Now i got my model 31-2 and then i found this in one of the chambers today. Why does it hits always me?? I bought that gun new and I wonder how such a cylinder can pass the quality-control from Smith and Wesson. If any company-member watch this, it would be nice to send me a comment how should I act now, or how serious this fault is. The size of the mark is ca. two hairs wide and deep.

No handloads, cleaning with a brass-brush on a standard cleaning rod. No electric- or chemical tools or solvents.

My Email: [email protected]



Swissman

Now i got my model 31-2 and then i found this in one of the chambers today. Why does it hits always me?? I bought that gun new and I wonder how such a cylinder can pass the quality-control from Smith and Wesson. If any company-member watch this, it would be nice to send me a comment how should I act now, or how serious this fault is. The size of the mark is ca. two hairs wide and deep.

No handloads, cleaning with a brass-brush on a standard cleaning rod. No electric- or chemical tools or solvents.

My Email: [email protected]



Swissman

I feel your pain. Spending hard earned money on something you expect to be PERFECT and the getting this kind of **** sucks. I have several S&Ws and the new ones all have had issues. One needed a front sight properly installed. Another [currently] needs its single action reworked. Hammer easily pushes forward when cocked. Another has the shoddiest crown of any revolver I own. Me too get all the defects. Buy only older Smiths maybe. Good Luck and Scream as loud as you can.

Swissman,
Why don't you contact S&W, your picture shows the problem clearly. they should, and I believe they will, replace the defective part.
Best of luck with S&W and keep us posted.
Steve

Swissman, I would sure get S&W to fix it. That would pi** me off too. I've had several brand new S&W's with flaws, and the one flaw I cannot stand is a barrel/cylinder gap of .010" or more and I've had 'em worse than that too. Let us know how it all turns out for you. Good luck.

I doubt if S&W has any more #035070000 .32 caliber cylinders. You might find one at one of the parts houses or Brownell's. You could have it reamed but it would end up being oversized to get the gouge out. Perhaps you may just wish to do a good polish job on the chambers. If you are not having any extraction problems with that chamber, you may want to leave it alone. I have seen worse cases where it caused no problems at all.

Swissman, does the fired brass hang up in that chamber? I fit doesn't and leaves no mark on the brass it would not harm anything to keep shooting it.

How old is the gun, 20 years? How many owners between then and now who could have been responsible for the damage/alteration?
Ed

It was bought new.

thanks, CS. Missed that part.
Ed

Swissman,

If that's the 4" square butt Model 31-2 you showed in another post, I noticed it has an un-pinned barrel placing its manfacture after 1982 or so. That is around the time S&W quality began to take a dive.

I feel your pain but it's a little much, don't you think, to be criticizing Smith for something that MAY have been a quality control defect committed a quarter of a century ago.

No offense to you intended, but if you lived in a foreign country and had to look long and hard to find one of these brand new, wouldn't you be pissed off about it? I think I would. Swissman is a gentleman. I think although he's angry he's just blowing off the steam with some fellow collectors.

I've seen a lot stranger things than that in a new gun that apparently slipped by, not the least of which was a firing pin bushing on a 940 that was pressed in too deep allowing the primer of the fired round to blow back and lock the gun up. No way it could have been test fired because the first round I fired locked the gun up tight. Ah, good times, good times.
Anyway, that doesn't help you. If it fires and doesn't extract with difficulty I doubt its going to cause a problem. Its unlikely S&W will fix it free given the age of the gun despite its new condition. My 25-5 has quite oversized throats in the cylinder and they were clear that its not going to be a warranty issue.
If it was me I think I'd shoot it unless you are seeing extraction issues or some indication of overpressure.

Sorry to hear Swissman, S&W should treat you right on it, just in case keep this link:
http://www.e-gunparts.com/product.as...ductSKU=299700
Good Luck Sir.

Thanks for all the helpfull comments. The extraction is no problem. But it's the distance between me and the replace-part. The export-laws from the US are pretty hard and all the license and papers will cost me a fortune for a part that cost US$ 130.--. The biggest problem of all is, that some years ago destroyed a flood the the whole part-stock of the Swiss S&W-importer. It's nearly impossible to find another cylinder over here. So it's useless too to contact the gundealer which is an honest guy. I don't think a second, that he knew the fault of this gun.
It's just dissapointing, to stand with the back to the wall and all the facts show no reasonable solution.

