Let me start by saying I know *nothing* about wheelguns.


I picked up a model 19 recently mail order. Always wanted one.  It was a police trade in gun, so wear and tear was expected.  I just want a shooter.

First....  I got one with a rear sight blade where it had obviously been dropped on it.  No biggie.... $20 and a new rear sight blade kit and I was good as new.  Kind of weird that you "break" the original screw by design to remove it, but oh well, it wasn't hard to replace.


Next, I noticed the extractor rod has had someone put a vice or pliers on it:



It was loctited in place, I had to put a torch on the extractor rod to get it to break free.  



Next - I notice some dinging on the yoke.  Is this wear normal?  On the inside of the cylinder I can see where it is a little scarred up inside there where this is at. However, the cylinder spins smoothly on the yoke.





Next, on each cylinder I can see what looks like "peening".  Or, this might be how they are made.  Or is this a sign of wear from being shot over time?




Lastly, and most importantly, when I test shot it - it would not extract.

I tracked it down to one cylinder that is the worst - it has a pronounced "ding" in it.  A second cylinder has a similar ding, but MUCH less pronounced:





I will take a small round file and smooth out these dings and that should take care of them.


I am curious.... what do you think could cause that to happen?

Is this most likely bubba the cop-self-gunsmith, or bubba the cop armorer dropping the cylinder on something?


Anything else I should be checking?  I inspected the firing pin and timing, and both are excellent.

I suspect the dings on the end of the yoke shaft were where someone attempted to correct cylinder end shake by peening the edges of the shaft to stretch it.

This could be easily corrected by lightly stoning off the roughness, using a piloted face cutter to square up the end of the shaft and using one or two greased stainless end shake washers from Brownell's.
This is an approved method of correcting end shake in the S&W revolvers.
People often just drop in a washer or two without squaring the shaft end, but in this case you'd almost certainly be better off to use the piloted cutter to even and square the end of the shaft to clean up the damage.

Probably the damage to the ejector rod was when pliers were used to unscrew the rod so they could get to the yoke shaft.
Just buy a new rod and after installation check it for straightness.

The chamber mouth denting damage can be corrected but be careful not to remove more metal then absolutely necessary to allow easy extraction but not to weaken case head support.
More metal then that is often cut off chamber mouths when doing a speed loading bevel on the outer chamber mouths.
At the same time you could lightly clean up the inner mouth roughness, but I probably wouldn't bother unless you get hard extraction from it.
A pass with a rubber abrasive tip in the dreaded Dremel tool would remove most of whatever the inner mouth damage is fairly easily.
The dents would require more, but again, only enough to prevent extraction issues.  The dents themselves should have no effect on using the gun.

Best guess, the damage was done by Billy Bob gunsmithing attempts.
Just how you'd put that dent in the chamber mouth is a guess.

Bad extraction could come from the ejector moving with any case head swelling in the unsupported area.

Get a few cases expanding and they wedge the extractor against other casings until they are all a press fit against eachother.


Check your fired casings to see if they have a swell/buldge near the rim.   Each case doing it just a little can have an incremental effect in addition to rough chambers or other defects.

I ran into this with an older 28-2 that I chased some hot bkue dot loads in.    I stopped after seeing the flame cutting from just 3 cylinders but also saw tough/difficult extraction because the cases were bulging against the extractor star.   6 rounds later and they wedged themselves collectively.

Additional info:

I'm also wondering about the round divot in the face of the cylinder under the ejector.
I've never seen something like that, and God only knows how or why that happened.
As long as it's level with the cylinder recess there should be no problem with that.

I seriously doubt a department armorer would do that sort of botch damage, and in most departments of any size, if a cop was caught doing that kind of damage he'd be paying for a new gun for the department and would likely face some sort of discipline.
In the old days a cop could get away with modifying his service revolver, but after the later 60's lawsuits pretty well ended any non-approved alterations or "repairs" other then by the department armorer or authorized gunsmith.

It's more likely that some previous owner did all this after it was sold by a police department and before you got it.
I have seen private purchase used guns sold by distributors as part of a batch of police guns.
People tend to think ex-cop guns would not be damaged like this and sometimes sellers take advantage to pass off some non-cop guns in the mix.

Bottom line:  More damage then you'd expect for a police gun, but it isn't ruined.  Everything can be corrected, but not back to like-new.
With a little effort and barring any more damage showing up, this should make a nice shooter.
The major expense would be in buying a piloted facing cutter from Brownell's, but you might find a good local gunsmith who has the tooling and do it cheaper then buying the cutter and pilot.

Someone didn't use a proper cylinder holder to unscrew the extractor rod and likely used some single piece of steel dowel wedged into the cylinder at an angle trying to keep the cylinder from turning, possibly while it was still on the revolver and they wedged it against the frame.

Thanks guys.

I cleaned up the dings and now a fired case will slip in and out (it would not before).  I used a small fine round file and went very slow.  I'll report back after I get a chance to shoot it more.

Get a new or new old stock ejector rod.  The right way to install is to vise the rod (NOT the cylinder) in a padded vise (leather seems to work best) and twist the cylinder on.  While there is a tool out there to get it really tight, I have never had a problem with just a good hand tighten.  In my experience you can get more torque with a hand on the cylinder than any sort of pliers/grips/etc on the ejector rod tip, and no chance to damage it.

Nice find.

Looks like you're getting there.
Oh, and never "flip" the cylinder closed like you see the assholes in the movies do. That will fuck up your yoke.

Also, when you're tightening the new ejector rod, place 6 empty cases in the cylinder.  This will help support the ejector star during the tightening.

You have the newer ejector star, which is a little more robust than the older pinned ejector stars.  You have to be especially careful when tightening down the ejector rod on the pinned ejector stars as the pins can be occasionally sheared off.

Also, I've noticed that new ejector rods sometimes need a little dressing on the inside of the front of the rod (the knurled end). Sometimes they can be sharp and make it difficult to release the cylinder.