I think that i finally made up my mind to purchase a 686 4" barrel. I just happened to stumble upon on and was wondering what an amateur like myself should look for before purchasing and ifmthere's any real reason not to buy a used firearm. At first glance, it looks really nice and I didn't see any flaws. The moving parts seemed to be working well.

 

I really didn't intend to buy a used gun, but the piece I found yesterday fit well and looked to be in good shape. The price is right and I'm prepared to buy but don't want to get into something that I shouldn't. Oh, and the gun comes with a 1 year warranty from the store.

Taken from The High Road.org-C

 

The text from Handloads.com

Revolver checkout: how to tell if a particular specimen is any good

By Jim March

 

So you're buying a revolver. New, used, doesn't matter, you want a good one, right? How do check one over without firing it, right at the dealer's counter or gun show table? This is how. All of this works with DA or SA wheelguns..."close the action" on most DAs means swing the cylinder in, on SA types, close the loading gate, on break opens, close 'em. UNLOADED.

 

WARNING: most of these tests require violation of the "finger off trigger" rule. Therefore, be extremely careful about safe muzzle direction and making sure the gun is unloaded ahead of time, PERSONALLY, as you begin handling it.

 

Note: bring a small flashlight, something small and concentrated. A Photon or similar high-powered LED light is perfect. You also want feeler gauges if you're not used to eyeballing cylinder gaps; at a minimum, bring a .002", .004" and .006".

 

Note 2: no dry firing is required or desired at any point. It just pisses off the gun's current owner.

 

Cylinder play

 

1) With the gun UNLOADED (check for yourself!), close the action.

 

2) Thumb the hammer back, and while pulling the trigger, gently lower the hammer all the way down while keeping the trigger back - and KEEP holding the trigger once the hammer is down. (You've now put the gun in "full lockup" - keep it there for this and most other tests.)

 

3) With the trigger still back all the way, check for cylinder wiggle. Front/back is particularly undesirable; a bit of side to side is OK but it's a bad thing if you can wiggle it one way, let go, and then spin it the other way a fraction of an inch and it stays there too. At the very least, it should "want" to stop in just one place (later, we'll see if that place is any good). The ultimate is a "welded to the frame" feeling.

 

Cylinder gap

 

4) Still holding the trigger at full lockup, look sideways through the barrel/cylinder gap. If you can get a credit card in there, that ain't good...velocity drops rapidly as the gap increases. Too tight isn't good either, because burnt powder crud will "fill the gap" and start making the cylinder spin funky. My personal .38 snubbie is set at .002, usually considered the minimum...after about 40 shots at the range, I have to give the front of the cylinder a quick wipe so it spins free again. I consider that a reasonable tradeoff for the increased velocity because in a real fight, I ain't gonna crank 40 rounds out of a 5-shot snub.

 

If you're eyeballing it, you'll have to hold it up sideways against an overhead light source.

 

SAFETY WARNING: This step in particular is where you MUST watch your muzzle direction. Look, part of what's happening here is that you're convincing the seller you know your poop . It helps the haggling process. If you do anything unsafe, that impression comes completely unglued.

 

Timing

 

5) You really, REALLY want an unloaded gun for this one. This is where the light comes in. With the gun STILL held in full lockup, trigger back after lowering the hammer by thumb, you want to shine a light right into the area at the rear of the cylinder near the firing pin. You then look down the barrel . You're looking to make sure the cylinder bore lines up with the barrel. Check every cylinder - that means putting the gun in full lockup for each cylinder before lighting it up.

 

You're looking for the cylinder and barrel holes to line up perfectly, it's easy to eyeball if there's even a faint light source at the very rear of both bores. And with no rounds present, it's generally easy to get some light in past where the rims would be.

 

Bore

 

(We're finally done with that "full lockup" crap, so rest your trigger finger. )

6) Swing the cylinder open, or with most SAs pull the cylinder. Use the small flashlight to scope the bore out. This part's easy - you want to avoid pitting, worn-out rifling, bulges of any sort. You want more light on the subject than just what creeps in from the rear of the cylinder on the timing check.

 

You also want to check each cylinder bore, in this case with the light coming in from the FRONT of each hole, you looking in from the back where the primers would be. You're looking for wear at the "restrictions" at the front of each cylinder bore. That's the "forcing cone" area and it can wear rapidly with some Magnum loads. (Special thanks to Salvo below for this bit!)

 

Trigger

 

7) To test a trigger without dry-firing it, use a plastic pen in front of the hammer to "catch" it with the off hand, especially if it's a "firing pin on the hammer" type. Or see if the seller has any snap-caps, that's the best solution. Flat-faced hammers as found in transfer-bar guns (Ruger, etc) can be caught with the off-hand without too much pain .

