Are you frustrated because you can’t get your hand on that new sixgun you’ve been wanting for several years? If you know how to spot a good used handgun from one that’s seen its better days, you can stop looking and start shooting! Speaking from experience, Skeeter’s valuable tips for examining a used handgun will help you determine whether it will last two weeks or give you years of dependable service.
NEW
HANDGUNS are hard to come by these days. Desirable models and calibers are
heavily backordered, and when your dealer gets one, he probably has a long
waiting list of eager buyers. And then there are the prices. Most good handguns
fetch prices so outlandishly high that the services of a loan shark could be
required to buy one!
A
new car with 100 miles on the odometer becomes a used car-worth substantially
less than when you bought it. Guns are the same. Fire a handful of rounds and
you have a used gun worth less than what you paid for it.
A
booming market exists in used handguns, and real bargains can be found if you
know how to sort out the lemons. It’s not as difficult as you may think to
check out a used revolver or automatic and come up with a solid, serviceable arm
at a considerable savings.
Properly
discounted for age and appearance, a used handgun almost always constitutes a
better buy than a used car. The truth is that maybe one out of 1000 pistols or
revolvers is ever fired extensively.
The
average handgun owner may neglect his gun by never cleaning it and letting fine
rust supplant its handsome blue. He may throw it thoughtlessly in a glove
compartment or under a car seat and let it bang about until it’s covered with
nicks and gouges.
He
might dryfire and toy with until a warm line appears around its cylinder. The
blue might be worn away where the slide rides against the receiver, or the blue
may be worn by carrying it in a holster. Yet, no internal wear is present
because the gun is carried daily but almost never fired.
If
you’re willing to accept the idea of a worn-lloing gun and can afford to put a
few bucks into a minor gunsmithing job, you’ll find most used handguns will
serve you as well or better than new ones.
This
concept was borne out to me years ago when thousands of Model 1917 Colt and
Smith & Wesson .45 ACP revolvers were dumped on the market by the U.S.
Postal Service. For the most part, these big double actions had seen little use,
lying dormant in post office safes 40 years after being retired from the
military. Some were in new condition and some had suffered neglect and abuse,
but all were worth much more than the $22 to $35 price tags put on them by
retail stores.
The
neophyte sixgun man who faced a row of these look-alikes was hard put to choose
one. I assisted several friends in selecting the best of these fine bargains.
First,
we examined the bores, looking for bright, shiny ones with sharp, distinct lands
and grooves. Some were lightly pitted, probably from using corrosive GI
ammunition, and a few had rings or bulges in them. While light pitting doesn’t
necessarily affect accuracy when jacketed bullets are used, these guns would be
used with lead bullet .45 Auto Rim ammunition and probably cast bullet
handloads.
A
ring or bulge in the barrel is not necessarily a detriment to accuracy, but it
can be, so guns with such faults were rejected. The lands near the forcing cones
of all the barrels were also examined to see if they had been flattened by
excessive use of hardball loads.
Such
wear would indicated the barrel had a short life ahead.
The
butt end of the barrel, where it extends through the frame and meets the face of
the cylinder, was carefully inspected for cracks or belling; either was cause
for immediate rejection. Front sight blades showing heavy damage or alteration
were reasons reject a gun. Slightly bent to one side or the other, a sight blade
may straightened if caution is exercised. And burrs and gouges can be cleaned up
with a file and a dab of cold blue. But if the sight had been cut to less than
normal height, the sixgun got kicked back. It would shoot high unless a new
sight or new barrel was installed.
The
lockwork was checked out. Heavy trigger pulls,
both double and single action, were acceptable since factory-new revolvers tend
to have heavy pulls. This is doubly true for sidearms turned out for the
military because heavy pulls have always been looked upon as a safety measure.
Any good gunsmith can work up a good pull on a handgun that hasn’t been
otherwise mistreated. If the 1917’s pull felt very “gratey” or if one
bound up in its cycle, we passed on to the next revolver.
With
the revolver cocked, I’d push against the hammer to see if it would fall
without the trigger being pulled. This would mean a faulty sear, a recutting job
on a Colt or a new hammer on a Smith, and perhaps a new trigger.
Cocking
the revolver to each chamber, we made certain that the cylinder came into line
and locked up for each of the six chambers, even when the gun was cocked very
slowly. If after the hammer was all the way back, the cylinder had to be turned
a bit farther manually before the locking bolt fell into it’s slot, the hand
was worn too short. This meant replacement of the hand or stretching it—a job
for a gunsmith which would add to the cost.
A
check was made to see if the extractor, or ratchet, correctly fit into its
recess in the back of the cylinder, that it worked freely, and that it wasn’t
badly worn or beat up. Extractor rods were checked for straightness and ease of
movement, and the front latches on the S&W guns had to lock positively.
The
chambers were given a critical scanning. A bulge or any serious roughness would
mean difficult extraction of fired cases and might indicate a weak spot that
would give way under pressure of a heavy load. The cocking process showed
whether the cylinder had enough relief between its face and the back of the
barrel to revolve freely. Excessive clearance, in excess of .006 inch, or a
cylinder that had substantial fore and aft play meant the gun failed to pass.
