Making a Hammerless .357 snub nose revolver?

[jason.h]

Howdy All,

A while back I picked up one of those cheap Taurus 605 .357 Mag snub nose revolvers. It has an exposed hammer, and has been a decent shooter no complaints.

I'm getting my CCW soon and thought it might be nice to have a small hammerless .357 for hikes to deal with wildlife. But all the hammerless 357s are pretty expensive.

Then I thought, what if I get the exposed portion of the Taurus' hammer cut off? Would there be any issues with that? Is that something a gunsmith would even do? I assume it would be pretty easy to do/cheap. can't think of a reason it wouldn't work, anyone have thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[Recycled bullet]

How does the gun disassemble does it have a side plate like a Smith & Wesson or does it have a separate trigger assembly like how Ruger does it?

If there are other similar models with similar lock work you may just be a part swap away from what you want.

 

[44 AMP]

what if I get the exposed portion of the Taurus' hammer cut off? Would there be any issues with that?

There could be. "Bobbing" then hammer (cutting off the hammer spur) used to be a moderately popular modification. The problem is that while you potentially gain a snag free draw, you possibly lose reliability.

When you cut the hammer spur off, you make the hammer lighter, which reduces the force the hammer impacts with, and has been known to produce light strikes and misfires.

This can be overcome with a stronger mainspring BUT there's no free lunch and heavier (or more loaded) springs often mean a heavier trigger pull.

IT takes trial and error, and a fair amount of test firing to get everything balanced right. This is not a "plug and play" thing.

SO, what you are potentially looking at is the cost of getting the hammer bobbed, new springs and probably an action job to get the DA trigger back to something you can reasonably use. AND then the cost of the ammo needed to test it until you feel its is reliable enough.

ALSO, bobbing the hammer makes SA shooting much more awkward, especially if you get the hammer cocked and then decide not to shoot.

There are lots of ways to carry the gun and lots of different clothing arrangements to minimize the risk of snagging the hammer on the draw. ALL of them are cheaper than getting work done on your pistol, and likely more reliable in the long run.

Simply put, its not a modification I would have done, nor one I approve of, as the benefits to me don't justify the drawbacks.

 

[Skippy]

I bobbed the hammer on my Smith & Wesson model 60 about 10 or 12 years ago. Actually, I had a gunsmith do it who also lightened the trigger pull just a bit. I'm not exactly sure what he did with the springs because I was a fairly new shooter, told him what I was looking for, he did the job, I was happy and still am.

_______________
*I'd give right arm to be ambidextrous*

 

[74A95]

Then I thought, what if I get the exposed portion of the Taurus' hammer cut off? Would there be any issues with that? Is that something a gunsmith would even do? I assume it would be pretty easy to do/cheap. can't think of a reason it wouldn't work, anyone have thoughts?

Thanks!

Check with your local gunsmith. They can advise you on cost and any details/concerns.

 

[74A95]

There could be. "Bobbing" then hammer (cutting off the hammer spur) used to be a moderately popular modification. The problem is that while you potentially gain a snag free draw, you possibly lose reliability.

When you cut the hammer spur off, you make the hammer lighter, which reduces the force the hammer impacts with, and has been known to produce light strikes and misfires.

A lighter hammer accelerates faster, and reduces lock time.

If the folks at the link below are correct, there is no change in the kinetic energy of the hammer after bobbing, and there might be a benefit from a faster hammer on igniting primers.

https://forums.brianenos.com/topic/107539-questions-on-hammer-bobbing/#comments

What source do you have showing bobbing a hammer produces light strikes and misfires?

 

[Bill DeShivs]

I don't think they are correct. If I'm working at my bench using an 8 0z. hammer, and switch to a 1 ounce hammer using the same striking force, there is a very significant difference in the work done.

 

[74A95]

What do you mean by the same strike force? The same speed? How are you measuring the strike force?

 

[TruthTellers]

It may be worth looking into if there are hammers for the 605 that are designed without a spur so you can keep the original hammer if you ever decide to go back.

 

[PatientWolf]

Taurus offers a version of the 856 without the spur, but I don’t know if the parts are interchangeable.

https://www.taurususa.com/executivegrade/taurus-856-executive-grade

 

[micromontenegro]

Kinetic energy is the same, but momentum is reduced. It takes momentum to ignite the primer against its anvil. The whole idea behind a hammer ignition is, well, the hammer: a relatively heavy little piece. You can use a striker and a real strong spring, but that's a totally different system.

Using your typical S&W, we know stock hammers usualy remain reliable with quite a bit of weigth less than stock, but with a Taurus we don't know. Light strikes could be a thing.

 

[Ricklin]

Physics dictates that the heavier hammer will strike with more force. I'm with 44 AMP the juice is not worth the squeeze.

