I have a nickel model 36 no dash. Factory nickel, purchased 33+ years ago for my dad. He hardly ever shot it, but when we did I noticed it was hard to extract empties. I thought it just needed cleaning. Sat in a drawer for over 30 years until he gave it to me a few years ago. I hope I can explain the malfunction accurately.
Experimenting with it with empty cases, I found that one chamber in particular would hang up. If I load only one case into that chamber the extractor star binds on the case. No evidence of any bend in the extractor shaft. When I let the extractor down and turn the gun over, gravity will allow the empty case to fall out. Cylinders are clean. The gun looks new.
At the advice of some local knowledgeable people, I tried polishing the part of the extractor where it contact the case. I treaded carefully here with a fine sandpaper drum about the size of a .38 special case chucked in a cordless drill on low rpm. The idea was just to clean off any burrs not visible to my eye.
After that the extraction seemed a little better, but mixing various empty cases and loading all five chambers I was back to square one - hard extraction. The star will lift the cases about 3/8 inch and I cannot lift them any higher with the extractor. However, I can pick 4 of the cases easily out of their chambers with my fingers. That fifth one was holding up the works. If I load 4 into all chambers except the problem chamber, I can extract all 4 without issue.
I know that during shooting you turn the gun with barrel up and give a firm pump on the extractor. When I do that gravity will let 4 fall out, the fifth one is bound up. It does not happen every time, and that is what is puzzling me.
Sometimes it works best with all five empties because I think that helps keep the star concentrically aligned. So, for about every ten tries, it works as it is supposed to 2 times. 20% is not good enough.
Of note, when I load the gun with live ammo, the extractor removes them easily. The spent cases I was using to test the gun were fired in other guns. But, recently firing this gun gave the same results as my mixed empties. So, thinking that bad chamber #5 was causing the case to expand more than others is not the cause, I think, because I get the same results from empties I fished out of a coffee can.
I am thinking of sending this gun to S&W, but wanted to post here in the event someone has had a similar malfunction. Thanks for any help.