 

SA triggers (or of course a DA with the hammer cocked) should feel "like a glass rod breaking". A tiny amount of take-up slack is tolerable, and is common on anything with a transfer bar or hammer block safety.

 

DA triggers are subjective. Some people like a dead-smooth feel from beginning of stroke to the end, with no "warning" that it's about to fire. Others (myself included) actually prefer a slight "hitch" right at the end, so we know when it's about to go. With that sort of trigger, you can actually "hold it" right at the "about to fire" point and do a short light stroke from there that rivals an SA shot for accuracy. Takes a lot of practice though. Either way, you don't want "grinding" through the length of the stroke, and the final stack-up at the end (if any) shouldn't be overly pronounced.

 

Detecting Bad Gunsmithing:

8) OK, so it's got a rock-solid cylinder, a .002" or .003" gap, and the trigger feels great. Odds are vastly in favor of it being tuned after leaving the factory.

 

So was the gunsmith any good?

 

Look at the screws. Ideally, they should be untouched, meaning that the gun has not been messed with. If the screw heads are battered and worn, it means the sideplate has been off, probably many times. A gun like that may have a smooth trigger, but the parts may have been polished out of time or (if a S&W) the case hardening cut through so the parts will wear out rapidly. Many guns subjected to amateur gunsmithing turn up on the used gun market when the guy realizes he has messed up.

 

Next, cock it, then grab the hammer and "wiggle it around" a bit. Not too hard, don't bang on it, but give it a bit of up/down, left/right and circular action with finger off trigger and WATCH your muzzle direction.

 

You don't want that hammer slipping off an overly polished sear. You REALLY don't want that . It can be fixed by installing factory parts but that'll take modest money (more for installation than hardware costs) and it'll be big time unsafe until you do.

 

The other thing that commonly goes wrong is somebody will trim the spring, especially coil springs. You can spot that if you pull the grip panels, see if the spring was trimmed with wire cutters. If they get too wild with it, you'll get ignition failures on harder primers. But the good news is, replacement factory or Wolf springs are cheap both to buy and have installed.

 

There's also the legal problems Ayoob frequently describes regarding light triggers. If that's a concern, you can either swap back to stock springs, or since you bought it used there's no way to prove you knew it was modified at all .

 

In perspective:

Timing (test #5) is very critical...if that's off, the gun may not even be safe to test-fire. And naturally, a crappy barrel means a relatively pricey fix.

 

Cylinder gap is particularly critical on short-barreled and/or marginal caliber guns. If you need every possible ounce of energy, a tight gap helps. Some factory gaps will run as high as .006"; Taurus considers .007" "still in spec" (sigh). You'll be hard-pressed to find any new pieces under .004" - probably because the makers realize some people don't clean 'em often (or very well) and might complain about the cylinder binding up if they sell 'em at .002".

 

The guns in a dealer's "used pile" are often of unknown origin, from estate sales or whatever. Dealers don't have time to check every piece, and often don't know their history. These tests, especially cylinder gap and play, can spot a gun that's been sent off for professional tuning...like my snubbie, the best $180 I ever spent .

 

As long as the gun is otherwise sound (no cracks, etc) a gunsmith can fix any of this. So these tests can help you pick a particularly good new specimen, or find a good used gun, or help haggle the price down on something that'll need a bit of work.

This article was originally a webboard post at http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/...threadid=57816 from Jim March and re-published with permission and has had minor changes from the original post based on additional information contributed by others in that discussion thread. You can find Jim online at http://www.ninehundred.com/~equalccw/

__________________

Jim March

TFL Alumnus

Equal Rights for CCW Home Page

http://www.equalccw.com

Good luck. I love my 686.

 

C

If it seems too good to be true, it may be just that.

I shopped around for 686's and found they hold value extremely well, so I might be hesitant to jump on one if it was priced super low.

In the end, I bought new from Paul @ Arms-n-Ammo (PK90 here on the forum) reach out to him for pricing, his price new was EXCELLENT

Seems S&W doesn't extend warranty past the first owner too:

Thanks for the help and feedback! The price just can't be beat as I'm not looking to buy an expensive new piece. I guess I'm not worried about it being 100% reliable for HD as I've got something else for that. I guess I should try to find a friend with experience to go check it out with me...

make sure the barrel is straight seems to be a problem in newer ones

I've got a 686 with the 6" barrel. A quality, accurate and fun piece. Buy it and don't look back.

