Skip to main content
Help Center Community Shop

The Revolver is Jamming

allen griggs
My brother has a 1917 Smith and Wesson.
You can load it up and it will fire fine, all six shots.

Reload it, and it may be jammed. The cylinder won't turn and the trigger won't pull.
You have to jiggle the cylinder and the trigger to make it work.
Then, on the third or fourth shot, it may jam again.

Then you can reload it and it will fire fine again, all 6 shots.
Reload it again and it will be jammed.

He took the gun to a guy who claims to be a gunsmith near Greer SC.
This guy took the gun apart, found nothing wrong, lubed the gun up and pronounced it "fine."
He charged my brother fifty bucks.

After this "repair" the gun was just as bad as before.

It doesn't matter if it is .45 acp, or .45 auto rimmed, or if you use full moon clips or not.

Boat anchor?
0

Comments

8 comments

Date Votes
  • rufe-snow
    Check the extractor rod, they have a tendency to unscrew. I believe the old ones had right hand threads. To cure this problem S & W went to left hand threads.
    0
  • navc130
    I agree with rufe-snow; it may be a loose extractor rod. I had a S&W "repair" job like that once. But, at least it was fixed. A good lesson.
    0
  • Laredo Lefty
    You might also want to check for unburned powder getting under the extractor star. If you get just a little there it can cause it to bind up.
    0
  • Emmett Dunham
    I had one revolver that a piece of brass from a cleaning brush fell inside the works and as it moved around some time causing a jam other times it would work fine. This happened on a Ruger I have, long shot it could be your problem

    Emmett
    0
  • v35
    Powder under the extractor star is likely and so is insufficient barrel-to-cylinder gap.
    0
  • mrs102
    Reloads with high primers??
    0
  • beantownshootah
    quote:Originally posted by rufe-snow
    Check the extractor rod, they have a tendency to unscrew. I believe the old ones had right hand threads. To cure this problem S & W went to left hand threads.


    +1.

    This problem is common to older Smith revolvers.

    You can put a drop of loctite or the poor man's version (nail polish) on the threads before tightening down the rod to help prevent this from happening.
    0
  • xxx97
    my colt anaconda was doing the same thing,send it in to colt or a gunsmith,the gun shop sent it off...if your interested i will open the safe and see what the workorder say's...probably 10 years ago...
    0

Please sign in to leave a comment.

Recent Activity