Hi all:

I purchased a Model 17 a couple of years ago via private party. It shoots as well as you'd expect, but it has one characteristic that is a little bothersome.

A couple of the chambers seem to be a little tight. They are "okay" when freshly clean, but bind up quickly after even a few rounds. I need to push on the ejector rod more than you'd expect to get them to eject.

I originally thought ammo, but it happens with a wide variety of brands, so not sure if that's it.

Being that some of the chambers eject easily, even after some shooting, I'm wondering if just those are a little out of spec?

I love this revolver, and want to shoot it A LOT, but this operating characteristic results in her being left in the safe instead of being dropped into the range bag.

Any troubleshooting advice, or advice to move forward would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!!!!

It is a very familiar problem with S&W .22's. The chambers are cut to match dimensions, and sometimes the empties have to be beaten out. The only real fix is to have someone run a SAAMI Standard Finishing reamer through all the chambers. This has been done by many hundreds of times, and does not harm the accuracy as the throat isn't changed. Be sure to have the ejector kept in the cylinder when it is reamed.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

Yes, this is a nearly universal characteristic. Very enthusiastic cleaning/polishing of the offending charge holes may help a bit. I find it helpful to use a small dowel through the cylinder to back out stuck cases rather than putting too much pressure on the the ejector rod and risking bending it. In the end, I reamed two of my four K-22's with great success. So far not willing to remove metal from a pre-war specimen.

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Some collect art; I shoot it!

Clean them very well then spray a patch with Strike Hold and push that through the chambers. The longer you use the product the better the result.

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Mike
S&WCA #3065

CCI ammo is often, but probably not always, the answer.

I have found that to be true also.

I have my own way of doing things and this method is not well liked by some on here but it works.

I use (automotive) valve grinding compound on a wire brush with a variable speed electric drill to run it through the chambers. Just a few passes each hole and things work much better. I normally need 3 brushes to do a cylinder.

Cylinder is removed from gun and put in a leather lined vice. Go in from the back to the front Be sure to do a very good clean up after your done.. I do it sort of as a normal cleaning and then blow compressed air through, repeat 3 times.

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

My 17-3 had fairly tight chambers when I got it. Regular shooting and cleaning has eliminated the problem.

You might look real close and see if these offending chambers have firing pin indentations. You probably already know that dry firing these rimfire revolvers is a big, NO! NO!. Possibly the previous owner didn't realize it.

After a few thousand rounds with a thorough cleaning following each range visit this problem vanished.

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Accuracy supercedes Speed

My recent production 63-5 has tight chambers but on the other hand the bulk ammo I feed it probably has x% oversize cases. My Savage MKII target rifle has the same "feature, shall we say.

Thanks for all the feedback. Not wanting to get too drastic too quickly, I'll probably start with frequent, vigorous cleaning. Maybe use JB bore paste to help keep them really clean & provide some 'weak' polishing?.

I may take the dial calipers and check dimensions for front/back of each chamber to see where they are and to monitor going forward.

To MygunisaS&Wrevolver:
If I see firing pin indentations, can you explain how that may impact my ejecting, and is there anything I can do to recover?

Thanks again,
Cheers

If you can get your hands on a set of small pin gauges they do a real good job. I got lucky at that as my son is a machine shop foreman and brings them home when I need them!

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

If you look in gunsmith section there is a discussion of the tight 22 caliber chambers and fix.

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SWCA 1932 SWHF 135

For any rifle pistol or revolver you are looking to get best accuracy out of with very rare exception any sort of high velocity ammo and especially bulk pack ( defined as the cheapest thing we can make and sell with little regard to quality control) is the last thing you want to use. With the exception of during the extreme shortage of the last what seems decade, I never use bulk pack at all. Most every smith revolver will work better eject smoother and be more accurate with some variety of standard velocity ammo

I have a 18-3 combat masterpiece that has tight Chambers but only a problem with cci min mags. Every thing else comes out easy.

Those indentions can cause a burr on the side of the cylinder near the cartridge rim recess. This burr would take up space in your cylinder and make it more difficult to extract. You should be able to see them with a magifying loop or good magnifying glass I have never used one before and am no expert but Brownells sells a 22 rimfire swager, this is designed to remove the burr caused by firing pin indentions. They always have great directions and tech sheets that accompanies their products. This might be a less intrusive method than using a chamber. I know that I have read about this before in the forum. You might do a search and come up with more info. Good luck!

Nice tip. Thanks.

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Mike
S&WCA #3065

Take your cleaning brush and mount it in your drill. Dip it in your favorite cleaning fluid and let it run in each chamber for at least 60 seconds. This will clean out any fouling in the chambers and should make extractions easier.'

CCIs will stick in the chamber after three or four reloads. Federal Gold Match will let me shoot as many as 10 reloads before I have to use my brush, same with Federal AutoMatch.

Armscor will dirty the cylinders after one shot fired so I don't use them anymore.

Thanks again.
I'll do some of the cleaning-based methods, and just start to shoot it more to polish things up the old-fashioned way - with use.

Then with a little time if it doesn't get smoother I'll consider something a little more involved.

Cheers

What I did to a couple of mine and it worked quite well was to take a "lead wipe away" cloth and cut small patches from it and used them to clean the chambers. Use one side, flip it over and used the other. Then get another one. The black gook that came out of those chambers was something to see. I don't know how many patches I went through, but it was a fair number. Then I cleaned the chambers normally. No more problem.

I suspect you know not to use these cloths on the bluing. It will take that off, but if you're careful, you can clean chambers (or barrels) with it.

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John 3:16 .

I probably wouldn't use this method on a valuable collectors item. But used on all my stainless revolvers that get hard to eject. I use a swatch of 3m polishing cloth. It's like the common green pads, only in paper thin sheet form. It comes in varying micron grit. I wrap a small strip around a worn out brass cleaning brush. Then use a drill like others have said. It makes those chambers really shine.