K22 Masterpiece Cylinder Peening?

On Friday night, I picked up a K22 Masterpiece that I’ve had on layaway at a LGS for a little over a month, and was really excited about. I always wanted a Pre-model 17 or K22 outdoorsman, and when this crossed my path, I had to have it. The gun is by no means pristine, with a little finish wear in the usual places, and a bit of a blotchy pattern in the bluing on the side of the cylinder suggesting that it spent some amount of time living in a holster. These things don’t bother me at all however, I consider them to be part of the gun’s history and mystique, and really, whereas I fancy myself a collector of S&W firearms, I find my interest lies with those guns that have been put into the world rather than in a safe.

That said, I took the K22 to the range on Saturday, and fired around 100 rounds though it without a single light strike or failure whatsoever. On Sunday, I went about cleaning the gun, along with half a dozen others that went to the range too, and found that couple of the chambers had been peened by the firing pin at some point. The marks are not athe top of the chamber where they would be if the gun was in full lock-up when the trigger was pulled, rather off to one side. I am unsure whether this could of happened during my brief period of ownership, I did dry fire it carefully(or so I thought I guess...) only a couple times, though I can say for sure that in order for the peen marks to have been made where they are, the gun would have had to fire out of time, and I would have certainly injured me. Fortunately, the pens don’t prevent the clambering of ammo, nor does the gun seem adversely affected by it in any way, as evidenced by a second brief range trip Sunday afternoon to make sure. My assumption at the moment is that I missed the marks when I looked in over at the gun shop, and they were there from long ago, with whatever problem the caused them being addressed.

My question is: what can cause this? I have been very thorough in my inspection of the revolver, have found no issue with the lockup or cycling in SA or DA, so I don’t really know what to make of it other than something previously occurred and was fixed. I just don’t want the issue to get worse.

Thoughts and comments are greatly appreciated, thanks.

Here’s a quick picture of the gun itself, if anyone is interested tonight I can add photos of the cylinder and what I’m talking about.




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Mine has these on the back of the cylinder (caused by me in the 40's when I played cowboy with it) and has no effect on firing the K-22. Based on almost 70 years of firing it.

Out of time firing for sure.If every shot that you fire, goes bang,either the issue was repaired or perhaps someone in the past was doing some foolish behavior with it.
I had a 1948 K22 with a peen exactly where one would expect it to be.
The previous owner obviously dry fired the gun quite a bit.(and the gun still performed well)

Are those peening marks caused dry firing or by cylinder over travel caused by fireing a loaded revolver to fast in double action? Not allowing the weapon to index properly between shots. Sonora

First, you should never dry fire a K22. If the dings were from dry firing most likely the damage would be at the edge of the charge holes on the cylinder face. Most likely it was out of time in the past or more than likely someone tried rapid firing it. It’s not uncommon.

I have a K-22 that was a birthday present about 1956. As young teenager and not knowing much I dry fired the heck out of it. If memory serves me correctly, the bolt spring broke and the cylinder would pass the position where it should have locked. Hence, the peening. Once the spring was replaced there were no more problems.
The things we do when we are young and stupid!

Those "peens" (random firing pin strikes) usually happen when there is (or was) and indexing problem. Another cause it by mishandling. Tricking the cylinder release thumb lever by pressing backward to pull the hammer back with the cylinder open. Then shutting the revolvers without manually indexing the cylinder to the locked position and pulling the trigger instead of lightly letting it drop with your thumb on the hammer.

Neither process above is acceptable on any revolver but especially on a .22 with recesses for the rimfire. We keep plastic dummy rounds in all the chambers on the target revolvers. The ones in storage all wrapped and packed in the box, not.

If I see random firing pin "peens" on the cylinder of a .22 Revolver (worse then they are on the chamber recess) that I'm interested in purchasing, I put it down and keep walking but that's just me.

I could not tolerate looking at those peens for the rest of my life so I wouldn't buy it.

All the fine .22 target pistols have either a plastic (blue) dummy in the chamber or a fired .22 case, the latter is what old timers used and recommended to protect the firing pin.

