S&W 686 DA cycling issue

P

PitBull

New member
The gun is a 686-3 that I bought used in 1993. It has seen only light to moderate use in all those years I've had it. Today I was shooting it DA and right after re-loading it I experienced what I'll call short cycling for lack of a better term. I attempted to fire it in DA mode but the hammer would only cycle a very short distance as if something wasn't catching inside. I could not manually cock it with my thumb, either. The hammer wouldn't come back far enough as if it were blocked internally. It was like what happens if you intentionally prevent the trigger from returning all the way forward then try to cycle it.
I opened the cylinder and closed it again and it worked fine after that. I'm mostly a semiauto shooter but I started out with S&W revolvers and have never experienced this before.

If this is a case of a defective or worn internal part I'll just replace it myself and be done with it. This is one of my house guns that I keep loaded just in case so it needs to be reliable.

Thanks
 
Total guess but could one of the rounds not have been all the way chambered? Seems odd that an internal mechanical issue would go away by opening and closing the cylinder
 
More than likely, it needs an internal cleaning and lubing.

What I think is happening is that the trigger is returning far enough to re-engage the hand, but not far enough to re-engage the cylinder stop. When you pull the trigger, the hand's trying to advance the cylinder, but the trigger isn't engaging the cylinder stop to release the cylinder. If so, you ought to be able to visually confirm from the side of the gun that the cylinder stop's still engaging the cylinder when you're pulling the trigger on a locked gun.
 
I think the cylinder was turning but I'm not 100% certain. Out of 150 rounds this only happened once. No telling how many rounds it would take to duplicate that malfunction.

What I'm going to do is just take the sideplate off and remove all the internal parts, clean and inspect everything, re-lube, then re-assemble and hope I don't have this issue again.

Thanks for your replies,
PB
 
Taking it apart might introduce new problems.
There's really no need to do that to clean the internals.
There's plenty of access after removing the grips, and spraying around the hammer, trigger and cylinder parts using a spray cleaner with a thin nozzle.
 
There is probably no way at this time to be sure, but it might have been a failure of the cylinder bolt (the part that goes forward to unlatch the cylinder) to return all the way to the rear. That could be due to a bit of dirt or some other cause. I would keep an eye on it and see if it happens again.

Jim
 
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