Bolt cuts in the cylinder were minutely inspected. A lip thrown up on the
“stopping” side of the cut, along with cylinder looseness while the gun was
cocked, meant a new cylinder stop (locking bolt) was needed; it the notch was
excessively widened, the cylinder needed replacing. A broad line worn in the
blue around the circumference of the cylinder meant that the bolt fell
prematurely, but this didn’t cause us to discard the gun if it locked up
tightly.
Looseness
of the crane was the most common fault on these old swing-out sixguns. This
ailment is easily spotted when the cylinder is closed, showing a large gap
between the yoke and the frame. This allows sideward play of the cylinder and
can’t be tolerated. Chambers are misaligned with the bore, causing lopsided,
mutilated bullets as they shove their way to the barrel’s forcing cone,
destroying accuracy.
The
checklist for these old 1917 revolvers applies to just about any quality double
action. In general the same points apply to Colt and Ruger single actions and
their copies, with several other items to be considered.
Colts,
older three-screw Rugers without the transfer bar safety, and copies of these
single actions have a weakness in their hammer notch/sear arrangement. The
hammer has three notches: a “safety” notch providing no real safety, a
loading notch which holds the hammer in the correct position to permit the
cylinder to rotate while loading or unloading, and the fullcock notch.
Any
of these can be broken or so worn that they allow the hammer to slip from the
sear (which is simply the top of the trigger). It’s a very dangerous condition
and one that demands a new hammer. The top of the hammer sometimes breaks off
from abrupt contact with one of the notches. Usually, the single action damaged
this way will function fairly well, but the trigger will be sprung forward in
the trigger guard, and the hammer will engage on fullcock before being drawn
fully to the rear..
If
your Colt SA cylinder has back-to-front looseness, it can be corrected with an
inexpensive cylinder bushing (but they are too long and must be fitted). One the
very latest Colt SAA guns, the bushings are staked into place. Ruger cylinders
have a thick, integral collar instead of a bushing and don’t wear out.
If
your single-action’s cylinder won’t revolve when you cock it, you need a new
handspring. If the bolt doesn’t fall to lock the cylinder when the hammer is
back, you might need a new bolt, but more often only a new bolt spring is
required.
On
the Colt and some other guns, the bolt and trigger spring are one, and sometimes
the half that returns the trigger breaks off, leaving you with a gun that
can’t be left on cock. None these flaws are serious or expensive to correct.
The
problems in checking out a used automatic are not so easily defined. I don’t
often buy one unless the seller will allow me to shoot it in a functioning test.
Given satisfactory ammunition, most malfunctions in automatics are traceable to
faulty magazines. The easy way to tell if your pistol’s magazine is causing
problems is to try another one or two that work correctly in another pistol of
the same model.
Safeties,
including the grip safeties on guns equipped with them, should be absolutely
positive. Test a used auto by cocking it, then try forcefully to pull the
trigger with the safety on and the grip safety (if it has one) not depressed. If
the hammer falls, forget it.
Watch
for excessive looseness of the slide and other moving parts. Some shooters have
told me that if they shake an auto and hear it rattle , they turn it down. This
is a bit too strict. If an auto pistol, especially a falling-barrel type such as
the 1911 Colt .45 ACP, is so tight that it won’t rattle at least a little bit
when shaken briskly it is too tight to function reliably. However much of this
tightness increases accuracy. But if a selfloader is so loose it sounds like a
bucket of bolts, you don’t want it. Nor do you want it if it binds during
movement of the slide.
If
you must buy the auto before firing it, load the magazine, insert it, then work
the slide back and forth until the magazine is empty. For safety’s sake, this
is best done with dummy ammunition. But if you don’t have any, point the gun
at the ground for this exercise.
Try
to imitate the sharp, positive action of the slide as it moves in actual firing.
The loaded rounds should completely chamber without hang-ups. When the slide is
drawn sharply back, the cartridge should stay butted up against the boltface
until it hits the ejector, then be thrown briskly from the ejection port.
Failure
to feed might simply mean a bad magazine, but it can suggest that the loading
ramp’s or chamber’s dimensions are abnormal through wear, abuse, or faulty
manufacture. Failure to extract usually denotes a bad extractor which isn’t
too serious. When the cartridge is extracted but isn’t kicked clear of the
gun, the ejector is faulty. But again, it’s nothing to worry about if the gun
has a low enough price to spend a few bucks on repairs.
Semiautomatics
have an advantage in that many of the parts can be replaced-with little or no
fitting-at home without the services of a gunsmith.
I
work my guns, and I do not mind if they come to me with a little blue worn away.
I’ll just wear away some more. When I’m offered a recently blued gun for
sale, I can’t help but wonder what the fancy blue job was meant to cover up.
Condition of the grips means little to me-I almost always fit custom grips
shaped for my hand.
You
can save a lot of money by buying used guns. Most new guns need a little
gunsmithing to smooth them up. Frequently, this is already done on a used one.
If you insist on a new model, you just might have to wait two to three years for
delivery.
Used
guns are where you find them. Just make sure you heed these suggestions before
you buy.