Just got a Model 14-8 yesterday and am very pleased with the gun overal. I got the gun home and removed the grips and gave it a good cleaning and oiled it up. I spent the evening doing some dry firing using snap caps. I engaged and disengaged the lock and it seemed to work fine. I brought it in to work this morning to show a couple of guys who are interested in guns. One of the fellows cocked the action and then thumbed the hammer down and must of had his other hand on the cylinder becase it didnt rotate into lock position. I'm not sure but it looked like he tried to rotate the cylinder into position and work the action at the same time and now it's locked up with the hammer about a 1/4" from resting position. Any quick fix here as it might just be jammed or does it sound like something is wrong with the gun?

Could be a number of things, the IL, ejector rod loose, etc. Take of grips and loosen mainspring taking tension off the hammer and see if that will work. If that does not work and you are comfortable taking off sideplate, you can remove rebound slide to release tension. If you cant get it figured out, call S&W and get a pick up tag to send it back. They will fix and return in a matter of days.

Well I took off the grips and removed the mainspring screw and it still was all locked up. I then removed the side plate and was able to remove the crane and cylinder assembly and just moved things around a bit. I put it all back together and everything works just fine.