I love it when the boundries of your perspective on things get "clarified". The nose of the firing pin on my 629-4 just broke off, . . .one of my carry guns. In a word, it was a "disturbing" experience. Can't imagine how that would have felt if it happened when I "needed" it. Ahhh, mechanical devices and fatigue. In this case it certainly would make a nice club, but I believe I will start to ponder a B.U.G..

Nasty feeling, no? The first time it happened to me was with a HB M-10, that was almost new. I hope you figured it out more quickly than I did. I must have stared at it for ten minutes, knowing something was wrong, but not quite able to put my finger on it.

I'm not up on 29's, so I don't know how old a -4 is. When the nose broke off my 27-2, Smith said that part was not available. I had to look around a bit for a replacement. Easy fix though. Even I can do it.

Ah yes the loudest sound in the world, a click instead of a bang! At least it's an easy fix.

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Stay safe people!

When that same thing happened to my Ace #1 carry gun (see pic of 66-2 below) I could not believe it. I posted a pic in this forum and in a matter of hours members had replied with over 20 more examples of the same failure. A couple said not to worry about it, and that is OK when it happens to their Model 17 (for example), but you do have to worry about it when it happens to your CCW gun. This really burst my bubble about claiming that revolvers in general are more reliable than bottom feeders, and I no longer make that claim. Even though it might be an "easy fix" for some, it can't be fixed in the field.

NOTHING mechanical is 100%. That's why some Leo's carry a BUG.

On the other hand, if you don't do a lot of dry firing, most good revolvers fall into the 99.998% category. You're odds of having one break when you need it (if it hasn't been abused) are infinitesimal. I have had two firing pin noses break on S&W revolvers in sixty years. One was dry fired thousands of times. The other just failed. It happens but it is NOT at all common. It's a good argument for snap caps, tho'.

Dale53

i am not trying to start a debate but wanted to know if this happens very often on the newer guns.

It's a lot more common than I had previously believed, based upon what I was told by the S&W rep that sent me the replacement parts, and the gunsmith who fixed it, and the thread of identical cases cited by others. Also, see the pic below from a 1950 gun article.

This is another reason I carry both CCW a Auto and a Revolver

I had it happen on a model 67.

Yeah, that's right up there with the propeller on an airplane being there to cool the pilot. Stop the prop and see how much he sweats.

FWIW, I owned a .45 ACP 625 Mountain Gun. One day I realized that the firing pin had broken. The pistol still worked admirably. I was even able to fix it myself. S&W sent me two firing pins with springs, in case I lost one. I sure enough did.
The frame-mounted pin has a "shoulder". It had broken there. The hammer would hit the "cylinder", which drove it into the "pin", and the gun fired. A plus, I guess, for the frame-mounted pins.

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and what his trumpet saith

I forgot to mention: in my case the tip of the firing pin fell straight down and made it's way into the action. Before long, the cylinder would not turn.

A friend of mine, a retired Denver police captain, suffered a broken firing pin nose back before WWII. He caught a guy cracking a safe one dark night. Safe cracker opened up with a pistol and my friend returned fire with a deafening "CLICK." My friend charged and beat the cracker into submission but really bent his six shooter in the process.

Never EVER forget about Mr. Murphy. BUGs are a good idea because sometimes (most of the time) things don't go right.

Good point. The first time I did the replacement was so long ago, I ordered the part by letter and paid with a check. When the package arrived, there was a hand written note from one of the service guys reminding me to pull the sideplate and look for the tip, unless I knew for sure where it had ended up.