I will be looking for a 4" 686 in the future

Great guns hold or shoot one first

I will be looking for a 4" 686 in the future

 

Mmm hmm

Make sureMIT comes with at least 3 magazines or your being ripped off

I will be looking for a 4" 686 in the future

 

We all didn't see that coming... LOL

 

What, no 6" also???

Make sureMIT comes with at least 3 magazines or your being ripped off

and make sure the cylinder rotates both clockwise and counter clockwise

If it seems too good to be true, it may be just that.

I shopped around for 686's and found they hold value extremely well, so I might be hesitant to jump on one if it was priced super low.

In the end, I bought new from Paul @ Arms-n-Ammo (PK90 here on the forum) reach out to him for pricing, his price new was EXCELLENT

Seems S&W doesn't extend warranty past the first owner too:

 

About the warrenty, S&W is best in the industry. What they say is not what they do. Their customer service is unbeatable! It also says they are not responsible for customer goof-ups and only defects in workmanship, but when I screwed up a pin in my S&W 1911, they removed the pin, replaced the pin, cleaned the entire slide, and gave me a new extractor (even though nothing was wrong with it... lol)

 

No questions asked, 1 week from leaving my hands to back at my doorstep

In the handgun section, there is a sticky post that shows how to check for end shake, cylinder play, etc to make sure you have a good revolver. Frankly, I would take an old S&W revolver any day before buying the (non-custom anyway) stuff that they put out these days. All of my revolvers are N frames from the 60's and 70's.

 

About the warrenty, S&W is best in the industry. What they say is not what they do. Their customer service is unbeatable! It also says they are not responsible for customer goof-ups and only defects in workmanship, but when I screwed up a pin in my S&W 1911, they removed the pin, replaced the pin, cleaned the entire slide, and gave me a new extractor (even though nothing was wrong with it... lol)

 

No questions asked, 1 week from leaving my hands to back at my doorstep

That's very good to hear, not that you screwed up your 1911, the excellent CS part

 

 

We all didn't see that coming... LOL

 

What, no 6" also???

 

I already have a 6 1/2 629 44 mag. I have nothing in 4" ...lol. Why not a smith

I already have a 6 1/2 629 44 mag. I have nothing in 4" ...lol. Why not a smith

Last time wheel guns came up you were talking snubby.......

Thanks everyone and a special thanks to Pizza Bob for coming with me today! His input was invaluable to me and when he said, "I'd buy it," that sealed the deal for me. He observed that it had a trigger job done and custom grips installed. Also, according to his knowledge, it was a "686-3" with the hammer-mounted firing pin. It lead him to believe that production was somewhere between 1989 and 1993-ish. For the price, it was a steal. Now to find time to go to the range...

 

Last time wheel guns came up you were talking snubby.......

 

Just got that taken care of

You'll love it. I have two 686's, a 6" and a 8 3/8", his and hers...........

Pre-lock 686. Exposed firing pin. Nice pickup. Bob knows his wheelguns.

That he does. I'm feeling better about the purchase with each hour that goes by. Gotta give her a good scrubbing as there's a little scum on her. I think I'll name her Maggie after both Bob's dog and the fact that she's a Magnum... Ha, ha, ha!

That he does. I'm feeling better about the purchase with each hour that goes by. Gotta give her a good scrubbing as there's a little scum on her. I think I'll name her Maggie after both Bob's dog and the fact that she's a Magnum... Ha, ha, ha!

 

Congrats. Pre lock and exposed firing pin are getting harder and harder to find. Nice grab. To clean off the scum, buy some Flitz polish. After the scum is off use Mothers chrome wheel polish and buff it with a clean cloth 4-5 times. That stainless will be bright and sparkling after that.

I think I've got some auto polish in the garage. Not sure what brand, but won't use it if it's too old.

I think I've got some auto polish in the garage. Not sure what brand, but won't use it if it's too old.

 

Meh, IMO I wouldn't put it on, don't like that shiny mirror finish. Flitz works great on stainless guns, and 100% copper patches for the barrel and cylinder leading

Don't scrub hard with an abrasive on the front of the cylinder (even though it is probably the blackest part of the gun). Over time you will increase the gap between the cylinder and forcing cone.

Noted. That is the dirtiest part and I will not go nuts on it. It's no beauty queen, but she's not too bad looking. A few miles on her, but she'll do just fine by me.

Took it out this morning and ran both .38 and .357 through it. The piece is great! My hands and arms are sore from cutting firewood, but I was able to keep a good line on the target. Gotta clean her up and tuck her away now...

Glad you're pleased with your acquisition. OTOH, it's hard not to be pleased with any S&W revolver.

 

Adios,

 

Pizza Bob