Hammers doing weird things?

[Jart]

Specifically, in heavy-recoiling revolvers, do they go rearward nearly to the full cock position just from recoil or inertia when the recoil impulse is stopped by the shooter's hands? (Kinda like "self-cocking" except the trigger is rearward so the sear couldn't engage)

I always thought a well-behaved hammer would stay full forward upon firing.

If the hammer does pretend to be auto-cocking in flyweight revolvers does anybody have a link to some high-speed photos of the thing happening?

 

[Delaware_Dan]

I have never heard of this happening. I have seen people fire off a second round when firing the 500 due to its sharp recoil.

 

[kjones]

I'm no smith, but it don't sound like that should be occuring. Weak spring somewhere, perhaps? Kyle

 

[Jart]

Heck, I've even got it on reasonably good authority that it doesn't happen. Inertia can't trump the mainspring.

But, at risk of introducing a tired old topic, I noticed that a common thread in the S&W lock reports was "lock engaged with the hammer near full cock". If this was happening in recoil it simply couldn't happen if the hammer was forward.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lock_Fail.JPG

The hammer rebounded back part way and the flag came up temporarily tying the revolver up.

What was different about the above report was that the hammer coming rearward when fired was explicit. In Michael Bane's report the tie-up was also "hammer back" but it wasn't explicitly noted that it happened during recoil (though I read it that way).

But this isn't about the lock, it's about "hammers gone wild". Obviously the lock couldn't engage the hammer at 3/4 cock unless the hammer was already there. I can't picture a lock failure grabbing a forward hammer and magically pushing it against the mainspring until it's near full cock before engaging. If the hammer remained forward, that's where it would be if the lock auto-engaged - not 3/4 back.

If the hammer is near full cock when a lock fails it would also be near full cock if there was no lock or the lock was functioning as intended. Here I leave locks behind and grow baffled over the hammer's shenanigans all on its own.

It would never have occured to me that hammers might be behaving in such a manner except for lock failure pictures "freezing the moment" as it were.

Assuming the report to be accurate and the picture genuine, how'd the hammer get where it is?