Carry pistol failure..

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".....then after loading it checked that there was smooth cylinder rotation since moon clips can, if mistreated, get bent and cause drag. All was well."

In my opinion, this is what caused the breakage. DA revolvers are not designed to have the cylinder turned in this manner, and is very likely the cause of your problem.

Nope. After you pull the trigger slightly, and the hand initiates cylinder rotation, and you release the trigger, the hand retreats to its inward position and is not even close to the cylinder star. The only thing contacting the cylinder is the bolt, which snaps into the next available locking notch as you continue cylinder rotation by hand.
 
I carry a Smith 642, front pocket carrybit everyday/allday for about eight years no.
I wanted to see how long it would take with no cleaning other then a patch through the cylinder and barrel.
It took a little over seven years to start to get too gumed up to be of any use.
Now it will get a regular cleaning atleast once a month.

A couple of years ago Costal Tractor had a sale on the 642 revolvers, $359 so I bought an extra one.
I also bought a stainless Smith 640.

I trust a revolver over a semi, just a personal thing.
 
I’ve always liked Revolvers best. Back in the day I tried several semi autos but always had a backup snub in my pocket. I read too many stories of handgun failures and a backup was needed. These days I only carry J-Frames. Normally it’s Two 442’s. Recently I got a 3” S&W36 now I’m carrying the 36 in the waist and a 442 in my off hand pocket. 742BF431-E0A0-4FD4-8D51-F0C3D1C12B11.jpeg
 
I had a M60 for over 20 years wish I still had it) but now I carry either my 642-1 or 638-3. Both are great guns and I have never had a failure. I've been carrying j frames since 1978 when I started in police work. I carried a M19 then a M686 for first 15 years of my LE career and the only problem I ever had was the hand on my 19 had to be replaced after about 19 years but the gun still fired, the hand worked it had just worn down. Also I have never felt the need to "Check Rotation" of the cylinder after loading. Unsafe practice!!
 
get the hand replaced and carry the gun. that sort of failure is extremely rare on a gun that hasn't been abused. chances of it happening again with the same gun are far less than it happening the first time with another gun.
 
I read that every day before heading out the door Wild Bill Hickock cleared & cleaned his revolver cylinders & reloaded them with fresh primers & new powder charge before heading out the door. This guy knew that gun failure was not an option. Must be a hell of a thing to draw a gun in a bad situation only to realize it was no good.
 
Yep.

Nor have I.

It's waay beyond me.

Does Sarah Chang rotate violins for concerts?

Sarah Chang does not die if her violin malfunctions. But if you switch to guitars, many guitarists keep several up on stage with them and switch between them for different sounds, and then there's the 'smash-it-up-at-the-end-of-the-show' guitar......of course, they have 'guitar techs' who lovingly take care of their axes for them-kind of like having your own personal gunsmith.
 
Sarah Chang does not die if her violin malfunctions.
We were speaking of "rotation".

Malfunctions are something else.

[QUOTE="entropy, post: 11394634, member: 9189",,,]if you switch to guitars, many guitarists keep several up on stage with them and switch between them for different sounds, and then there's the 'smash-it-up-at-the-end-of-the-show' guitar....[/QUOTE]The civilian defender does not need "different sounds".
 
“Yesterday evening I pulled it from the pocket and pulled the trigger just enough to introduce cylinder rotation, and NO ROTATION.”

In the house!?


Either way that sucks. I enjoy revolvers but they seem very complicated mechanically. I’ve take a few apart and prefer them for AIWB carry but I think if I had to put money on which gun would fire the longest without malfunction it would be glock or AR.

They’ve been around for a long time.
 
They’ve been around for a long tim

Yes, modern double actions are about the same age as machine guns, smokeless powder, and semi automatic pistols.


I would agree that I would get the hand fixed and keep shooting. But be aware that all guns can have parts failures.
 
I’ve had two revolvers with broken cylinder hands, both were Taurus. One was a model 66 357 magnum , the other a 22; both had less than 200 rounds fired.
 
Having dinner at friend's house about 6 years ago and was discussing carry guns...he pulled his out to show me....

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342 Ti I think..he had a pair of them. One for the house and one he carried...only had a couple of boxes of ammo through them...

Barrel unscrewed and and apparently fell out of the bottom of the holster as only the shroud was there... Called S&W the next day and it was back in about two weeks...

Bob
 
Nope. After you pull the trigger slightly, and the hand initiates cylinder rotation, and you release the trigger, the hand retreats to its inward position and is not even close to the cylinder star. The only thing contacting the cylinder is the bolt, which snaps into the next available locking notch as you continue cylinder rotation by hand.


If it were me, as a S&W revolver owner and shooter, and a S&W armorer, I'd not do this sort of partial manual manipulation of the trigger, hand & cylinder to any of my S&W revolvers. FWIW, that's not something taught in the revolver armorer class.

It sounds like you're engaging the hand's tip against a ratchet to start carry-up, but then instead of allowing the hand to slide up past the initial cut angle and slide against the next part of the ratchet, you make the hand drop away before the tip has moved away from the small angled cut of the ratchet (as designed).

Also, if you're using hand pressure to rotate the cylinder (thinking about turning the cylinder until the stop's ball locks into a cylinder stop notch) as you think that hand is pulling away, you may be introducing some additional unintended (and unrecognized) pressure during the ratchet/hand tip engagement.