Swissman

This stuff just happens. All kinds of bad things are sometimes allowed out of the factory.

My personal worst was when I found a beautiful postwar 44 3rd model. It was like new. In fact, so good you couldn't tell it from new. But as things happened, I passed it along to David Carroll after a few years. He thought it was a steal (which it was, my interests had just moved elsewhere.)

So David sent off for a letter. Surprise, surprise, the letter came back as a 38/44 HD. Not possible, thinks David, so he digs out the gun and calls Roy. Roy insists, it shipped with a bunch of other 38/44s in the same serial range. So he gets out his handy dandy little magnifying glass and looks at the barrel pin and the barrel. It's never been touched, the gun isn't refinished in any way. Its just as it came from the factory. He calls Roy back and again voices his opinion. Roy is at a loss, too.

Then David looks at the cylinder for the 10th time. And what does he see? The chambers are "in the white", as in reamed to 44 Spl. Now thats good Quality Control. Apparently they shipped a 38/44 with a 44 3rd model barrel and a 38 caliber cylinder. Yes, David's customer was upset. He was embarrassed. I was embarrassed. But what can you do?

You have a serviceable gun, just one with a wart that makes it less desirable to a collector, but doesn't impede its function.

__________________
Dick Burg

Dick,

Fortunately, the piece was not shipped with a .38 caliber barrel and .44 caliber cylinder, if you catch my drift!

Honestly, Swissman, I do understand why you are upset. I just looked over a few of my own S&W's and there are a couple with less than ideal surfaces inside the chambers and I don't believe it is anything that I did. Unless there are deep gouges or pits, it is unlikely that revolver chamber pressures are enough to make the brass flow into these imperfections and cause extraction problems. Try this: Load one chamber at a time and fire the revolver. Note the ease of extraction of a single case for each chamber. I am willing to bet that you won't even notice a difference in that gouged chamber.

I ran into the identical defect with a Model 31-2 2" that I bought new in the late 80's...it had a deep tool mark in one cylinder. Never had an issue with it, but I did trade it years later.

I understand the disappointment, but if the revolver functions perfectly I wouldn't let it bother me .... nothing is perfect!

I would contact S&W and find out what they will do to make it right.I believe that it is their responsiblity to correct things like that at their cost-after all they made it for profit and should show some integrety.Will

That is a bit disappointing, but I have seen worse. I do wonder what S&W would tell you? First, they probably don't have a replacement part. Second, they may say the gun is functional and within their specs. I don't know.

I would try to be pragmatic about it. Once you get past the annoyance, you can still get a lot of good out of that little gun.

I'm sorry to hear about this, but don't let it keep you from enjoying the gun. NOTHING is perfect.

Sad, I agree. There were many quality issues with the guns made during the 80's. I had one gun that the chamber bores were different by .004" (.10mm). One hole measured .430(10.92mm), & one measured .434(11.02mm) with the rest in between. The gun had dismal accuracy. It is only a tool mark, could be worse.

I confess, that my reaction about the toolmark in the chamber was maybe to much. Today I testfired the gun @ 26 yards and the worst thing was that my shooting-buddy and forummember Dani outshoots me regulary. He said that I should show you all first his result with the Taurus-revolver. That thing rattles real bad even in the cocked position but shoots like hell. (Dani said this is how a brazilian say hello to all the yankees)



Now to the better part of the day:









I'll keep the model 31-2 and I'm sure, that I can find a good handload for it.

Swissman

At 25 meters, I'd need a rifle to duplicate those targets. Swissman, I think you just might be a perfectionist. Enjoy, you're doing very well. Joe

__________________
Wisdom chases me; I'm faster

That's nice shooting! If the gun shoots that well, it can't be all bad.

It's no legend that the Swiss can shoot, I'm a 1/4 Swiss and my targets at 25 yards are about 1/4 as good.