What's Up With Unfired New Revolvers With Turn Line?

[AC Man]

I try to collect MINT unfired older Smith revolvers. 99% of them that are unfired have a turn line and many are proven unfired.

Do people just sit around with their 50 year old revolvers pulling the trigger creating a turn line dry firing? One dealer said they come from the factory with a faint turn line.

Example: Just bought a 1970 Smith model 60 brand new in the box stainless still packed in the factory gun grease. I popped out the cylinder and it was stuck because the grease had dried over the 54 years, and the damn thing still has a turn line.

Can someone explain this to me?

 

[StrawHat]

According to Roy Jinks, a S&W revolver without a turn line is not properly tuned. They are designed to have a turn line. The locking bolt drops into the cylinder way ahead of the notch BY DESIGN. Adjusting the action to eliminate the turn line is damaging to the mechanism.

Kevin

 

[BKLooney]

They may be unfired but that doesn't mean they weren't played with a bit!

 

[SweetMK]

AND,, to add to StrawHat's info,,
these guns are test fired at the factory,,

I am positive they do not single load one cartridge in a chamber,, fire it,,
then repeat 5 more times so that there is no turn line,,

There is a video of Heritage Arms making 22 revolvers,,

The guy test firing them,, is shooting as fast as humanly possible,,

 

[rockquarry]

I have S&W revolvers I bought new forty or fifty years ago that have been fired a lot with only minor "turn lines". Similar S&W revolvers that haven't been fired as much have more significant "turn lines". Nothing to get excited or upset about, it's like trying to "read" primer condition to determine pressure - not a reliable indicator of anything. Few persons, if any, even considered "turn lines" in pre-Internet days. I don't recall even hearing the term until the last twenty years or so.

 

[Puller]

Except to a very few collectors most of us don't care if it has turn lines or not.

 

[AC Man]

Exactly. I don't care either if a firearm has a turn line even though it is advertised as unfired. I was just curious. I only have a couple in my collection with no turn line and both are stainless for what it's worth.

 

[stansdds]

There is quite a lot of fitting required in assembling a revolver, that means a good bit of cycling the action. Testing the action, then a test firing, is likely going to result in a turn line on the cylinder. The exception would be with older Colt double action revolvers. Colt's lock work was very different and the timing of the cylinder lock dropping onto the cylinder was such that it did not create a turn line.

 

[UncleEd]

Colt's lock work was very different and the timing of the cylinder lock dropping onto the cylinder was such that it did not create a turn line.

This but when a turn line did start showing up, it was an indication the timing, the tuning, could be going downhill. I say "could be"depending on how the owner opens and closes the cylinder.

 

[s&wchad]

You may find this interesting. They show how extractor ratchets are cut in the Performance Center (a little over half way through the video). There's a lot of cycling of the action involved in building a revolver.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ3HDLkB5l8[/ame]

 

[series guy]

There are so many fallacies involving guns that it can be quite irritating. One example is a friend of mine who wanted to exchange a gun his wife had bought him for Christmas. This was at a store he dealt with for many years and had spent tens of thousands of dollars in. The clerk informed my friend that they couldn’t sell the returned gun as new because it was already “registered” to him. Pure BS. There is no title to a gun such as an automobile has. I don’t believe my friend had even lifted the gun from the box. Another is the “round count”. If the gun in spec what does the round count matter. Guns are built to be shot but if you do you have devalued it. I have no issue with price being commensurate with condition but there’s a limit. Sorry for the rant but I’m just back from a gun show last weekend and the things I heard…………

 

[Model29-26.5]

How can a gun be proven to have been unfired?
If it has been fired at the factory, then it has been fired.
How can it be “proven” that it has not been fired more than once?

 

[Hawg Rider]

I only balk when I find a revolver who's cylinder is deeply gouged by the cylinder stop. That tells me that there's an issue of some kind that I don't want to deal with. Almost all of my vintage revolvers have very faint turn lines and function flawlessly...just the way I like 'em!

 

[Retired W4]

A little light polishing of the cylinder stop with Simichrome to remove microscopic burrs, especially the top edges does help. Don't mess with the sides or the depth. Emphasis on "light".

 

[mikerjf]

How can a gun be proven to have been unfired?
If it has been fired at the factory, then it has been fired.
How can it be “proven” that it has not been fired more than once?

Is the cylinder holding the once-fired brass?

