.

I have been reluctant to stone the interface between hammer/trigger. 

The most common answer I've seen related to improving the trigger pulls on them is "put a few hundred rounds though it and it'll be a lot better."

[bradshaw]

Jeff.... anachronistic, in this day & age, to use surface hardened lockwork, which cannot be stoned without intruding into soft core metal. To go by experience with classic S&W drop forged & case hardened hammer & trigger, the carburized surface is just thousandths-inch thick. To do more than the lightest surface touch on single action quickly abrades the tune... as that fine single action letoff wears, pull lightens, at which point the trigger kicks forward to intercept the DOUBLE ACTION FLY (DA sear) on the falling hammer. In double action, the squeeze wears away soft transition of trigger/hammer engagement, causing DA stroke to roughen.

S&W stainless hammer & trigger
When S&W introduced stainless revolvers, stainless hammers & triggers quickly wore. S&W realized the stainless used wasn’t up to the task; solution was to abandon stainless hammer & trigger; replace with the case hardened, carbon steel hammer & trigger. The carbon steel parts were then flash-chromed to look like stainless.

Ruger stainless hammer & trigger
Sturm, Ruger parts were through-hardened in heat treatment, and parts which were not heat treated started with tough steel. To the best of my knowledge, hammers & triggers are 416 stainless, tougher steel than S&W tried. In the spring of 1983 I shot two prototype Super Blackhawk .44 Magnums, 10-1/2” and 7-1/2”. I did trigger jobs on Ruger’s coffee table. My first thought, Will stainless trigger work hold up as well as Ruger's spectacular 4140 chromoly hammer & trigger? Didn’t shoot the prototypes enough to answer my question.

Ruger KS411N
1983 saw production of the stainless SBH. Based on my input on the .357 Maximum, the 10-1/2” was fitted with bull barrel, Maximum extractor, and screw-on target front sight; the the KS411N. I dubbed it the Silver Hornpipe, a handle to which the Old Man took exception. However, it didn’t bother Bill, Sr., that it boosted the IHMSA Revolver Aggregate Record on its first outing. That gun got shot to death, during which time I discovered two things: 1) forcing cone erosion proceeded much slower than on the blue Super Blackhawk, and 2) the through-hardened stain hammer & trigger held silhouette tune amazingly well, better than any other stainless single action I’ve lived with. Basically put to rest my apprehension that Ruger 416 LETOFF wouldn’t hold as well as Ruger 4140. However, to this day I feel I can tune 4140 a hair sharper. The so-called average shooter will never know the difference. No 17-4ph hammer & trigger I’ve tried quite matches Ruger’s 416.

Single action tuned for silhouette letoff, longevity
1) Ruger 4140 chromoly.
2) Ruger 416 stainless.
3) 17-4 ph.
Before people pull out their hair, my take comes via my own trigger tuning and time on the Firing Line. Blanket presumptions of “one steel is better than another” do not apply. Only time on the Firing Lines apply. All the rest is theory.

I wore through DWA M-15 .357 Mag hammers & triggers which were nickel plated or surface hardened. I shot the big frame M-44 .44 Mag double action----albeit much less than the M-15 .357----and had no problems. About a year ago I asked Seth Wesson (Dan’s son) if he could explain why. Seth said the M-15 hammer & trigger is soft inside; the big frame hammer & trigger is through hardened.
David Bradshaw

[jeffh]

Sept 13, 2022 20:47:09 GMT -5 bradshaw said:

Jeff.... anachronistic, in this day & age, to use surface hardened lockwork, which cannot be stoned without intruding into soft core metal....

Yes, Sir - while I lack the deep personal experience you relate, I did at least know enough that it wasn't going to stand up to removing ANY material on these.  I appreciate the detail, which validates my reluctance to mess with it.  This is one of the things I've always liked about Ruger revolvers - they may not come out of the box in perfect order, but they are very amenable to being PUT to order without worry of breaching a thin, protective skin.

I think this is part of the price of "cheap" revolvers.  Mine was under $400, CC penalty, shipping and transfer included, and it has a LOT of features I really appreciate, and is devoid of many features I don't like, which I think was more important.  I can live with the SA and DA triggers on this 357, it's just annoying to transition between a different revolver with a much lighter pull.

I am not making this comparison for competitive reasons - I'm not trying to "one-up" the Taurus, because both brands have things which appeal to me, but I THINK the Charter stainless hammers/triggers are still through-hardened.  I've work on those a lot and the last one I bough a couple years ago responded just as the ones from as far back as the 60s and 70s.  I don't remember even stoning one with case-hardened hammer/trigger and don't know if that is just decorative or real.

My guess is that Charter is plugging away with older technology and getting along just fine with it, which works just fine for me too. 

[bradshaw]

"My guess is that Charter is plugging away with older technology and getting along just fine with it, which works just fine for me too.”
----Jeff

*****

My old blasting partner, Don Matthieu, didn’t set foot around his farm without his Charter Arms snubnose .38 in a tool pocket of his overalls. He cast his own and hand loaded for the Charter and an intensely accurate Luger P-08 9mm. As much as Don the Dynamiter could baby anything, he babied his Luger. His .38, on the other hand, looked tlike something to comfort caveman. Grit, hayseed, manure, grit, his Charter wouldn’t quit.

Ruger supplied investment cast parts to numerous manufacturers. Sometimes doing a bit of design to make the part stronger, such as the Harrington & Richardson tip-open single shot receiver configured of rifle cartridges. Don’t know whether Ruger made any parts for Charter Arms; it wouldn’t surprise me. According to Seth Wesson, Ruger’s Pine Tree Castings ma de hammer & trigger for DWA M-44 and M-40 big frame revolvers, and those parts hold up to trigger jobs; whereas hammer & trigger for the M-15 series don’t hold up in sustained double action fire.
David Bradshaw

[owen67]

Things to note: steels of the same tensile strength and RC hardness can have wildly different abrasive wear characteristics based mostly on presence (or absence) of carbides, and type thereof.

Carburized and surface hardened parts aren’t always inferior (and can be superior) to through hardened parts. Base material, depth of case, and process of hardening all play a part. As in most things it’s about using materials and a process optimized for what you want to do.

Metallurgy is a subject most engineers and even machinists have a poor grasp of. In the trades the engineers and machinists involved with tool and die making generally “get it”.

[magpouch]

"Metallurgy is a subject most engineers and even machinists have a poor grasp of. In the trades the engineers and machinists involved with tool and die making generally “get it”."

I was machining parts for 25 years (not gun parts unfortunately) and could not agree more with this statement!

[jeffh]

I forgot to mention that the innards in my 605 are slightly different.

The trigger return spring has a simple coil spring and strut, like a miniature hammer spring/strut.

I can't say one is any better than the other - just different. My older Taurus revolvers were like the 942.