I lived in Ecuador for some years and spent time in the jungle with the tribes. While there I hunted with the men for food and used a Colt Huntsman 22 autopistol. I had a long time to think about the perfect handgun for living off the land in places where no help was available except what you had on your hip. When I returned stateside I bought my perfect pistol and this is it. A stainless Smith and Wesson Kit-Gun (Model 63) and the grips are by Herrett. A real shame these things are no longer available.

If you can hold it steady enough, this pistol will produce groups as small as the larger and heaviers K-22. Not a bear gun, but I have killed 20 pound monkeys with the Huntsman, plus all kinds of birds. I once killed a tapir with a head shot. They guys had speared it and it was making quite a rukus with them.

Very nice, I love those grips!

This one was my dad's only handgun, I drug out the other day and took this pic. I bought it for him in about 1980 and inherited it when he passed away a few years ago. I've never been able to hit anything with it, but I have thought about having the action tuned up and see if that helps.

These J frames come with a coil mainspring that is very, very heavy. I replaced the one in my 1981 Kit-gun with a lighter aftermarket spring. That cured the problem of a heavy action. I think it was proably a Trapper spring, but I do not remember for certain. I may have bobed off a coil or two for that matter. At any rate, I did lighten the spring one way or another.

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CAUTION I was given a beautiful kit gun from my mentor. I hunted with it and shot it a lot but it was not accurate . When I got it I worked at Behlerts so I let Austin do an action job where he trimed the spring It was slick But again not accurate enough for me. I would have shot 20000 more rounds from it if it was more accurate . ANYHOW My mentor is up in the years and recoil is bothering him. He asked if he could have it back and he comented on what a nice gun it was. I gave it to him and told him I could never hit anything with it . He took it to the range and when he saw the groop he knew something was wrong. He replaced the mainspring and the groops shrunk. I remember reading an article years ago about Rimfires being inaccurate when not busted hard and I long forgot it till He let me shoot it with the new spring and I tore a jagged hole at 15 yds. Did I mention I would have shot 20000 more rounds from it when I had it. Still have not replaced it but some day I will stumble on one till then the K 22 gets the rangetime. Friends don't let friends cut springs . J.Michael

Word has always been that S&W builds in some liability insurance to their rimfire revolvers with some extra spring power. I never had one that didn't benefit from some lighter spring work, but it's a balance. Too far, and you can get into what uncowboy experienced. My last one was the scandium .22mag that I was all prepared to adopt for life, but the combination of the extreme light weight, and atrocious mainspring made it all but unuseable in DA mode.

JLF

Ya'll have convinced me to try some lighter springs in dad's 63.

Any suggestions on which springs and where to get them?

I have had universally good luck with Wolf springs. I have only done one J Frame though, and if a remember correctly we only swapped out the return spring in that .38 Chief's Special. I would approach the guy and probably get the lighter main spring that came in the package for nothing and send it to you but I won't speak to him. He turned out to be a rat, and the wife (it was her gun this time) turned out to be an enormous bitch. And crazy.

But enough of this stroll down memory lane. I like Wolf.

The Wolff spring kits are only $8 at Midway. There is a rimfire kit and a centerfire kit, but the rimfire kit only lists the 22 WMR models. I think I'm going to go with this Wolff rimfire kit, even though the 63 is 22LR maybe I'll avoid some weak strikes from the other kit.

for a good hammer strike in 22 rimfires. All I can say is the Kit-Gun in the pic has had the spring replaced and has a very good, SA and DA trigger pull, about like a K frmae with stock springs, and it delivers first rate accuracy. I have had it for 30 plus years and have fired it off the bench and in competition and accuracy has not been impared.