 

[JP@AK]

I am positive they do not single load one cartridge in a chamber,, fire it, then repeat 5 more times so that there is no turn line

Just so you know, the standard for S&W test firing at the factory is three rounds from alternating charge holes (assuming a six shot cylinder). But your point is well taken.

 

[rct269]

Speaking of turn lines----or not:

I once returned a Satin Blue K-22 to be refinished in Bright Blue ----just as it should have been in the first place, but for circumstances beyond the control of the makers who were bound and determined to get back to making (AND SELLING) guns to just plain folks----no matter WHAT!! I also asked them to give it to their finest craftsman to make it as perfect as can be.

Back it came, a thing of beauty--absolutely flawless, with no mention nor charge for whatever (if anything) had been done----to make it as perfect as can be. It took a good while before I noticed it had no turn line. (Actually it did---a very faint, very short line at/in the lead in to each cylinder stop notch.

I had occasion to mention this to the Good Doctor Jinks (way before he became a Good Doctor), and he like to have had a hissy fit!! "They NEVER should have done that!! It'll skip chambers in rapid, double action fire!!)

I didn't have the heart to tell him a good bit of its life had been with rapid, double action fire-----and it never missed a beat.

I had another with no turn line---nothing you could see anyway. This one was a Colt Officers Model 38 that had been to visit with Walter Roper and his lads. It came back with his grips, a "WhiteX" front sight, an action job to end all action jobs, and some cosmetic alterations. The cosmetics amounted to polishing the leads into each cylinder stop notch down to white metal--------and it was there, in the white metal, where there was a very short, very faint turn line. I have no clue as to the normal cylinder stop action/timing on such a Colt, but with this one the stop SNAPPED up at the slightest movement of the hammer/trigger-----all the way UP! Then it SNAPPED down into the (white metal) leads into the notch.

The moral of this story is "Where there's a will, there's a way!"

Ralph Tremaine

 

[silicosys4]

There are so many fallacies involving guns that it can be quite irritating. One example is a friend of mine who wanted to exchange a gun his wife had bought him for Christmas. This was at a store he dealt with for many years and had spent tens of thousands of dollars in. The clerk informed my friend that they couldn’t sell the returned gun as new because it was already “registered” to him. Pure BS. There is no title to a gun such as an automobile has. I don’t believe my friend had even lifted the gun from the box. Another is the “round count”. If the gun in spec what does the round count matter. Guns are built to be shot but if you do you have devalued it. I have no issue with price being commensurate with condition but there’s a limit. Sorry for the rant but I’m just back from a gun show last weekend and the things I heard…………

The clerk was correct. The gun was sold and put into the books. It is not a new gun just like a car that was purchased then trailered off the lot and put immediately into storage is not a "new" car.
They are both used in 100%, "as new" condition.
"New" means new, in the store, never sold. "As new" is different than "new".
That is why the term "NOS" exists. Technically NOS means that the item has never been sold past the retailer level. Lots of people misuse the term to denote an unopened item in its original packaging, but true NOS has never been sold to an end user.
I have a few true NOS guns that came from old stock leftover from LGS cleanouts and closures and were unsold in their original packaging, and I was the first transferee.

 

[Hair Trigger]

I try to collect MINT unfired older Smith revolvers. 99% of them that are unfired have a turn line and many are proven unfired.

Do people just sit around with their 50 year old revolvers pulling the trigger creating a turn line dry firing? One dealer said they come from the factory with a faint turn line.

Example: Just bought a 1970 Smith model 60 brand new in the box stainless still packed in the factory gun grease. I popped out the cylinder and it was stuck because the grease had dried over the 54 years, and the damn thing still has a turn line.

Can someone explain this to me?

If an otherwise new stainless steel revolver with a turn line bothers you, a blued gun must drive you completely nuts. I don't really consider a stainless gun capable of having a turn line that can't be removed.

The cylinder stop drags the cylinder all the way around between the stop notches as a matter of design. The question I would ask is why some guns with a relatively low round count will sometimes have a turn line all the way through the bluing, where another that has been shot for many years will have less of a noticeable line. I think it has to do with how "sharp" the corners are on the rounded part of the cylinder stop and I think if someone were to make a single pass on those edges with a very fine stone, it would take that microscopic burr off without impairing the lockup when it drops into the stop notch.

 

[maxfam]

Unfired may really mean “Cleaned Very Well”. Couldn’t cover up the turn line.