Did I ruin my Taurus 605 by bobbing the hammer?

[Garand Illusion]

So for months now I've been looking at bobbing the spur on the hammer of my Taurus 605 .357 magnum. I've seen the procedure done by the Midway USA guy on a TV show and read about it on this forum. To this point the gun has been flawless, but I carry this in a smart carry and the spur was actually snagging up my jeans.

So last night I got out my dremel tool and got 'er done, but now I have a concern.

Whenever I clean one of my auto's when I reassemble it I do a "pencil" test to make sure it is still functional. I put a pencil down the barrel and pull the trigger. The pencil goes shooting across the room.

When I was done with the hammer bob it occurred to me I should try this test on the revolver, as some have said that bobbing the hammer removes too much weight and might not strike the primer hard enough to light off a round.

So I put in the pencil and guess what ... instead of shooting across the room it popped out and went about 2 feet. Unfortunately I didn't do the pencil test before the spur removal, so I have no idea how it started out.

I'm taking this out shooting tomorrow so I should be able to find out for sure, but what are your thoughts? Should I be looking at getting a new hammer? Some springs? Taurus used to have a spurless version of the 605, but it looks to be discontinued.

 

[mk70ss]

I bobbed the hammer on my Model 60 S&W, and it functions 100 %

 

[DMacLeod]

I have a bobbed hammer on a 629 and it works perfectly.

 

[Wuchak]

You're probably just fine. The only way to know is to take it out and shoot it and check the primers for the depth of the strike. If you have some rounds from before you bobbed the hammer to compare them to even better. The loss of energy from the lower mass of the hammer is probably almost completely off-set by the gain in hammer velocity that comes from it being lighter. Keep in mind that energy = mass X velocity^2, so any change in hammer weight reduces power linearly but the gain in velocity increases it exponentially.

 

[Garand Illusion]

Thanks everybody! I feel much better now. And I will be shooting it tomorrow. Which was one reason I did it last night -- when I carry a gun for SD I want to be damned sure that gun will go bang if I pull the trigger. So I never make any changes without a firing range session.

This is the first gun mod I've done myself. Assuming everything works fine, I may do a little more clean up on it in the future (doesn't look bad, but if you look close you can tell it was done by an amateur). I just ran out of time last night.

Keep in mind that energy = mass X velocity^2, so any change in hammer weight reduces power linearly but the gain in velocity increases it exponentially.

Although I am not smart enough to know that formula, I felt as though that was the way it would be. The spring is still as strong as ever, so it will throw a lighter hammer faster.

Thanks again,

 

[sargenv]

One thing you could do to increase hammer speed is to increase the hammer spring pressure by changing out the spring. But as others said, when you reduce the mass of the hammer, the velocity and lock time increase and you should have enough force to ignite the primers anyway.

If you reload, you can substitute in Federal primers for whatever you are currently using as they are supposed to be the most sensitive. If you are using this gun for self defense, you may want to fire the ammo you carry just to make sure it'll ignite.

 

[doc540]

semi-bob, no problems

full-bob, no problems

Hope yours shoots as well.

 

[Elvishead]

Try shooting bullets instead of pencil's, that's the only way to find out.

 

[HoraceHogsnort]

The biggest advantage to bobbing the hammer, as I see it, is to prevent some over zealous DA from claiming that you cocked the hammer and shot the guy in a reckless manner. Same principal applies in the civil suit.

 

[superpelly]

I bobbed my S&W model 337, When I was in law enforcement I carried in my vest and originally had the hammer full and would get snagged. Then got it bobbed and smoothed out. It took care of the snagging problem.

Bad pic

 

[Garand Illusion]

Try shooting bullets instead of pencil's, that's the only way to find out.

Good advice! I finally got a chance to take it today.

I dug through my ammo and put together quite a hodge podge of different kinds of .38/.357 rounds, from premium SD .357 to .38 wadcutters I inherited that are probably 20 years old (amazing how many partial boxes of ammunition I have -- really need to consolidate those).

With this wide collection of ammo I began loading up and firing and discovered that everytime I pulled the trigger with the newly bobbed hammer the gun went *BANG* no matter what bullet was in front of it.

Looking at the casings, there was a solid dent in the center of the primer. I don't know how to really measure that, but it looked good to me.

I went through about 6 cylinders with the hodgepodge of ammo before I decided it was good to go and put it away.

The only sad thing was ... the carbon from firing collected a bit and filled in some scrateches on the hammer that I didn't have properly sanded. Looks like I'll have to pull it off again and see about smoothing it out some more. On the one hand I didn't do this for looks ... on the other, it should look as good as my skills/tools allow.

When I do that I'm also going to look into a spring kit that might be a little stiffer than what I have.

Anybody know a good source for a spring kit with stiffer springs for the Taurus 605?

Thanks again, all!

 

[Mark Milton]

Usually revolvers don't whack a pencil out as far as most autoloaders.

I do that sometimes to test and see that the firing pin is whacking a primer hard enough when I can't get to the range....

 

[Colokeb]

You were asking if it "ruined" the gun. If they are available a factory replacement part, then I'd get one and put it away with a nice Sharpie Note on its baggie.

Either the part will become more valuable, or the gun will.

 

[Teuthis]

There is so little metal lost in bobbing a hammer. I have seen a number of them, and I also ground off the hammer spur on my own S&W model 36. They all work. I had one in Vietnam that was bobbed and corroded, and it never misfired. If you think about it, the momentum of the hammer has to be engineered well ahead of the minimum force to fire primers. A little lost metal should not change anything. Fear not.