My .22 revolvers cylinder chambers are not round anymore!!???!!

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sgt.rock

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I recently bought a Tanarmi .22LR TA76 single action six shot revolver, and have had a fair bit of trouble pushing the rounds into the chambers, and they are a little hard to pop out with the push rod. So, looking closer at the 6 cylinder openings, I noticed that there must have been quite a bit of dry firing done over the years, as there are noticeable indentations around all six holes, and these indentations have made the metal slightly out of round. Hence the trouble inserting a round without excessive force.
Now, would it be possible to take a fine round file, and slightly work the area that is dented into a more round shape?? Would I run the risk of removing too much metal and causing a case rupture?? Or would the risk be no greater than forcing a round into a chamber that is now "out of round".
Any help would be appreciated, as this gun is no fun to shoot presently, as loading and unloading causes a fair bit of pain to my fingertips trying to force each round in (big fingers, and a small area to apply the force)
And my search for a replacement cylinder has pretty much been fruitless.
 
The displaced metal can be "ironed" out with a little tool. Just a polished hardened piece of steel, chamber size, with a flat. Push it in with the flat against the dent, rotate it to iron out the damage.
Or, a chambering reamer could be used to clean up the chamber mouth.
Or, as you mentioned, a needle file could be used. I have used an oval file. Perhaps a small chainsaw file would be good. Just be very careful to only cut the displaced metal, don't mark up the chamber.
 
Thanks, I will try to file it out first. But thats not a bad Idea to "push it back into round" either. The metal must be semi-soft to begin with, or a firing pin wouldn't have done that damage.
 
Firing pin looks good, and I have had zero misfires in over 600 rounds. She's rock solid in the firing dept. but lacks in the speed loading. Its just a pain in the arse to have to push like a MoFo to get the rounds in 5 of the 6 chambers. One is decent. Shame, because other than that, its actually the most accurate of my three .22 handguns. It has a pretty heavy barrel, and the rifling is sharp and clean. BUT, I always end up getting frustrated, and shooting the other 2 after about 3 minutes.
 
I purchased a factory new, S&W 617 with enough tooling marks left over from the machining process that one chamber would not let the round sit flush. There was a ridge on the cylinder under the ejector and a ridge on the ejector face, both high enough that you could not close the cylinder with a round in that chamber. S&W quality control must have test fired using another chamber.
I had to clean it up so that the rounds would fit into the chambers properly. I used drill rod wrapped with various grits of sandpaper to clean the poorly machined parts. Worked well but it did take some time. Once the parts were cleaned up a bit everything worked well and boy could that revolver shoot. I regret selling it to this day.
Threemorewishes
 
Before I did any filing I think I'd try peening the metal back. To do this you'd want to get a hardened pin the size of a .22 casing. It would be inserted into the cyliner all the way but sticking out slightly. With the cylinder held in the vise using soft jaws to avoid any marking I'd use a pin punch and a hammer to tap the cylinder pin outwards against the deformation. This would reform the displaced metal pretty quickly but automatically stop when the dent was even with the rest of the metal. With luck it would not even damage the blueing. Use l8 to 10 light taps then test fit. Increase the strength of the taps untill you can tell the metal is moving then repeat the series until the cartridges slip in and out the way they are supposed to.

If you do use a file be sure to wrap the tip with tape to protect the chamber further down. Insert so the tape is past the opening and use very short strokes so that you don't push the taped part out the other end.

If you have a good fitting file that has no room for safety tape all the better. But in that case you'll want to removed the teeth from all but about a 60 degree segment of the file for a long enough length to do this job. You can "safety" a file by grinding or stoning off the teeth. You don't need to remove the entire depth of the teeth, just enough that they won't cut. For a small job like this I'd suggest just stone the teeth off then polish the safe part with some 320 then 600 wetordry sandpaper. Yes, this does more or less ruin the file for anything else but modifiying a file is pretty cheap and it may come in handy for something else some day where you want some pin point cutting accuracy.

The key point here is that to do a nice job you want to use a forming or cutting tool that is very close to the correct diameter so that your repair has the same curvature as the original chamber.
 
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Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I stopped off at Can Tire on the way home, got a tiny chainsaw file, taped the end off, and carefully , filed the oblong edge off with short strokes. IT WORKED LIKE A CHARM. The rounds drop in perfectly with no play. I test fired it just now, and it is like new again. I love getting a nearly given up on gun back to #1 status. AWESOME GUYS HERE!!!!!!!!
 
If you get another like this do not file away the metal. That metal was displaced from the chamber edge due to hammer/firing pin impact. If the indent was deep enough you will get a weak (short) hammer strike and possible failure to fire due to the indent. Instead, use a tool that pushes the displaced metal back into the chamber edge to come close to restoring a proper face on the cylinder.
 
Well done and I'm happy that it worked out so easily for you.

As you can see for doing little things like this you're best off starting with a small solution and only escalate the "weapons of torture" as needed to do just enough to get the job done.
 
You were lucky. Never file away peening on a rimfire chamber. Always peen it back.
I have brought back several chambers that have firing pin damage with a round tapered punch. And I have seen several that have been made worse with a file.
One ruger rimfire pistol was turned into junk with a file.
 
The amount I removed was so small, I felt confident that it wouldn't cause any problems. It was the tiniest little lip that just caught the opening of each rimfire case. All rounds would chamber, but the loading gate is so small, and my hands are so big, that I had to dig the rim of each round into the tip of my finger causing discomfort after 3 or 4 cylinders worth. If there was more metal, I would have done the peening. I can't thank you guys enough for the wise words. (its in great shape, but I got it off a good friend for peanuts, as he had shoulder surgery and had to give up shooting all handguns.)
 
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