A Classy No 44&1/2 rebuild...

Did a little work on the sear face today as the trigger was too light for my tastes. Worked out GREAT with a nice 2.5 lb trigger pull now. Once I re-harden the sear tip, I am going to do some VERY judicious re-surfacing and maybe lose about 1/4 to 1/2 a pound.

I cannot wait to shoot this thing!!!!!

Welp, some more work on the Old Girl this weekend. The only thing that truly needs work was the trigger, which I mentioned was too light for my tastes. I needed it to go from a few ounces to about a pound to a pound and a half.

After regrinding the sear, I used a Mix of Cherry Red and Potassium Ferrocyanide, to give it a "torch style" (as opposed to pack carburizing) case. I focused only on the sear and the trigger pin hole, leaving the rest in the annealed condition.

Here is the sear after grinding but before hardening. The pic doesn't do it justice ( that;s what happens you have a potato for a camera) but the shiny spots are just that, shiny. It'll look better once hardened. Note the relief cut which is the long "shiny" line.



After testing I had about a 2.5 pound pull...nice and crisp.

Next, I set up my hardening pound and went all "Cherry Red" on it per the instructions. After my first quench and test, it was not quite as hard as I wanted it...but close. So, another few minutes of heating and dipping and it was "make the file sing" hard.



After I got it to pass the file test, I simply buffed it at low speed with a soft stainless steel brush with my Riobi version of a Dremel.






Post buffing. Again. Sorry about the potato pics. The sun had gone down ( I did this at night on purpose so I could readily "read" the steel.



After heat treat, it sang like a bird on the file, which was perfect. I then tried, out of interest, to cold blue it as a temporary measure but no dice. I'll have to mix up a batch of salts and blue it proper at the lowest temp recipe I can find. Ooooh...maybe rust blue?

Next, I also polished (carefully) the sear/trigger spring so that it has smoother motion and a more advantageous co-efficient of friction on the trigger. Again....forgive myPotato.

Before



After: (it looks much better than the photo...and it worked GREAT)



The last thing. Like a lot of old guns....if you can't see it from the outside...it's likely gonna be rough it it isn't important.

I mic'd the trigger pin (0.1550") and ordered a plus and a minus Vermont gage pin with the nitride "tolerance" coating that, when it wears off, shows you need a new gage pin. The one that fits best goes in after I part it off to the proper length. (.4980", IIRC) Anyhow, the point is that they are made from 52-100 bearing steel and the nitride coat sure ain't gonna hurt! The OEM pin is rather rough...but not uncommon in old guns like these.



After all was said and done; the trigger hardened and buffed, the sear spring polished and great and oil put in all the right spot: I have a nice 1 to 1.5 pound trigger pull. It was lighter but I didn't like the feel so, I tightened the sear/trigger spring to full depth. That did the trick.

Now....hmmmm......thinking of putting an over-travel screw in it...or maybe a plate like older Smith and Wesson revolvers had on their frames many moons ago.

This gun...it calls to me!

Ahhh! A successful "mostly concluded" conclusion to the project.

After creating a new trigger pin, then finding the trigger group was slightly warped when I installed a nice 52-100 gage pin trigger pin ( AH HA! That was what the goofy trigger pin was for! ) I was able to very lightly refit the trigger group to allow the sear to move freely with the new, nice pin and off to the races I went. This issue will be re-visted but it's going to take some careful geometry work before I hit it with the mill. Lot's of tiny math to do soon!!!! Anyhow, everything moves freely now. Good to go...right????

Get to the range. Set up my targets. Set up my bags. Setup the gun. Load it. Aim. Breathe. Squeeze. and...CLICK! Oh, crap! When I pull the trigger, it falls to the half cock? Why? Ah HA! I had both the trigger and hammer springs fully tensioned! To test the theory, I loaded the gun,. pointed it down range and "YANKED" the trigger. BANG! Light pull? CLICK! Fast pull? BANG!!!

ARG! Time for emergency field surgery!! WOOP! WOOP!!!!



I actually had just enough stuff to get the gun completely apart and de-tension the hammer and sear/trigger spring. A few minutes later and...BANG, even with a light pull of the triggr. The nice thing was that I could see after those first few "clicks..not BANGS", that my cutting and case hardening of the trigger/sear worked PERFECTLY!!! Woop! Woop!!!!

Now! On to the shooting.

Took me a while to learn and dial in the scope. Nothing difficult, just had to learn older optics and mechanics. Plus, it gave me time to get the feel of the gun. Ahh, that nice 1.5 pound CRISP trigger is a dream. After about a half hour of playing around, I had it where I wanted it for the most part.

Now it was time to SHOOT!

Here's 5 rounds of Norma Match at 25 yards:



A few minutes later:



I am not a very good shooter anymore...I don't practice enough. That being said. 😃

Then I played around for a while and worked on long strings and concentration:



That's 25 rounds of CCI SV. Yeah, I threw a few.

So. Next, I need to do the math on the trigger group. I will need to re-drill (by plunge milling) the trigger hole so that both hole's true positions overlap. Then I will need to ream the trigger for the new pin size. The warpage of the trigger group is minimal but my temporary fix means that the sear surface is not parallel to the hammer notch surface at the moment. I want those surfaces to mate perfectly. Like I said, a bit of math, a lot of CAREFUL setup and I'll have it down. Thank God I am a metrologist with a machine shop 20 feet from me!!!!

Anyhow.....what a darn fine day...even if it was windy as all get out!!!!