My Parkers are going strong. Properly made, it is a good system.
bill
Ah! Bill, we agree. When I interviewed Babe Del Grego in spring 1996 for my first book, he gave me the run of his shop. There were several drawers with Parker "nosed" hammers for the various frame sizes of concealed-hammer (hammerless) guns, thousands of them. Babe said that he had never replaced a Parker hammer. I assume the drawers are still full up.
It was the nosed hammers that allowed Parker Bro's to include in their catalogs the advice that releasing the hammers (dry firing) did not require snap caps. Some Parker people use snap caps, and after-market sellers like Galazan even have them with the Parker head stamp. I have a set but never use them. Different strokes...
Firing pin problems largely hark back to the hammer-gun era and the necessary spring-loaded floating pins. When the hammers went inside the floating pin became somewhat of an anachronism that allowed greater design flexibility in hammer placement. If I shot a gun with floating firing pins I would use snap caps. EDM
