Tight .22LR chambers

[Ron Peek]

I have a pre Model -18, 5 screw .22 that had extremely tight chambers. The chambers were clean and highly polished, but if you fired more than 2 or 3 rounds, you had to punch the empties out one at a time. I took the gun to an S&W trained armorer and he said the chambers were way tighter than standard. He reamed them to standard chamber dimensions and it now is a joy to shoot - the empties pop right our with the extractor rod.


I just recently acquired a K22-5, 6" and I'll be darned if the same condition doesn't exist. It doesn't seem to be brand sensitive; I tried 3 different brands of target .22s and more than 2 rounds, and the ejector rod will not move them.


What's up here?

 

[Doug M.]

Not new or uncommon. IIRC, Elmer Keith commented on this in "Six-guns", the first edition of which was printed before I was born. Why? And why has it not been addressed? No idea.

 

[alwslate]

It seems to vary from gun to gun with no particular pattern. My five screw pre 17 from 1952 has chambers that are fine, zero problems. My 18-4 had chambers that were so tight that the gun was basically unusable. I had to use a short nylon dowel rod to force any rounds into the chambers. I bought a reamer and reamed the chambers myself. A lot of metal came out during the reaming and now it is a pleasure to shoot.

 

[Richard93]

A friend of mine had the same thing happen with a Ruger gp100.
Theoretically, tight chambers help improve accuracy. I recently used a match pistol for precision shooting at 50m (pictured) and the chambers are so tight that you have to push the cartridge in with your thumb to get it in. Luckily the extractor was spring loaded. I understand that on a revolver this is annoying.

 

[rct269]

What's up here is S&W has slowly evolved from a bunch of folks who made their name by making the best possible product for the price to a bunch of folks who now do EVERYTHING at the LOWEST possible cost. Call it progress if you're not allowed to say bad words.

This started---just started in the mid 1950's----and has now almost reached maturity----which is to say it can't get any worse---but they're working on a way to make it worse. It's unlikely most folks realized what was going on----unless they spent a good amount of time being one of those "executive" sorts--------and had been sent off to "problem solving school" two or three times.

Been there---done that!!!

The solution is new ownership that knows better. Don't hold your breath!

Ralph Tremaine

 

[Richard93]

What's up here is S&W has slowly evolved from a bunch of folks who made their name by making the best possible product for the price to a bunch of folks who now do EVERYTHING at the LOWEST possible cost. Call it progress if you're not allowed to say bad words.

This started---just started in the mid 1950's----and has now almost reached maturity----which is to say it can't get any worse---but they're working on a way to make it worse. It's unlikely most folks realized what was going on----unless they spent a good amount of time being one of those "executive" sorts--------and had been sent off to "problem solving school" two or three times.

Been there---done that!!!

The solution is new ownership that knows better. Don't hold your breath!

Ralph Tremaine

I have a 1902 Carl Gustav in 6.5x55 and I can definitely say that the detail and precision in the machining is superior to some modern rifles I own. So I totally understand what you are saying.

 

[Oldengineer]

I spent some time in manufacturing engineering in the late seventies. We made fuel and air handling components (carburetors). The detail drawings specified the diameter and the +/- tolerance for the hole, with a drill size followed by a ream size because we new drills don’t produce accurate diameters. My faded recollection is that undersized hole diameters were caused by worn reamers and a lack of statistical process control (SPC). Basically, the tooling was worn and the machine operator didn’t know it or didn’t care. I can’t imagine Smith and Wesson NOT being capable of making cylinder chambers to print. Has anyone ever seen the 22 cylinder drawing? Are the sticky cylinders to print? I’d expect this problem with the long 22 magnum cartridge, not with the 22 long rifle.

BTW, I have 4 K frame 22’s that do not exhibit this problem. They are from the early/mid 1950’s with one later 18-4.

 

[Wyo]

I’ve had nearly a dozen S&W .22’s over the years, both J frame and K frame, and all but one of them had the “tight chamber” problem. Some of them were so tight that the ejector rod had to be hammered to get them out. I finally bought my own reamer and solved the problem. Interestingly, all of those guns actually shot better after they were reamed. To be fair, I had the same problem with an old Ruger Single Six too. Solved it the same way.

