Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Anybody Want to Swap End Shake Shims for S&W k-frame

I have some extra j-frame size Power Custom end shake shims and am looking for 1 or 2 for the k-frame. Rather than pay for a pack of 10, anyone have spares and want to do a trade?

Ella

I'd find someone who has a crane stretcher...

How come? I'm no smith. I have found the shims useful in the past. Is crane stretching a superior solution?

Ella

Yes. It removes the end shake so shims aren't required.

Ella
PM me.
I may have a few extra.

Bob, sent you a pm.

I'd still be curious to know if there are advantages to yoke stretching over using shims....

Ella

The yoke stretcher swedges the end of crane shaft effectively making it longer. The tool looks like a tubing cutter and is used in the same manner. Once the end is swedged you file/stone it to hand fit the crane to the cylinder removing the end shake. Used to be the proper way to fix a S&W...

I attended a S&W Revolver Armorer's School in the late 80's. The students all made their own yoke stretching tools by simply dulling the cutting blade of a standard tubing cutter. Contained in the tool kit we were issued by S&W were yoke liners for both "J" and "K" frame size yokes. To properly stretch a yoke without damaging it, the liner is necessary:



When repairing cylinder end shake by stretching the yoke, the process looks like this:



The dulled tubing cutter swages the yoke and increases its length. After doing this repair a few times, you get a feel for just how much swaging is necessary to remove cylinder end shake.

I did repair a few guns using shims, but did not care for that procedure because it adds a small part that is easily lost, and on some guns the cylinder tended to drag in rotation because of the added friction of the shim. This negatively affected the double action trigger pull.

Before doing any swaging of the yoke, make sure that the end shake is caused by the fit of the cylinder to the yoke. There is another form of end shake (called yoke end shake) that is caused by the fit of the yoke in the frame, and the cure for that involves peening the yoke and refitting the yoke screw.

Thanks for the post, wildhobby. That procedure looks more involved than dropping in a shim. Yoke is tight in the frame, but there's a tad more movement than I'd like when the cylinder is in lock up. I've not noticed a degradation in double action pull, but now that you're mentioning it I'll have to double check....

Ella

I would be willing to swage your yoke for you if you want...does that sound like an obscene proposition????

Sounds a little something! But I do appreciate the kind offer.

I'm down in South Carolina and might as well have a smith in town do it. I think I'm going to shim it first and see what that feels like. I've had good luck with the shims in the past and saw some back and forth on another forum about which treatment was best. But I'll be saving your photo tutorial for future reference.

Thanks again,
Ella