Hey everyone, I am having a couple issues with my model 34-1. First I seem to be having an abnormal amount of misfires. At least one but often two rounds per cylinder fail to fire on the first strike. They always fire on the second strike. Is this common for this model or not? The gun is in really good condition and has plenty of spring tension still, and all my 22 is stored in a dehumidified safe. The second problem I am having is the cases being very hard to extract. To the point that I have to use use a light rubber mallet to get the rounds out. How would I polish chambers of the cylinder? I know it is not from being dirty because I clean my gun after every range trip with Hoppes #9 solvent and a wire bore brush. Thanks for the help. Other than these two problems I love the gun.

Try different ammo and be sure round is seated firmly forward in chambers. If you got the gun used, someone could have clipped a coil on the mainspring which will cause this issue. I have polished chambers with compound on a mop turned with a drill - be careful... Brownells sells a chamber reamer for .22 but if you are not experienced - get a gunsmith to do that. Many S&W rimfires experience this issue.

Do a search on "tight chambers" and you can read into the night. S&W revolvers have tight chambers by design, sometimes too tight. There are various remedies including ultra cleaning under the extractor star, polishing the chambers with (sand paper, polishing compound, reamers) whatever it takes to open them up. I have suffered through this problem and its not fun, but it can be resolved.

Charlie

The misfires are not characteristic of the M34-1.

If you bought it used, the previous owner may have done a ham-handed trigger job on it.

In any event, you should determine if the misfires occur with the same chambers or are evenly distributed among the chambers.

I suggest you have the chambers polished by a competent gunsmith. It's a 15-20 minute job if the 'smith knows his business.

I don't suggest you try it yourself.

You'll need to consult a competent gunsmith on your misfire issues in any event.

It seems to do it will most ammo including Browning 40 grain HV, CCI Mini Mags, CCI 40 grain standard velocity, and Winchester 40 grain HV. I suppose I could try some Remington stuff just to see what happens. Strangely CCI 29 grain shorts seem to be much more reliable.

I recommend a few strands of "copper" chore boy wrapped around a brush, then push Mothers Mag polish down into the brush. PUt in your cordless drill, and slowly move in and out (keep it moving, don't let sit in one place). About a minute in each chamber, then a real thorough cleaning with your choice of solvents. If that doesn't help, get someone to ream the chambers with a SAAMI Standard Finishing reamer.

It sounds like a build up and the first time you don't have the round pushed fully in, and the impact drives it in and the next time it goes off.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

I bought it used from a collector, but it did not appear as though the gun was ever fired much. The side plate screws are a little muffed up, so someone has been inside the gun. I do not have a set of brass screwdrivers or gunsmith screwdrivers though, so I do not want to risk causing more damage by taking it apart right now. I have a local family owned FFL/gunsmith that I will take it to when I get a chance.

I had an M-34 with that extraction issue. I sold it and have been bitter ever since.

Rather than replace it with another .22 that might mirror the problem, I re-evaluated what I needed a J-fame for and bought a Model 36-1, a three-inch barreled .38. That hits harder and is still a good small game or snake gun.

Mine is a 34 no dash, but other than that, I could have written your post exactly.
I had the cylinder reamed, and all the problems went away. The hard extraction, the misfires, all of it.
Turned an impossible gun into a gem.
Shoot me a PM if you want details.

I had a M34 from the 1970s. It was fine in single action, but iffy in double action. I changed the main spring to a heavier one, but still no luck. I finally sold it.

Never had extraction problems though.

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

I have a 4-inch 34-1 Nickle with a Pachmyer Presentation grip, which is a joy to shoot. It exhibits the difficult extraction with Remington, but has much less difficulty with Federal 22. The Federal ammo appears to be much more highly polished and clean looking out of the box. Could it be grunge on new ammo causing this?

I had a 34-1 that I sold last year. Never had an insertion, ejection or FTF in that particular 34-1. It was New, Old Stock when I bought it 20+ years ago.

Step up to the 48-3 and I had all the same problems you have, only in 22 Mag. After removing the cylinder from the revolver I did as suggested and polished the chambers with a bore brush wrapped in bronze wool followed by a bore mop dipped in Simichrome, both chucked up in a cordless drill. It is now a pleasure to shoot my 48-3.


Class III

I wanted to respond to your post and give an update for everyone. I have not tried Federal ammo yet, I will tomorrow, but I did run Remington Thunderbolts today and was very happy. Even when the revolver was super dirty I could easily extract the Remington rounds by hand, and out of probably 60 rounds I only had one misfire. I guess my 34 likes Thunderbolts for whatever reason. I am going to stick to shooting Rems for now and just enjoy the gun, in the future I will you use the Mag polish as a couple of you have suggested. I used that before to polish stainless revolvers and it worked really well. Thanks for all the help everyone, much appreciated!