A big thank you and thumbs up to you all! I called SW and they also suggested the pencil eraser test (I use to do it to all my used guns, but haven't done it in 10-15+ years because I haven't had problems like this).

My pistol's hammer was, in fact, bouncing back after contacting the hammer, but it will not do it when the pencil is in the barrel. I'm guessing the firing pin spring is so heavy, it has enough power to bounce the hammer back to the decock position when it returns the firing pin if there is no contact with anything in the chamber. The momemtum changes when the firing pin contacts the object in the chamber (the eraser in this case, and hopefully primers when I get a free minute to go the the range), and the hammer will not bounce back. I was so skeptical I did the test for 30+ minutes...now my index finger is sore!

I guess I should recommend snap caps for any dry firing in cases like this. Without it, the firing pin must be extending fully until the taper seizes in the breach face hole, and this cannot be a good thing for the firing pin service life or the breach face hole dimension.

Take care all!!