I am planning on buying the wife a S & W model 649 and I wanted to smooth/lighten the trigger pull. I am reasonably mechanically inclined, is this a job I can do myself or do I need to farm it out?
I did a job on my Model 60, I purchased a Wolff spring kit and an India stone. The important thing to remember is to not change the angles of any of the surfaces. You only want to work the areas enough to take any machining marks or burrs off. There are a few videos on Youtube about lightening the trigger pull on a S&W revolver, I watched them prior to doing the work myself. Make sure to keep the India stone wet with oil when you work, I'd use a glass sheet or something very flat to work the parts on when you smooth them so you don't change any angles or introduce any new ones.
There are a number of surfaces in the S&W revolver action that can be slicked up. I don't use anything any more coarse than a 320 grit stone to start with and go finer from there. You only want to remove tool marks and small imperfections, no more metal than that. If you look down and have small pile of metal shavings, well, you've probably gone too far. Like phatcyclist said, you absolutely do not want to alter any angles or break any edges that you don't know how they contact/effect another part. As previouslt stated, a spring kit may do all you want.
I put the Wolf spring kit in my 642, and it is a big improvement. I wanted to see how much improvement just changing out the springs would do before attempting the stoning, and I think I'll stick with it as is. I went with the 14 lb rebound spring.
You might also consider the Apex spring kit. It is said to reduce pull from 12 to 9 lbs, and includes a custom firing pin and firing pin spring. About $25.
There is an excellent DVD by Jerry Miculik showing how to do a S&W trigger job step by step. I'd post the link to rent it from Smartflix, but their site isn't loading up for me right now.
There is an excellent DVD by Jerry Miculik showing how to do a S&W trigger job step by step. I'd post the link to rent it from Smartflix, but their site isn't loading up for me right now.