[White Horseradish]

In my quest to pick up sick guns and nurse them back to health I have acquired (very inexpensively, it just followed me home, honest) a model 64 Smith & Wesson. It has a three inch ported bull barrel.

Now, the big thing wrong with it turned out to be that the barrel is loose. And I mean really loose, like "I can unscrew it by hand" loose.

Is this poor thing a victim of some garage 'smith, or is it possible to do that in the course of normal use?

By the way, any interesting tidbits you can tell me about this model/configuration are also appreciated. One thing I found that intrigues me is that the barrel has a flat spot in the threaded portion that looks like it is meant for a pin, yet there is no evidence of the pin on the frame. Why would they do that if they weren't pinning the barrels?

[HuntAndFish]

Which revision is it (64-x)?

[Black Knight]

I have never heard of this happening by simply shooting them. The department I work for issued us 4" S&W 64's when I started and they had unknown thousands of rounds through them and not one had a loose barrel. When we went to the Beretta 92FS those revolvers were supposedly x-rayed and microscopic cracks were found but no loose barrels. If I were to guess I would say that it probably started out as a 4" and some jackleg decided to make a 3"er out of it. Have a reputable gunsmith check it and see if it can be repaired. The 64 is to good a gun to be in this shape. Good luck.

[Seiko]

Alot of the older 64's were police guns. Basically it is a model 10 in stainless.

Not sure about your gun, but yours could have been a transition gun when they switched over from the pinned to the non pinned, and just keep using the same barrels.

Ive never had a non pinned barrel off of a Smith so cant really help you out there.

I don't ever recall seeing a 64 ported from the factory..... So I'm guessing that it was after market, and that could be your problem right there. I know they are on like 64-7 or 8 so they could have done a ported one along the line.

[White Horseradish]

This is a 64-3. You don't see a whole lot of 3" barrels in general, and this is the first ported 3" I actually saw live.

The interesting thing is, this looks to be either factory or a very good gunsmith that made it short. I'm leaning towards factory, since the lettering is properly spaced - if I hacked the barrel on my model 10 it wouldn't be.

My plan is to send it to S&W and see what they say. I can't think of anyone better to reattach a barrel.

[Old Fuff]

Earlier S&W barrels that are pinned, had what might be called "conventional" threads, and the barrel was fitted to screw up against the frame, and then cross pined.

But this was too expensive. So they went to an un-pined barrel that had a tapered thread that was screwed in for a crush fit. The two styles of barrels were not interchangeable.

But in this case someone has screwed a pined style barrel into a frame that was threaded to accept a different later-style barrel. Somehow the fact that it’s loose does not come as a surprise. :uhoh:

I would return the revolver to the factory for examination and possibly repair, but I would not have high expectations that they can fix it, except possibly by fitting up one of the current 2-piece barrels – which they may or may not have.

I wish you luck. I too seek out the cripples and the ones rejected, unloved and unwanted. ;)

[White Horseradish]

Wouldn't the frame threads be different, too? And wouldn't a crush-fit deform the threading a bit?

The barrel screws in nice and stops at the proper index with the front sight aligned. This may sound silly, but it looks like one that was supposed to be pinned and somebody just forgot the pin...

Suppose you knock out the pin, how tight is the barrel screwed on?

[White Horseradish]

Ok, here's a wild and crazy idea. Since the barrel appears to fit well, can a gunsmith just drill a hole and pin it? Or is there more to it than that?

[Old Fuff]

If you look at the unscrewed barrel you may notice that the pin slot in the barrel threads is wider then the pin itself. The purpose of the pin was extra insurance that would prevent the barrel from rotating and unscrewing, and not in any way actually hold the barrel in place.

If you can screw the barrel in to the right place by hand you'll never get it tight enough. Maybe (just maybe) S&W can turn a bit off the barrel's shoulder and set it back a thread or two. But if so, this would be a job for the factory too do.

So send it in and keep your fingers crossed. :uhoh:

[Ascot500]

I'll bet Loctite makes a product that could solve your problem.