OK here's one for the elite here. I have a second model .44 smith N frame 5in. barrel. I have a pristine 4in. model 1926 barrel I am swapping out. As can often occur the 4" barrel does not index. Now those with the means turn to Brownell's and purchase a barrel shoulder cutter {sans $400.00} and a an additional cutter to adjust cylinder gap and recut the forcing cone {sans 300.00}. Would it not be nice if someone offered a BARREL SHIM or SHIMS in varying thickness from .001 to say .003 That could be used to index the different barrel. The same principal that we apply to triggers ,yoke, hammer, and endshake shims. Interestingly, this method of barrel indexing was used successfully by the King Gunsight Company back in the day. An employee who worked with that group talked at length with me about it recently. If they were produced would we use them and specifically what distance is covered by a .001 shim on an N frame Smith barrel given the thread pitch. Here we go and Thanks for weighing in.

The threads used on S&W barrels are 36 to the inch. So a complete revolution moves the barrel back .02777. 5 degrees would be .00038 so a .001 shims would be around 13 degrees

The thread pitch on S&W barrels for K,L, & N frames is 36 TPI. They are 3 different diameters, same thread pitch. The length moved in one full turn is 1/36 of an inch, or .0278. That means .001 of length movement is approx. 13 degrees of rotation. With the elasticity of the metals involved, there is some amount of fudge factor, either crushing the washer a little or stretching the barrel a bit.

If the barrel overclocks a bit, I just use some blue LocTite in the threads and turn it up straight. I know this is heresy to the snobs, but it works fine for as long as you want it on there, but still removable without heat. If shooting enough to heat up the barrel a lot, you can always use red or green. I have the luxury of a complete machine shop so don't need to use the Loctite much on barrels, but many do not have that option.

You can purchase shim stock and make your own shims
I got stainless steel shim stock from Fastenal
You can do a nice a job as you have the patience for
Be careful making the shim(s) or you will cut the snot out of your fingertips

243, Now * how in the world do you cut .001,.002 shim stock so it is .664in inside dia. and .77in outside dia. { per N frame shank } ? Is it done with a high speed die grinding bit ? That's a very small ring to cut out. I am in contact with a manufacturer back east who uses some form of punch die to make his shims. I am not a machinist but have the grinders. Thank you for your responses. rs

I don't think I'd feel very elite with my barrel shimmed out. I'd sooner pay someone to do it right.

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You can cut shims stock with scissors. You can punch small holes it it by drill and tapping 2 pieces of flat bar so they bolt together. Then drill correct , size hole through them then use a piece of the same diameter round stock with very square end as a punch. Clamp shim stock tightly in between flat bar and the punch will cut the hole.

But, what you are proposing to do with a revolver barrel isn't right. Might work fine but not correct way to do it. Besides, while using shim stock may get your barrel clocked or the B/C gap correct the chances it would do both correctly with the same amount of shim are slim to none and Slim is out of town. I posted above to show how much a .001 shim would do. Not because I support the idea..I use a lathe and the B/C adjustment tools. Have to time barrel then adjust the gap.

PS if a barrel comes up at 12 o'clock but is still a bit under torqued, circling the barrels face with small punch marks will raise enough metal by displacement that it will torque up.

A good file guy with the correct files and techniques and some Prussian blue could do a very good job. But most people should only use files on finger nails

The hand fitting department used to have a lot of files and stones and guys who really knew how to do stuff. I have known a few really good machinist, fitters and millwrights.

I did it by trial and error
You can punch either the inner or outer diameter and get it right to size by spinning it in a low speed Dremel
You will have to get creative with flanges to support the shim stock
It took a couple tries to get it right
If you have enough time and patience it's doable
I did a dumb thing and sliced up the skin on my fingertips pretty good
There was cussing and a bit of blood, going for the band-aids
Some people can do crazy stuff and some can't
You have to know yourself enough to know if you should try it or not
Many try to make it sound like you're clubbing baby seals if you don't do something by the traditional methods
It's your stuff

Yes I agree with the shims you mention and would also include various thickness shims that could be silver soldered on the bearing surface of a ratchet to increase headspace and reduce barrel cylinder gap.

IMHO, it should be about $100 to $150 charge from a good pistolsmith with a lathe to setback the barrel, clock correctly and then adjust the barrel/cylinder gap. It is one of those lathe jobs that once one has done a few of them it gets pretty easy. ................

I for one would not shim the barrel/frame fit. .....

Steelslaver and Big Cholla are offering expert advise which seems to be going unheeded.

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So many S&W's, so few funds!!

Thats OK, Everyone needs to learn and experiment. Its their guns and they can do what they want. One .001 shim that cause the barrel to tighten up clocked wouldn't really hurt anything. But, would only change the gap .001

If you had a barrel that tightened up at 6 o'clock and added .013 shims to clock it back to 12 you would end up with a huge gap and barrels don't stretch. If it over clocked to 3:00 and was flush to cylinder .006-.007 would work, but that is the only situation. Another thing about shimming out instead of trimming is that the ejector rod can easily be shortened to function correctly with the barrel lug. Can't see how to lengthen one if you move the barrel out very much.

I once trashed an aluminum impeller on my jet boat and had a new stainless impeller on hand that slammed tight to the wear ring. Out playing at the river and didn't want to go back to the shop. Made a shim from the bottom of a tin can with scissors and it worked great.

You can do a lot with minimal tools, hard work, and knowledge. But, usually your better off to use the correct tools and procedures.

I hope that they at least make some form of good frame wrench and don't spring the frame. The rest of it should be fixable if their experiments don't work out.

Alternative #1.^^^^^This^^^^^^^

Alternative #2. Get the Mickey Mouse ears out with a high probability of turning a nice gun into a paper weight or scrap metal.

Bruce