This isn't how the hand was designed to contact the ratchet cuts, and you're stopping the normal movement of the hand's top tip/edge in an awkward point of its normal action. You're basically introducing a sudden change of the mechanical engagement, function and movement of the hand (relative to the ratchet cuts) that wasn't intended by the engineers. Why?

If you want to confirm carry-up with the empty cylinder, why not just confirm carry-up by pulling the trigger in the manner it was designed to be functioned? You could also look in through the head space gap to confirm the firing pin tip protrudes, at the same time. ;) Then, after you confirm carry-up, you could do a last visual inspection of the hand's tip. (This would've probably allowed you to have seen the damaged tip before loading and holstering the snub.)

Now, since this involves a revolver that uses moon clips, if you want to use the clips for the "check" I'd use dummy rounds (or empty cases) to position and stabilize the the clips for the carry-up check, if doing such a check is something you feel bound and determined to do. (Then I'd check the firing pin movement and tip integrity by opening the cylinder and pushing on the thumb latch, and just look at the firing pin tip as it protrudes from the breech face for the trigger press.)

Granted, it always possible that there was an unseen materials or manufacturing defect in that hand, and it finally failed (without any help from you). But why risk introducing some unusual mechanical operation and resulting condition that may, even if remotely, introduce unintended and unnecessary stress on the parts?

Since this is what might be described as an unusual parts failure, hopefully the revolver repair tech will closely examine the extractor, checking for any signs of the hand having damaged the ratchet cuts (if it was a mechanical interaction that eventually caused the hand's tip to break). Extractors are cut by a special factory-made tool nowadays. Basically a trigger of the right model to which a length of steel bar has been welded, and in which is mounted a specially hardened "cutting" hand, which cuts off the ratchet tips with each "trigger stroke". Any fine tuning can still be done with a Barrett file, though.

Not my 940, and I'm wasn't there and able to inspect it. It's your gun and your business. That said, I'm certainly not going to go out and pull one of my S&W revolvers from the safe to try and replicate the mechanical action to try and duplicate what you like to do, either. (Maybe if I had a beater revolver used in a revolver armorer class, but not with any of my own. :) )

Just a couple friendly thoughts.
 
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The more parts a device has just makes more things that can go wrong. Wafer thin Moon clips IMO are an unnecessary addition and I know this from once owning a Taurus 9mm revolver (to back up my G17). Now its 640 on belt 340 in pocket or ankle, no moon clips, instant NY reload. 38+P vs 9mm, 9mm isn't much of an improvemen, not to mention that 357 is also possible in the J frame. The French wanted a 9mm revolver which is why they were manufactured in the first place.
 
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“The French wanted a 9mm revolver which is why they were manufactured in the first place.”

I don’t think the French, or Sarah Chang, had any direct involvement in the failure of the hand in question.

France did help us win the Revolution, paving the way for our Constitution and subsequent 2’nd Amendment.
 
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Yesterday evening I pulled it from the pocket and pulled the trigger just enough to introduce cylinder rotation, and NO ROTATION.

Partial pull of the trigger to see if there's rotation on a loaded revolver..where? Pretty gutsy, if ya ask me..and you aren't..
 
I have cleaned up some off topic etc posts, let's please stay on topic, it's an interesting subject.
 
I was putting my S&W 940 (9mm revolver) into rotation so took it to the range yesterday morning. I fired 20 rounds, four 5-shot moon clips of Federal HST 124 grain +P and it shot great. I cleaned and lubed it in the appropriate places.

Before loading it, as I always do with revolvers, I checked the carry up on all five chambers, then after loading it checked that there was smooth cylinder rotation since moon clips can, if mistreated, get bent and cause drag. All was well.

Put it in it’s DeSantis Nemesis pocket holster in the left front pocket, and went about my day feeling pretty good about my latest carry piece.

Yesterday evening I pulled it from the pocket and pulled the trigger just enough to introduce cylinder rotation, and NO ROTATION.

I removed the moon clip full of live rounds and tried again. The cylinder would not rotate, though the trigger pull was smooth, and I could see the bolt drop and pop back up at the appropriate times. I pulled the trigger with the cylinder open by actuating the cylinder release, and saw the hand going through it’s proper motion, but noticed the tip of the hand that is supposed to engage the cylinder star was broken off!

This means that the revolver had silently malfunctioned by itself in my pocket after successfully firing 20 rounds that morning, AND being function tested before being put in my pocket and counted on to be my possible life saver.

And there was NOTHING I could have done differently to prevent it. One of my steps when I am cleaning a revolver is to put a drop of oil on the hand tip where it emerges from the frame and and actuate the cylinder to spread the oil onto the star, then wipe off excess from the star, so I know the hand was okay when I put the pistol back into service.

Very sobering discovery.

I called S&W and they are paying shipping both ways for return for repair.

Even though the 940 is no longer made, all the other Centennial line is, so this there must be many thousands out there.

I’ve had a bunch of S&W revolvers,,models 28, 29, 25, 686, and 36, and never experienced a parts breakage.

The fact that going out the next day, if I only had that 940 on me, and needed to use it in a self defense scenarios, I would have had only one shot, is the sobering part to me.
AND = here is where you go to read the " 2 gun carry " thread on THR.

As was taught to me " 2 is one,one is NONE" as far as survival ANYWHERE & ANYTIME goes.

That goes for ANY tool or piece of gear that is a LIFE SAVER and without it you might die or suffer greatly.

Obviously,if you needed that pistol and all you got was the one shot off,are you willing to bet your very life that you would have survived ?.

You,and only you can answer that question.
 
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