Wake County Glockman

I am fairly new to revolvers and I have a question. Why whould one remove the spur on the hammer of a double action revolver?

twallace

concealed carry, one less thing to snag on clothing

Amigo Will

I just remove 2/3rds of the spur so I can still fire S/A

Amigo Will

pic try

stantheman86

In this case, this Ruger 4" GP100 came from the factory spurless and able to fire Double Action only, for liability so police officers couldn't cock the hammer and accidently shoot someone, reholster with a cocked hammer and ND the gun, or get the spur caught on something while in the holster.

Ale-8(1)

At one time, it was the "hot setup" to remove the hammer spur on double-action guns for the reasons mentioned above, and then still perform single-action shooting by "starting the hammer back" with the trigger and grasping the tip of the hammer with the thumb for the completion of the cocking motion.

One assumes there were a number of "unexpected discharges" experienced in the performance of this maneuver.

Wake County Glockman

You can also purchase a spare hammer and have the best of both worlds.

stantheman86

I have seen some crude de-spur jobs on S&W's at gun shows, one older .38 M&P looked like someone grabbed the spur with some pliers and snapped it off to make it "spurless" while leaving enough of a stump to still cock it back.......crude and ugly but I guess it worked for someone!


In the case of this GPNY the hammer has the frosted finish to match the rest of the gun and also these guns are pretty rare, it's one of the few I would never drop a standard hammer in.

I also have one of the fairly common Canadian re-import GP's with the DAO hammer, I had a standard hammer in it for a while but switched it back, I think it looks good with that spurless hammer and I like the challenge of shooting DAO because when I'm shooting like crap that day, I tend to start using SA as a "crutch" to tighten my groups up

A DAO fixed sight revolver is as simple as it gets, they were popular with city PD's like NYC for this reason......no sights to get mashed up or to have to mess with, and no hammers to cock. Just draw, aim and pull the trigger through.

JAS

Years ago I heard that taking the spur off the hammer of some guns lightened the hammer too much and could cause light strikes with not enough inertia to ignite the primer.

I'm sure that's not the case when this is done at the factory.

Has anyone else heard or experienced this?

stantheman86

This S&W 10-10 had been de-spurred and is a DAO, it is just a pure DA "trainer" and project for me so I decided to play with it a little. I filed just a little off the strain screw to take just a hair of tension off the mainspring, and the DA pull is pretty slick. The lack of a spur takes some weight off the hammer but also adds to the speed, I had no trouble just today touching off 12 rounds of Armscor .38, and this stuff has pretty hard primers.

I don't recommend fooling with the strain screws or pull weight of a S&W, but I don't rely on this gun for defense and it's just a practice gun for me. I had another Model 10 someone had filed the mainspring down and trimmed the strain screw......sure the DA pull was light, so light it couldn't set any rounds off.

The NY-1 S&W 64's have a factory spurless hammer, shaped differently than this one, so as to keep the weight the same as a spur hammer. The hammer on the revolver above has been expertly de-spurred but was otherwise a stock hammer.

It's not so much an issue on spurless Rugers if the stock mainspring is left in, as the stock spring has more than enough power to overcome the slight loss of weight in the hammer. It's when people start dropping light Wolff springs in a spurless Ruger that they get FTF and light strikes.

Sgt127

Alot of duty Smith and Wessons wound up as spurless hammers because the gun has a remarkable ability to land square on the hammer spur when dropped.

A female officer once brought me her model 10 and told me it didn't work any more. I asked her what happened and she said she dropped it when she went to the bathroom and it landed on the hammer spur. To her credit, she immediatly checked to see if it still worked. (further to her credit, she actually unloaded it before checking to see if it still worked)

It would not cycle Double action and could not be cocked. The hammer spur had bent down enough to block its travel when it hit the top of the grip frame.

I gave her the option of replacing the hammer or simply grinding off the rest of the spur. She opted for the spurless hammer. I also took off the single action notch on the hammer so it could not be cocked. Worked well for her.

I kinda like the spurless hammer for a carry gun, particularly a concealed carry piece and have converted quite a few.

I have never seen a gun with factory springs have a problem with light hits after the hammer spur was removed. I think alot of those stories started when the NYPD wanted spurless hammers on thier off duty J frames. They ordered S&W to install a heavier mainspring to prevent light hammer strikes. S&W argued it wasn't necessary. NYPD insisted. S&W did it. It was then discoverd that the heavier spring put too much strain on the hammer stud in the frame causing those to shear off in the frame rendering the gun inoperable. (I think I got that story about right)

ctom3

I have had a .44 spec. Charter Arms Bulldog for about 30 years whose spur had been removed and the front sight slightly recontoured, making it more "pocketable". The trigger was also reworked so that its double action pull is better and single action is very, very good. This makes it tempting to pull the trigger enough to grab the hammer and cock it and fire single action when I want to. I am glad that I tried dry firing it a few dozen times that way, because my thumb slipped off of the hammer once or twice. I suspect doing so on a live round could result in a messed up thumb, so I have never tried it with live ammunition. The fact is that the gun, as designed and modified, is a concealable, short range, rapid fire weapon, so there isn't much reason to fire it single action in the first place.

ScottJ

Actually, I've had the spur off my SP101 for 18 years and have no issues getting to single action as you describe. The trick is to ride the thumb on the hammer as it comes back so you can get a grasp right away then let go the trigger as soon as you have the hammer with the thumb (this lets the transfer bar do its job should the hammer slip off your thumb).

I will admit when I first de-spurred I did unintentionally send a few downrange while learning how to manage it. At least I had sense enough to practice the method at a range.

One of these days I want to have the flat top of the hammer checkered.

John Van Gelder

Ale-8(1)

The "trigger cocking" procedure you described was quite popular at one time and the early Speed Sixes had a spur less hammer option, the hammer was checkered at the top, to facilitate moving it back to the single action full cocked position.

The spur less hammer was also thought to facilitate "pocket shooting". The S&W Guardian was designed with that purpose in mind.