Proud owner of DES/69-U that came with a factory scope mount as well as iron sights - presumably to hit the NRA Bullseye market. Purchased used at gun show in like new condition.
I've never seen any mention of scope mounts as options for these guns ... only barrel weights. Took a little troubleshooting to get working flawlessly but this is now 100% reliable & far more accurate than my (several) S&W 41s and one High Standard Supermatic Citation ... all good guns.
Problem: stovepiping
Gun with scope mount stove pipes frequently. So, after removing the scope mount and installing standard front and rear sights, stove pipes reduced ... but not eliminated. Alas, I looked carefully at recoil spring setup. Gun had two recoil springs, one shorter spring inside the main spring. At first I thought this was standard ... a two stage spring setup. I looked at the manual and no innner spring is shown. Removed the inner short spring. Viola! No more stove pipes. Put the scope mount and red dot scope back on. Problem solved - no more stove pipes.
Best I can figure is someone decided they wanted to shoot full power .22LR rather than standard velocity. What better way to prevent execessive wear than add another spring? I suspect the inner spring gets pinched in outer spring coils causing incomplete ejection on occasion ... not just the added spring tension.
This gun is in such beautiful condition ... probably becasue whoever added the spring never figured out what caused the problem.
Anybody else found two recoil springs inside their DES/69-U?
Unique DES/69-U with factory scope mount - stovepiping
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