Variations in mainspring plungers

[Brian Dudley]

Whenever I am working on Parkers and find something interesting in the process I try to document it in case there is any general interest in it.

In this case, I was taking apart a pretty early hammerless DH 1 frame 12g. Serial number 62,XXX.
I found something interesting when removing the mainsprings. The plungers have two grooves in them. Not the usual single groove.
I have worked on other hammerless guns even earlier than this one and have not observed this variation before.

Below is a photo of the subject plunger on the left compared to a conventional one on the right.

36138

[Chris Travinski]

Maybe they made the groove on the wrong end first, then made it in the correct place. New guy? Miller time??

[Mills Morrison]

If the one with two grooves is earlier, I bet they redesigned it for one groove as a labor saving measure. My .02.