686 Function Question?

be2man

be2man

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I've got a 686 stainless, 5" barrel, 7 shot unfluted cylinder I bought used off the EE this spring. I've been happy with the accuracy and it seems tight in the right places. The issue I've noticed is that sometimes when shooting double action the trigger pull becomes like it's binding somewhere and much heavier feeling and then breaks unexpectedly compared when it's functioning "normally" I had a gunsmith look at it briefly when he was out on the range testing some another guns. He dry fired it through a couple of rotations and thought that the timing was good and no sloppyness in his opinion. It doesn't happen when dryfiring with dummy rounds and happens intermittently with live fire double action, maybe every 30-40 rounds. Single action seems normal with the exception that sometimes it is harder to #### on a particular chamber? I don't know at this point if it's the same chamber that this is happening on. I guess I'd have to mark the cylinder to try and determine if there's a issue with a particular chamber.
Is this an indication of a potential problem, and who would you recommend as a S&W gunsmith in Canada if I wanted to send it out for an assessment/tuneup?
Thanks
 
Very common to have unburned powder accumulate under the extractor, this makes the cylinder assembly longer and causes binding. A simple clean with a toothbrush.

The cylinder might be dragging across the barrel, easy enough to check when held to the light and rotated while pushing the cylinder forward.

If you are rapid firing in DA, the trigger may not be moving forward far enough to re-engage. This almost always locks up the action solid instead of making the pull hard though.

~~ Could be a high primer.
 
Could be dirt or powder residue on the cylinder face and under the extractor star. Happens to my 686 and GP100 sometimes, when I let these areas get too dirty. Hardly any cylinder endplay on these two revolvers, btw.

Sometimes even with a clean cylinder face, this "binding" occurs and I am guessing headspace could be too small, so some cartridges with thicker than average rims are binding on the recoil shield. I only shoot my reloads.

I sent the GP100 back to the Ruger Warranty center in Quebec for the same problem when it was brand new. Problem went away but comes back once in a while. I just turn the cylinder manually and continue shooting.
 
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Ive been shooting Wolf remanufactured .38 special when its happening. It's a mix of a bunch of different kinds of brass depending on the box. Could be a headspace or rim thickness or primer issue I guess. I'll keep track if it happens with the .357 mag factory PMC I've got.
 
If it does not happen when the cylinder is empty of shells then it has to be a headspace problem. I would buy a box of factory 38 special or 357 mag shells and see if that cures your problem. In all likelyhood it will.

Graydog
 
All of the above advice is very good. There's another possibility that happened on my 686. You can get a build up of carbon and crap in the cylinder in front of the case mouth so a round won't seat all the way in, this classically gives all the symptoms your describing. All the cylinder bores should be scrubbed out well with a tight fitting bronze brush and lots of bore cleaner.

If you shoot a lot of 38 Spl in a 357 mag revolver you can get some real erosion that can cause problems like this when you chamber the longer 357 cases. In my 686 I ended up using only 357 cases for all my loads including light 38 Spl wadcutter loads. Avoided a lot of problems that way.
 
be2man said:
I've got a 686 stainless, 5" barrel, 7 shot unfluted cylinder I bought used off the EE this spring. I've been happy with the accuracy and it seems tight in the right places. The issue I've noticed is that sometimes when shooting double action the trigger pull becomes like it's binding somewhere and much heavier feeling and then breaks unexpectedly compared when it's functioning "normally" I had a gunsmith look at it briefly when he was out on the range testing some another guns. He dry fired it through a couple of rotations and thought that the timing was good and no sloppyness in his opinion. It doesn't happen when dryfiring with dummy rounds and happens intermittently with live fire double action, maybe every 30-40 rounds. Single action seems normal with the exception that sometimes it is harder to #### on a particular chamber? I don't know at this point if it's the same chamber that this is happening on. I guess I'd have to mark the cylinder to try and determine if there's a issue with a particular chamber.
Is this an indication of a potential problem, and who would you recommend as a S&W gunsmith in Canada if I wanted to send it out for an assessment/tuneup?
Thanks
Click to expand...

If the ammo is not factory and the primers are not seated properly they will cause the cylinder to bind up.

Buddy of mine just had that happen not too long ago with his Ruger. His cylinder jammed up solid, luckily it was a single action and he could just pop the whole cylinder out. When we looked at the rounds ( which were reloads, but not his) It was obvious that the primers were not seated properly and were setting out to far, causing the cylinder to bind.
 
If it turns out to be powder residue building up under the star then simply start tipping the gun up more when ejecting the empties. With the cylinder out of the frame it's quite accpeptable to tilt the gun very muzzle up since clearly nothing is going to go "BANG!" or jet out of the barrel.
 
Thanks for the input. I run it pretty clean most of the time and I do give the chambers a thorough clean with a brush each cleaning. Next time out when I feel the bind I'll stop and check for the head space or primer issue and see if it's repeatable on the unfired round/chamber.
 
GunGuy34 said:
If the ammo is not factory and the primers are not seated properly they will cause the cylinder to bind up.

Buddy of mine just had that happen not too long ago with his Ruger. His cylinder jammed up solid, luckily it was a single action and he could just pop the whole cylinder out. When we looked at the rounds ( which were reloads, but not his) It was obvious that the primers were not seated properly and were setting out to far, causing the cylinder to bind.
Click to expand...

+1....that would be my guess.
 
no matter what you do don't send it to Wortner's gun work in Ontario. Took it a 11 months to fix mine. I had to send it twice and it's not even really fix. Which means once in a while my gun will still do the same problem once in a while.
 
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