I purchased several used Smith 686s in last couple of months (trying to beat the new ridiculous handgun registration law in Maryland going in to effect 10/1) to add to my collection.
The two latest were a 686-6 and a 686-5. The 686-6 looked virtually new but upon dissassembly I discovered what looked like very carefully done peening around the circumference of the end of the yoke. This gun had zero ( or almost zero endshake) and I figured the peening was done to accomplish this. I thought however that this was probably done by a pervious owner because I thought that the factory would probably use a swage tool to do this.
Next I started to dissassemble and clean the 686-5. This gun has near zero endshake and the end of the yoke looks like it got the identical treatment the 686-6 did. See attached pics.
So I started wondering about some of the other L-frames I own. I looked at the yokes on 5 other 686 or 681s and two of them displayed a similar a similar method of lengthening.
Any stretched cranes I've ever seen on Ruger were done with a swage type tool.
Has anybody noticed the same thing? The three pics are the yoke from the 686-5. The fact that I found several other Smith yokes looking like this leads me to think this was done at the factory. The guns were all purchased at different times and places so it would be a great coincidence that this similar work was done by that many home gunsmiths (all the guns were purchased used and in great shape). What do you think?

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My opinion, NOT factory.
Last I saw, S&W uses a special roller tool to stretch yoke barrels. This tool looks like a tubing cutter with a round edge roller that swages a groove in the yoke barrel, which stretches it.

That work looks like Billy Bob The Gun Plumber work.

Picture one shows a staking mark. If done on two sides that would leave the end of the barrel uneven and it would wear fast.
With the stake mark so close to the edge, it wouldn't last long at all.

The picture on the right looks like someone used a hammer to tap around the end sides of the barrel, and THAT is not S&W.

Well, maybe. Peening the barrel of the yoke around a special hardened cylinder that fit inside the barrel was standard practice at the factory and was taught in armorer schools back in the day. I do not know what they use and teach now, but I doubt they use shims! I know some factory personnel still do this as I sent a 627-2 back for action work, and the endshake was corrected by peening, and filing to break the high spots. I would not expect a new gun to exhibit such work, but it could have been done on a trip back for work, or could have been done outside the factory by an armorer.

__________________
Richard Gillespie
FBINA 102

I have seen peened yoke shafts but not that crudely.
That looks way too choppy and at too sharp an angle to be factory.

Kuhnhausen shows peening the shaft, but note the hammer blows are very flat to the shaft, not right on the end, and left choppy and battered.

Excellent point; I think you are right.

I attended the Armorer school in 87. They taught peening the yoke barrel with a tool inside (to keep it from crushing). They also had a pipe cutter type tool with a different edge (roller) that lengthened the yoke. The tool and hammer looks cruder but does the job. Either works..........

I went to armorer school in '86 and never heard of the peening but did see the modified tubing cutter and got instructions in class on how to modify one for the purpose. If those guns were trade ins from a department at one time, then an armorer may have done it or a gunsmith for a distributor who took them in may have done it.