Hangup on cocking...

[zorba]

I have a .22 short that was made in 1992. When I bought it last year, it had apparently either never had been shot or perhaps one round per chamber at most. Since I've had it, I've run 125 rds through it.

It has an odd behavior when trying to cock it. If I cock it slowly, no problems. If I cock it faster - but what I'd still call a moderate-fast speed, the hammer will "hang up" at just past the half cocked position and won't cock fully. Backing off to the half cock position will then enable me to fully cock the gun. This APPEARS to be happening on one chamber only.

Do I:

1) Ignore this as this is a known behavior of these guns?
2) Ignore this as it needs breaking in some more?
3) Contact the factory for further advice?

Please advise...

[cfsharry]

Door # 3.

[boone123]

zobra
With the gun UNLOADED, when you cock the gun, watch the front of the cylinder and see if the front of the cylinder is rubbing on the back of the barrel.
If its to close, when you cock the gun it can push the cylinder forward enough to cause a slight drag. When you pull the hammer back the hand that turns the cylinder is pushing the cylinder forward. Filing a bit off the back of the barrel is the fix.
I have fixed that on NAAs, S&Ws, and Rugers. If you try filing, go slow as in take off a bit ,and try it.
If the gun has been fired a bit, and the front of the cylinder is black with burned powder you can see the drag marks.

[zorba]

zobra
With the gun UNLOADED, when you cock the gun, watch the front of the cylinder and see if the front of the cylinder is rubbing on the back of the barrel.
If its to close, when you cock the gun it can push the cylinder forward enough to cause a slight drag. When you pull the hammer back the hand that turns the cylinder is pushing the cylinder forward. Filing a bit off the back of the barrel is the fix.
I have fixed that on NAAs, S&Ws, and Rugers. If you try filing, go slow as in take off a bit ,and try it.
If the gun has been fired a bit, and the front of the cylinder is black with burned powder you can see the drag marks.

I'll take a looksee - thanx!

[zorba]

Just an update - the gun is now at NAA for repair. Goddess willing, it will be fine - and stay fine - when I get it back.

[zorba]

Its back.

The list of parts they did NOT replace is shorter. They did not replace the frame, sideplate, cylinder, cylinder pin, grips, grip screw, nor hammer pin.

Everything else was replaced! $51 worth of parts by my reckoning, and of course it now works great. Hopefully it will stay that way. They even engraved it in the same style their current production is done - originally it had some kind of black etched logo and text - they buffed that off and engraved it. Looks good and it came back just in time to go to the range with me this weekend!

[JRobyn]

Awesome!  Sounds like they just decided it was cheaper and easier to replace ALL the guts, but I still would have liked to know exactly what the problem was.  Very odd that they did cosmetic work too.

- Jay

[zorba]

...I still would have liked to know exactly what the problem was.

Me too!

[JRobyn]

Did you closely examine the cylinder to barrel gap while cocking to see if there was any interference before you sent it back?  There's what I think is the most likely suspect.  But if that was the issue, NAA would have only needed to trim a tiny bit from the back of the barrel to establish proper clearance, and not replaced any guts.  If something was wrong with the hand, it would have affected ALL 5 bores unless it was that ONE of the cylinder bosses that the hand engages was "off", but that would have likely required replacing the cylinder.

Perhaps an AHA!  I was just examining mine and have another theory.  If the cylinder locking dog was hanging in just ONE of the cylinder recesses it would prevent the cylinder being able to rotate and cause what you were seeing.  So maybe your original locking dog was just a smidgen too thick?  Even so, if this were the case, I would think they would have replaced the cylinder too??

- Jay