I don't know if I understand what you mean by " I am having trouble with the hammer not engaging". Are you saying that the hammer is not locking into the fully cocked position when shooting single action? If this is what you mean then with the problem of the hand marking the base of the cases it sounds as though the hand is too long. Most revolvers have different length of hands that are fitted to the revolver. This seems to be another quality control issue that Taurus is plagued with. You can either try to deal with Taurus warranty return mess, order a new hand for it and try to fit it yourself or have it repaired by a local smith, or try to trade and take a spanking on the trade-in value. If I have this scenerio wrong please give me more details.