Question for you toggle link gents

[Marshal Deadwood]

My '73win is fairly smooth as is,,,I dont plan to have it 'tricked out' at all,,,,,but a question.

Do 'toggle link' rifles 'smooth up' some with normal use,,,,or is it worth it to have it 'slicked?'

Not EVEN considerin' a short stroke nor any non-period deal,,,

Marshal Deadwood

[Flint]

They do smooth up with use, but they are the smoothest guns out there to start with.................

[Will Ketchum]

I have shot some that were so stiff they would get pulled off my shoulder when I worked the action.  But yes they do smooth up.  It doesn't mean that you can't help things along some by taking it apart and removing any burrs you might find.  Some just fill the action with tooth paste and work the action a few hundred times

Will Ketchum

[Dusty Morningwood]

Some just fill the action with tooth paste and work the action a few hundred times

And don't forget your towel.

[Sky Soldier]

Some just fill the action with tooth paste and work the action a few hundred times

Can they tell us how to make it rinse, gargle and spit.

[The Avocado Kid]

My "66" was and is smooth right out of the box.....its like butter so I don't know what all this is about? Quality control at Uberti? Can somebody here on this forum inform me on this issue? Dusty.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

They vary out of the box. Some are smooth, some ain't so smooth. My '73 was one of the latter, not so smooth.

The main surfaces that rub together as the action is worked will tend to smooth themselves out some over time. But the tension springs for the lever and the carrier can actually gall the cams on the lever pretty badly and do some serious damage over time. That's why Happy Trails invented the whisper springs. Most shooters will loosen the screws that secure those two springs, to lighten the action, and this will help prevent wear to the cam surfaces. Hap invented the Whisper springs so that the screws could be snugged up and the springs would not gouge the cams on the lever. Hap feels strongly that a screw that fastens something in place should be snugged up, not left partially fastened.

The other thing that will never 'smooth up' no matter how many times you work the action is the hammer spring. If you experience a lot of resistance while the firing pin extension cocks the hammer, no amount of smoothing will reduce that. Only thinning the hammer spring will reduce that. Hap does a little bit of micro polishing to the surface of the hammer and firing pin extension where they bear against each other. That helps too, with reducing the effort needed to work the action.

When I bought my '73 a few years ago it was stiffer than most. I kept fooling around with grinding down the hammer spring a bit at a time, and doing what smoothing I was capable of inside. It never really got all that smooth, I had to plant the buttplate pretty firmly against my shoulder to keep it from moving when I worked the lever. If you don't have to do that, than yours is probably smooth enough.

Finally I gave in and gave it to Hap and he performed his magic. Now it is really smooth. And I don't have to hold it so hard against my shoulder any more.

P.S. Hap only smoothed up my '73. He did not install a short stroke kit. A lot of my friends can't understand why I did not want it short stroked. I kind of like the full stroke, I just wanted it to a bit easier to work.

P.P.S.: If you try the toothpaste trick, be sure to remove all the toothpaste again when you're done. If you don't it will keep abrading everything and at some point you will have removed too much metal.