I've never had one skip the cylinder cut out that I know of. MY opinion is that the cylinder bolt spring had been broken in the past, or not lost during a tear down and not replaced. Also suspect that a really gummed up action or a cylinder rubbing the back of the bbl could cause the cylinder to not rotate completely.

Charlie

kennethg said:

I have a K-22 that was a birthday present about 1956. As young teenager and not knowing much I dry fired the heck out of it. If memory serves me correctly, the bolt spring broke and the cylinder would pass the position where it should have locked. Hence, the peening. Once the spring was replaced there were no more problems.

The things we do when we are young and stupid!

Click to expand...

Kennethg, the Cylinder in the photo shows exactly the type and general location of peening I am talking about with my gun, though fortunately mine is not quite as bad. I am going to guess that my K22 must have had the same or a similar issue in the past, causing the damage. If the gun fired that far out of time to produce the peen marks on your cylinder and mine while shooting live ammo, it would have injured me, or at the very least, have been a very unpleasant experience. As I said, I dry fired it carefully only a couple times, during and after which, I was inspected the lock up, so I pretty sure that I didn’t cause it, I and know for sure it didn’t happen at the range.

I’ve been thinking about it, and back a few weeks before this K22 showed at the shop, I remember looking at a Model 17-3 that the Shop had recently taken in, but hadn’t priced and officially put out for sale yet. When I asked when it might be available, one of he staff said that she thought that the gun had something wrong with it, and was being held for the gunsmith to inspect. I looked that gun over well and found no functional issues whatsoever, at which point she said, she thought she may have mistaken it for another gun, possibly a K22. I am now wondering if my K22 was the one that came in with issues, and went to the gunsmith, as I know the 17-3 went out for sale a few days later and sold very quickly. I did specifically ask if the K22 I was buying was the one that she had thought went out to the gunsmith, but was told that it was not, though because the place is so busy I wouldn’t be surprised if she had forgotten. Their gunsmith does great work, and has repaired other firearms for me in the past, so I am not worried at all if did go out for work.

No matter what, the gun is still an excellent revolver, and the best of the K frame 22s I’ve owned thus far, the others being a new 17-9 and a model 617. I very happy with it, and expect many more years of service out of it.


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Then, there are those like mine that have been dry fired, and show absolutely no sign of any issue. Mine is in the K 189000 range, and I'm the second owner. I suppose now I'm obligated to take a pic, huh?

Okay, here's a pic - dirt and all.


Mark

Maingrw,

1) I have no doubt the peening was there before you bought it or you would have had misfires.

2) Most of the peening like that is caused by cyl overtravel/skipping. In other words, the cyl stop jumped out of the cyl notch (jumped time) and rotated too far due to centrifugal force because of a poorly fitted/worn stop or weak/broken/missing stop spring.

3) Trouble shoot to confirm it's already been fixed:
Cock the hammer rapidly SA, try to rotate the cyl in both directions on each chamber.
Pull the trigger forcefully DA, hold the trigger back, again try to rotate the cyl in both directions on each chamber.

If you can't rotate the cyl by hand in either test, the problem is fixed.

Do the cylinder locking notches look battered at all. The leading edge usually looks OK but the back edge of them,,the one that actually stops the cyl rotation can look quite out of square. The metal pushed upward along that edge usually and lock-up loose (rotational).

A repair is often to peen that upset & displaced metal back into place to once again offer a sharp square shoulder for the cylinder bolt to catch and stop the rotation. That work you can usually see unless it was polished afterwards and reblued.

The cylinder bolt can be worn on that edge, or have been (over)polished in an attempt to avoid the cylinder drag line.
In doing so the edge of the bolt is often rounded over. That gives the cylinder a chance to skip by in rapid operation.
A worn or weakened cyl bolt spring can aggravate the situation even more not snapping the bolt back up quick and forcefully enough to catch the rotating cylinder.
All this when the action is done very quickly either SA cocking or DA operation.
Everything can seem fine when timing & lock-up checked at mere mortal operational speeds.
Whip some heavy centrifugal force into the cylinder and they can skip by the cylinder bolt if all isn't just right.

It's very common on the N frames, but the smaller frames in 22 seem to suffer too.
I've had two Mod 35 revolvers to fix with the problem in last few years, the rear of the cylinders all dotted up w/firing pin marks.