 

[Jim Watson]

Case study:
A friend cut off the hammer spur of his Taurus 85 and started getting misfires.
He crammed in a S&W mainspring and got it shooting again but at the cost of a heavier trigger pull.

 

[DMK]

This is a Ruger and not a Taurus, but it does have a lightened hammer spring.

I trimmed the hammer on this SP-101 for snagless draw from a front jeans pocket. I cut it with a Dremel cutoff wheel and due to the weight issue that 44 Amp mentioned, left a little nub that I carefully rounded with a file and some Emory cloth. Then I polished it with Flitz. In fact there is more meat left here than Ruger has on their factory bobbed SP-101s.

I did this years ago and have no problems with light strikes on any 357 or 38 Special ammo I've tried. For me the single benefit of snagless draw greatly outweighs the caveats.

 

[44 AMP]

What source do you have showing bobbing a hammer produces light strikes and misfires?

I have no link to any discussion or study, the only lamp I have to guide my feet in this matter is the personal experience of having owned a bobbed hammer gun that would generally fire 4 of 6, and not always the same 4.

Please note I did not make a flat declaration that misfires will happen, must happen, cannot be avoided, etc, only that it has been observed, is known to have happened, and so therefore MIGHT happen to you.

You are altering the moving parts of a mechanical mechanism. and every time you do that, changes can occur. I am neither engineer enough, nor clairvoyant enough to accurately predict which result you will get.

People say the increase in speed of the lightened hammer cancels out the loss of mass, but does it, really??? KE numbers are wonderful things for comparison, but KE alone isn't the entire story. Kinetic energy is determined using a math formula (and one where velocity is a bigger factor than mass), and while math doesn't lie, it can be misleading, and fail to account for all other factors.

As an example, you can load a .22-250 and a .45-70 to identical KE numbers. On paper they will have the same energy, and in theory the ability to do the same amount of "work".

But the real world adds other factors so the "work" each one does is not identical. KE says they're the same, and they are, on paper, but I wouldn't pick the .22-250 as a buffalo rifle.

The op mentions defensive use (against animals, etc). In that context reliability is a, if not THE most important factor. Firearms are designed and made with more capacity than the minimum needed to do the job. This "extra" capability is what provides reliability and the safety boundary.

When you change the parts, you are eating into that reserve. Maybe your mod won't change anything enough to matter. Maybe it will. I don't know how to calculate that, in advance. Do you??....

 

[DMK]

The op mentions defensive use (against animals, etc). In that context reliability is a, if not THE most important factor. Firearms are designed and made with more capacity than the minimum needed to do the job. This "extra" capability is what provides reliability and the safety boundary.

When you change the parts, you are eating into that reserve. Maybe your mod won't change anything enough to matter. Maybe it will. I don't know how to calculate that, in advance. Do you??....

I think it's a fairly safe bet, based on two things.

For one, you aren't removing that much material, and you can even leave a little bit of the spur as a rounded off nub to decrease the mass you are removing.

The second thing is, Taurus (like Ruger) does make a bobbed hammer version of the small frame like the OP's 605 357. The "concealed hammer" version, as Taurus calls it, is chambered in 38 Special, but that shouldn't matter. Maybe they somehow made the bobbed hammer more dense, but I doubt it. I'd bet they determined there was still a reasonable margin of error there with that little bit of material removed.

https://www.taurususa.com/revolvers...8-spl-p-matte-stainless-2-in-concealed-hammer

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Kinetic energy is the same, but momentum is reduced. It takes momentum to ignite the primer against its anvil. The whole idea behind a hammer ignition is, well, the hammer: a relatively heavy little piece.

How is momentum reduced?

A firearm is a system. The force/energy behind the hammer comes from the hammer spring. Bobbing the hammer does not in any way change how far the hammer moves back before the sear trips, so the input energy is the same for the stock hammer and the bobbed hammer.

In Physics, force = mass x acceleration. If the force is the same, then changing the mass must cause an inverse change in the acceleration. Bobbing the hammer reduces the mass, so that means the hammer will accelerate more/faster when the same spring force is applied. At the other end -- when the hammer impacts the firing pin, the force transferred to the firing pin and then to the primer remains unchanged.

In the .38 Special world, Rock Island/Armscor sells their snub-nose revolver with either a "standard" hammer or a spurless hammer. I have swapped them around, and I found no difference in performance.

 

[bedbugbilly]

Does Taurus not have a phone number? I would think that might be a good place to start?

 

[BrBa]

Sorry, nevermind.

 

[Mosin44az]

Mention is made of Ruger and Taurus making “bobbed” hammer versions of their revolvers, but this does not necessarily mean bobbing the hammer would work without further adjustments. The CH Taurus snubbies and the DAO SP I owned have had heavier trigger pulls than the full hammer versions. More spring power I believe.

Maybe substitute the hammer spring from the “hammerless” version? Not a gunsmith, don’t know if that makes sense. But would think about at least a slight increase in the hammer spring.