My 317 is back from the hospital and runs like a sewing machine!
same letter as olgivy

My 617-??? (I forget at the moment, -2 maybe? with the forged parts and 10 shot aluminum cylinder) would do this to me, then I cleaned it well and polished the chambers with Flitz, blue paper towels and a Parker Hale jag. Works great now and last trip to the range I put about 170 rounds through it without cleaning.

I've done the same to both a 617 and a 17. It helps a lot. The 17 is older, and had a much nicer cylinder to begin with. The 617 chambers look like the surface of the Moon, even after polishing. S&W was probably pushing tool life on that one! :(

Tip on the Flitz - get the paste. Bore mops get dirty really fast, so use 1/4" clothesline rope. (Cotton, not poly as the synthetics may react with the Flitz.) You will need some smaller thread to wrap around the clothesline to get the lead end started. Once the rope is in the chamber, put some Flitz around a small section of the long end of the rope, and pull it back and forth. Once that section is black, apply some paste to a clean section of rope, pull back and forth, and so on. I cut the clothesline into sections about 10' long so it's more manageable. Stepping on part of the clean end makes it easier to go back and forth with the cylinder.

Inspect your progress frequently and make note of how deep the irregularities in each chamber are. If the tooling used to cut the chambers was extremely rough, polishing them until perfectly smooth could result in chambers that are too large and thus unsafe. (Not to mention it would take a really long time...)

Exercise care while polishing to keep pressure as even as you can; this will help prevent rounding over edges that should be square, or polishing the cylinder out of round. Also be careful with the extractor rod - they bend easily.

When you are done, clean thoroughly, paying special attention to recesses like under the extractor star. I would also soak it with some lube before shooting, especially if you have one that works into the pores of the metal like Gunzilla. Of course, after letting the oil seep in, clean off the excess before firing.

If you use bore mops, get a small-items laundry bag, soak them in Shout, rinse out the worst crud, Shout again, put them in the bag, and toss in the washer with some jeans. I let them air dry.

I am NOT a gunsmith, I AM a hobbyist, so use YOUR judgment in determining if you follow my advice.:)

You could also take the revolver to a gunsmith and ask the 'smith to polish the cylinders...

S&W Exchanged my 317 for a new gun
 

Been out of the country but S&W shipped me a new 317. I'll report back on how it works when I get a chance to get out to the range.

ready to give up
 

Well the CCI's still jammed up. Had better luck with Winchesters, but I cannot extract the spent shells. As an added bonus: the new gun makes an annoying rattling noise. Contacted S&W again; they are sending another return envelope. Said the rattling noise is hammer block and that some guns rattle more than other. Whatever.

I have two mod. 317 and have only had trouble with extraction when I used some very cheap ammo. I can't remember the name at the present. I have good service with Federal bulk from wally world. My first 317 has 10,000 + rounds through it. Also have two mod.34 -1 and find that the cylinder feels tighter than the mod. 317. I use a nylon brush dry to clean for easy loading.

None of my Smith & Wessons rattle significantly, but it is believable that the hammer block causing that.

When S&W got your other one back at the factory, did they say anything about the chambers? I know mine get tight when they are dirty, so I really clean them thoroughly. In my rimfires, I have even gone so far as to polish the chambers to help ease the onerous task of cleaning all those chambers. I've only got six-shooters and I get tired of all that cleaning!

You may need to use a slightly larger caliber (i.e. .243) brush in the cylinder because the cylinder diameter is larger than the bore. On top of that, S&W .22 bores are usually pretty tight, so I find that a .22 brush that is tight in the barrel doesn' effectively clean the chambers in the cylinder. Another option is a Hoppes tornado brush, which is looped stainless steel instead of the usual bronze bristles. I just started doing this though, so I cannot recommend the tornado unequivocally. Some gunsmiths revile the use of stainless brushes as they easily damage smooth surfaces. I use them on chambers ONLY, never the bore itself.

When you say CCI's, which cartridges are you using? I ask because Stingers' cases are actually slightly longer than a true .22 Long Rifle, which can cause problems in some tightly chambered guns.

.22 ammo can be funny. Bulk ammo often burns "dirtier" than others. By that, I mean they leave more residue in both carbon deposits and unburned powder. Different brands, and different lots of the same brand, may occasionally have excessive lube on the bullet, making chambering a little difficult. The more carbon, powder, waxy lube, etc. builds up, the more your spent cases will stick. I find CCI Mini-Mags leave the least residue for me.

My wife just got her cc using a late 90's 317LS with Federal bulk ammo. Worked every time.

Brand new to this site but I HAD to post what worked for me. My 317 is an older version (pre-Papa Oscar Sierra attorney mandatated lock safety). After a thorough cleaning it will function for 50 or so rounds and then the cylinder starts to seize. At about 100 rounds you are done.

I took it out to the range yesterday (5-21-2012) and started all over again. I was using primarily some CCI round nose high velocity and some Blazer hp high velocity fodder. I did notice "lead shavings" inside some chambers.

Came back home and after stewing for a few hours I started looking at other posts about the problem. Seems that ALL the ammo I have been shooting was 40 grain high velocity stuff, and some folks mentioned using 36 grain stuff without a hiccup. I had a 525 round brick of Federal "Champion" .22LR that I had not openend yet and noticed the rounds are 36 grain.

So off to the range I go. Did NOT clean the gun but worked the cylinder free again. I am sure one more round of the 40 grain stuff would have seized it up again, so I figured this would give me a good run on the gun, if it seized up immediately I wouldn't go any further. Guess what? 100+ rounds and it was still shooting.

Not sure what is the problem but obviously .22LR ammo is not made consistantly from manufacturer to manufacturer. Hope this helps someone else.

I had a model 63 go back 3 times with the exact same problem your having, and they replaced it with a 617 that shot and ejected OK, but after a few range trips i noticed it leaded like crazy. The forcing cone was almost non existent. On the phone Smith said 22 revolvers lead, but I could send it back and they would look at it. I did not even bother to send it back. I had enough. They can't even look over a replacement for obvious flaws like a barely cut forcing cone? I took it to Alan Tanaka and he cut the forcing cone, crowned it, did some work to the cylinder, and a trigger job. It hardly leads at all now. Wow, imagine that, an hour of handwork and it ejects easy even after a few hundred rounds, has only mild leading on the top strap, not welded over the entire cylinder face, and a trigger that's a dream. I will never buy another new S&W period. Nobody checks these things, or puts an ounce of extra labor beyond what it takes to assemble the thing. Either your lucky and the machine was cutting in spec, or your unlucky and get a piece of junk. As far as the finishing touches that make a great revolver, forget it. I'm sure there's been some steps cut and a few seasoned gunsmiths replaced by some starting wage hacks. And now that demand it way up, you can bet their using tooling till it's blue and smoking. Nope, corperate could give a rats puckered backside whether you get a functioning gun or not. Just get them out the door and make the stockholders money.

It is not uncommon to find S&W .22 revolvers with chambers that are out of spec, generally too tight chambers lead to the symptoms described.

The simple and practical solution is to get a .22 revolver finishing reamer and bring the chambers into spec or close to spec.

All of this polishing, brushing and fiddling is just a bandaid that doesn't fix the real problem.

Ejection should only require light pressure with one finger, and the revolver should be able to run 500 rounds without cleaning or sticky ejection.

Send it to S&W, your local smith or self-rescue.

Smiths who specialize in S&W will tell you the same thing, they might even tell you that about half of new 617s suffer from this to some degree.

See also this thread here:http://smith-wessonforum.com/s-w-smi...-chambers.html