The S&W 617 is a simple 22, the one I use most often. I hunted for the better part of a decade to find one used without the infamous Hillary Hole.
It was lying under an S&W 500 SW magnum. I walked out of NGE with two guns that day. My Dan Wesson Valor bobtail and this 617.
The owner said it was an old 22-plate gun and had seen a xxxx ton of rounds; the owner estimated over 100k. The timing was good, and it was clean. (mostly) I took it to the range and found the chambers all had a rim from 22 smegma; I ended up using a stainless brush on a cordless drill to clean all ten chambers.
Even then, the carbon ring buildup in the chambers was a problem. I did some research and picked up the Lewis Lead remover tool. After a few more hours, I pulled ten carbon cylinder rings from the chambers.
No, I'm not joking; there were ten tubes of thick carbon that popped out of the chambers. This sold me on the functionality of the lead remover tool. I've not had the same issue chambering rounds since.
If the cylinders are that bad, what is the barrel like? I had looked down the barrel, and I had cleaned it. It was shiny, or so I thought.
I put the lewis lead remover in the barrel, and it got stuck. I don't mean hard to remove; I mean stuck. Rubber mallet and dead blow hammer stuck.
In the end, I locked the revolver in a vice, made a cheater handle for the lewis lead remover, and pulled. I was about to give up, but it moved a fraction of an inch. Now to put into perspective how hard I was pulling. Imagine my vice stand laying on its side, my feet braced against it, and me doing a complete 400lb deadlift.
The lewis lead remover moved again, and I found it easier to keep it moving than to try and start it again. The first full pass of the lewis lead remover, I pulled one and a half complete spirals of lead from the groves of the rifling.
I made adjustments to the lewis lead remover and did it again and again. Yes, I had the gun locked in the vice still. When I was done, I had all five spirals of lead pulled from the grooves of the rifling.
I spent another day getting the last of the lead out of the corners of the rifling. I lapped the barrel, I used Lewis's brass patches, but it came clean.
I went to the range and dropped 1000 rounds of 22lr through it without chambering and accuracy issues. After that, I cleaned it again and kept using it as my primary 22 training device.
Six years into ownership, I had worn the hand off. So off it went to SW, who did the repair and shipped it back. Three years after that, it again went into a local gunsmith for general cleaning and some light primer striking issues I could not figure out.
I had literally worn the firing pin out. Not deformed, not chipped, but worn the firing pin out. The revolver now sports an over-length firing pin in its place, and that issue isn't a problem.
While it was away, I added up its data in my logs. Since I bought it in the spring of 2011 I have dropped almost 100k rounds of 22 through it, or around 10k a year. This gun would have 200k through it if the owner weren't feeding me a line of crap, likely more than that, as it still is my primary 22.
Why such a long post? Well, to encourage people to find those used gems hidden in counters at gun stores. I also want people to keep working on problems if they arrive at a purchase. I could have just sold this gun off and not had the fantastic tool that I do today.
How many of your 500-dollar guns do you put 100k through?
