Play in hammers

[Jeff Keacher]

Something that I noticed when I first acquired my Parker hammer gun was that the right hammer had some play in it at half-cock. When fully cocked, the play went away. There was no play of the hammer relative to the spindle; the lash was internal to the lock mechanism.

Today, I took the locks out of the gun to see if I could figure out why the right one was loose. All of the screws were tight and nothing seemed obviously bent or broken. The arm that sticks out that the trigger presses had been replaced at some point in the past, but the repair is functional and appears unrelated to the looseness.

Only two things seemed odd. First, there was a bit of play of the hammer spindle against its rear backing/bracket. Second, there was what seemed like excessive uptake when pulling the hammer back.

Here's a video of what I saw. (Please excuse the focus problems in the second half.)

As I've shared before, both barrels still fire reliably, so the looseness doesn't seem to be affecting functionality.

So, two questions:

1. Any ideas on what is causing the play?
2. Am I likely to be doing any damage by continuing to fire it with the looseness present?

Thanks!