642 problem

[johngalt]

I was drying firing my 642, and now have a problem. It felt like something internal broke, now the trigger is stuck back. The cylinder release won't move and the cylinder is stuck. The firing pin is not protruding.

It hasn't been fired with live ammo all that much, I would guess < 1000 rounds.

I sent an email to S&W for a shipping label, but I was wonder if the experts here have any ideas. Being aluminum a though I had was maybe the hammer stud.

 

[alwslate]

Your signature line says it all. "Common sense isn't so common."Want a toy, buy a toy.

 

[gwpercle]

Dry firing without proper snap caps isn't the best thing for a revolver .
Aluminum framed revolvers ... I would dry fire , even with snap caps , very little ... things inside can break .

My Dad believed that all dry firing was Bad ... don't let him catch you doing it ... He taught us how to ease the hammer down on just about every gun without snapping ... even bolt action rifles and shotguns can be closed on an uncocked fireing pin spring if you know how .
Maybe the old man was right ... snapping guns doesn't do them any good .
My Dad would tell us ... " Just pretend you have some common sense sometimes ! "
Gary

 

[M29since14]

In my opinion, he's absolutely right. Doesn't do them any good, but it is still a widely encouraged practice with handguns, except .22 rimfire, of course. I've done quite a bit of it with 1911 target guns, but that's about all. I can easily fix anything that breaks - at home. And probably already have the necessary spares lying around. Hope S&W can/will fix up the OP's gun quickly and without undue expense.

 

[johngalt]

Your signature line says it all. "Common sense isn't so common."Want a toy, buy a toy.

I thought it was obvious I was interested in possible solutions that didn't require sending it off to S&W rather than snide comments, but yeah my sig line says it all.

 

[johngalt]

Dry firing without proper snap caps isn't the best thing for a revolver .
Aluminum framed revolvers ... I would dry fire , even with snap caps , very little ... things inside can break .

My Dad believed that all dry firing was Bad ... don't let him catch you doing it ... He taught us how to ease the hammer down on just about every gun without snapping ... even bolt action rifles and shotguns can be closed on an uncocked fireing pin spring if you know how .
Maybe the old man was right ... snapping guns doesn't do them any good .
My Dad would tell us ... " Just pretend you have some common sense sometimes ! "
Gary

Hmm. The manual doesn't have any prohibitions against dry firing. I was taught to shoot by Bullseye shooters, who said that to develop trigger control you should dry fire at least 10 times for every live round fired.

I read posts here once in a while going back and forth about the fragility/durability of aluminum revolvers. I guess this is another data point.

 

[Protocall_Design]

My guess would also be a broken hammer stud. You could take off the sideplate and find out, if you want to know.

 

[rogerwnuss]

Having just switched to a 642-1 as my winter gun, my interest was piqued by this exchange... The snidosity not withstanding, are the lightweight frames- or these new 642s in particular- looked at as troublesome by Smith shooters in general?

 

[johngalt]

My guess would also be a broken hammer stud. You could take off the sideplate and find out, if you want to know.

I considered it, but I'm hesitant to do so. For warranty purposes I would rather leave it as is for them to diagnose.

 

[johngalt]

Having just switched to a 642-1 as my winter gun, my interest was piqued by this exchange... The snidosity not withstanding, are the lightweight frames- or these new 642s in particular- looked at as troublesome by Smith shooters in general?

I'll post updates when I get them. I guess that will also include response time. This will be a new experience for me, this is the first time I had a need to contact S&W customer support in a long time (over 15 years). Back then they were prompt at both answering and repairing.

 

[Shark Bait]

I avoid dry firing without snap caps. No point in slamming the metal together like that. I'm sure S&W will take care of you.

 

[BE Mike]

I've dry fired without snap caps, excepting rimfire guns for decades. I've found that well-made guns aren't that delicate. I've heard of PPC shooters who "wore out" revolvers by dry firing tens of thousands of times, but I never heard of anyone otherwise ruining a handgun by dry firing. As someone else commented, bullseye shooters do a lot of dry firing.

 

[white cloud]

I dry fired my 640 Pro quite a bit, maybe 1000 times.Last week I noticed the firing pin had broken off at the tip. Fortunately I had a replacement firing pin. No more dry firing revolvers for me.

 

[alwslate]

I dry fired my 640 Pro quite a bit, maybe 1000 times.Last week I noticed the firing pin had broken off at the tip. Fortunately I had a replacement firing pin. No more dry firing revolvers for me.

Like some others on here I was taught at a very young age to never "snap" dry fire ANY gun. Lucky for you that you didn't learn the hard way that your firing pin was broken I would be leery about carrying a small aluminum frame revolver for SD after abusing it with thousands of dry fires. But to each his own.

 

[Mike SC Hunter]

Me........If I'm gonna pull the trigger on my gun it will have a live round in it. As stated above if you want a toy buy a toy.

 

[stansdds]

I've dry fired plenty of centerfire pistols and revolvers, rarely with a snap cap of any sort and never a problem.

 

[s&wchad]

I considered it, but I'm hesitant to do so. For warranty purposes I would rather leave it as is for them to diagnose.

If you're not comfortable removing the sideplate, send it in. I doubt inspecting the action would void the lifetime service policy.

I would try cycling the IL a few times. I'd also try pushing the trigger forward.

 

[heeter3]

I had a firing pin break on a 442 and it also screwed up the firing pin spring.The action never locked back however and believe it or not the little guy continued to fire with the broken pin.The only way I found out it was broken was when I pointed the gun down to load a speed loader I found that I couldn't close the cylinder and saw that when pointed down the broken tip of the firing pin stuck out prohibiting the cylinder from closing,when the gun was pointed up the pin receded back past the bushing and the cylinder closed.

 

[GT_80]

Having just switched to a 642-1 as my winter gun, my interest was piqued by this exchange... The snidosity not withstanding, are the lightweight frames- or these new 642s in particular- looked at as troublesome by Smith shooters in general?

I haven't heard much bad about them.

 

[GT_80]

There's dry firing on empty cylinders, and there's dry firing with snap caps. The latter is better and mimicks real world shooting. If you dry fire 10,000 times, its like having 10,000 fired from the control groups perspective.

If it were me, i would pull the side plate and look. I'm a tinkerer so I would have to know if I could see what was wrong. But then, don;t tell S&W you took it apart, they may not like it....