Hello! I am recently retired and new to CAS. I have just finally obtained my last two guns necessary for CAS as Great Western II Deluxe 357 mag SAAs but find that, particularly on one gun, the screws back themselves out almost immediately, and after 10 to 50 firings (snap cap, not even powder!) the parts loosen and the screws drop out!
Luckily I was able to find them but I needed a solution, besides wondering if there was something particularly wrong about the manufacture of this particular brand of revolver, or perhaps this particular pistol.
I decided after discovering that Colts actually have washers, and washers make sense to prevent the screws from backing out, that Californians don't come issued with washers. So I purchased 8 washers from Colt and managed to install the 3 in the trigger guard (accessed from the bottom) and 2 in the backstrap near the hammer.
These seem to have greatly reduced the backing out of the screws under snap cap firing conditions, which is encouraging.
My question is, since I do not have the resources nor confidence to completely disassemble and re-assemble my gun, is it possible to remove the Trigger, Bolt, and Hammer screw (2 small and one large accessed from the side), one at a time, place the washer on and re-insert without having any internal parts shift or move, particularly those that might be under tension from springs, etc.?
I thought to try and follow the backing out of each screw from the other side with a metal rod to try to maintain any alignment, but if in doing so I suddenly encounter a slip or shift of internal parts and lose the alignment I am out of luck.
Does anyone have enough gunsmithing experience to know whether I can, while the can is fully assembled, take out these three screws, one at a time, install a washer, then screw back in without resulting in a non-functioning and partially internally disassembled gun?