I've been tinkering with my wife's S&W revolver and I'm contemplating taking a few more parts off for cleaning and inspection. The rebound slide spring appears to be very stiff and I suspect hard to get back into place once removed. Any tips on what is the appropriate tool to use for removing and installing will be appreciated.

Hammer cocked.


Hammer down.


The pictures show the two positions of the spring.

You can buy a tool but I use a flat head screw driver. I press the spring in by holding the screw driver at 12:00, just above the center of the spring. You can press the spring into the block so the whole thing clears the pin and it falls into place.

Here's a thread on revolver care: http://www.theliberalgunclub.com/phpBB3 ... ilit=rehab

Thank you Simmer down. Good link and it came out without a hitch!

The cylinder stop spring comes out easily when the screw is removed, but there is a pin that seems to want to stay in. Parts are now soaking. Glad I took it all out, found some signs of moisture and crud behind the cylinder release mechanism.

Rebound slide and spring coming out. Gently pry it out and keep a finger over the spring end so it won't pop out.

After that the other parts come out pretty easily.

There are some threads somewhere in here detailing my obsession with Total Quality Management of revolvers. Re-crowning the barrel. Re-cutting the forcing cone. Measuring all cylinder throats and cutting them to the same size. I found the biggest benefit to accuracy was insuring uniform cylinder size. Your older SW is likely better built than those made in the last few decades. but you don't really know that, do you?

I'll let you ruminate about that for a bit.

I'll look for those threads. For now I'm still cleaning and detailing the inside parts. I'm just using a bit of Flitz to remove obvious crud. The trigger was already pretty good, perhaps not as nice as some yours that I have tried. I figure my wife and I should shoot it first and then I can see what other stuff needs to be done. There was some slight rusting spots in places nobody obviously had taken care of. I've pretty much addressed them. I'm getting to the lube and put back together stage. Since I'm doing this as my late evening hobby it might take a few more days or more. But, I'll try to search for your threads. The ones you've pointed to have been informative. I've photographed most of my steps so I might put together something on this. Thanks for the encouragement. The only two items with screws I've left alone are the trigger stop and the adjustable rear sight. I did want to take the sight unit off just to inspect if there was signs of neglect under it, but I'm not fully versed on how the sight assembly comes off.