 

[bullmack]

There two components involved, a finished cartridge diameter and a chamber bore. Does ALL ammo fit too tight. What are the ammo tolerances and the manufacturers adherence to those tolerances? It takes two to tango!

 

[H Richard]

This isn't a new problem. It has dated Way Way back. I have reamed K22 Outdoorsman revolvers made back in the 30's, and I have reamed the 10 shot cylinder of my 617-6, and probably 8 - 10 of various vintage in between. My interpretation is S&W starts with a match grade reamer and continues using it until it wears out. The period of the last couple thousand revolvers were probably small enough they cause trouble. The first several thousand revolvers would be the "loose" ones that didn't cause the problems.



After reaming, I find absolutely no change in accuracy from any I have done.

 

[Muley Gil]

This isn't a new problem. It has dated Way Way back. I have reamed K22 Outdoorsman revolvers made back in the 30's, and I have reamed the 10 shot cylinder of my 617-6, and probably 8 - 10 ov various vintage in between. My interpretation is S&W starts with a match grade reamer and continues using it until it wears out. The period of the last couple thousand revolvers were probably large enough they didn't cause any trouble. The first several thousand revolvers would be the "tight" ones that cause the problems.



After reaming, I find absolutely no change in accuracy from any I have done.

I would have thought that a new reamer would create larger chambers and that a worn one would make SMALLER chambers.

 

[glenwolde]

The chambers on my .22's were all tight, but they seemed to work with standard velocity ammo.

 

[WR Moore]

It's machining wisdom/experience that worn drills/reamers go oversize. Plus, if you're working in stainless, heat buildup during the machining can require drills & reamers that bear little resemblance to the finished hole size.

Every once in awhile I expect some parts don't get finish reamed. May be a single item, or a whole tray/pan. Someone just gets distracted/rushed.

The real puzzle was a .357 that had 3 undersize chambers in a clover leaf pattern.

 

[cmansguns]

welcome from Virginia ... get a reamer!

Welcome to the Forum from Virginia. If you plan on staying around Smith & Wesson 22LR wheelguns, my advice is to jump right in, but a Manson cylinder finishing reamer like I did and you and your family if you have one and they enjoy shooting sports too will REALLY APPRECIATE the reaming job. I don't know what you paid the gunsmith but my reamer (had the vise, tap handle, and soft jaws) was paid for on the very first Model 34-1 I did and since then so many Model 17's, K22's etc. have gone the same way and everybody is happy.

There are several threads on the Forum with "how" to do it and you really do not have to have a machining background, but on most post war II 22's I've had ...it needed reaming.

Best of luck on enjoying those 22's.

 

[stansdds]

Tight chambers is a long standing issue with a lot of S&W's revolvers chambered in 22LR. Best guess as to why it happened to some, but not all, of S&W's rimfire revolvers is that the tighter chambers are the result of using well worn chamber reamers. As the reamer wears, it will get slightly smaller in diameter, the result is a minimum diameter chamber.

 

[SnidelyWhiplash]

Reamers...cutters...all tooling wears out eventually. There are plus and minus tolerances supposedly adhered to before replacing tooling parts. Maybe S&W needs to tighten those approved tolerances and replace such parts more often.

Another way to look at it...any particular gun (or any product)...might have been made when the tooling was new and fresh or at the point of requiring replacement...or anywhere in between. There's no way of knowing where in that cycle your gun may have been manufactured.

 

[Empe]

My 17-3 is the same way after a number of shots fired . The empties in several of the chambers require a pretty forceful push in order to be ejected.
And I keep it pretty clean too.

 

[Narragansett]

I am no gunsmith, but I think that S&W tried to stretch the use of worn reamers, when they should have changed them.

I have a 17-3 that gets tight after 50 rounds and needs a brush run through it. I have not tried my 17-4 and 18-3 yet. If I experience tight chambers in them, I will buy a reamer and do them all

 

[stansdds]

I am no gunsmith, but I think that S&W tried to stretch the use of worn reamers, when they should have changed them.

I expect you are correct.

 

[max503]

I've had to ream both my Model 34 and my Model 18.