Advice on cylinder swap

[ColdDeadHands1]

I'm a big fan of S&W unfluted cylinder revolvers and am also feeling the need for a .45acp version. Unfortunately, S&W doesn't make this exact combo. I'm looking to buy a 625 and swap out the fluted factory cylinder with this unfluted factory cylinder I found on Numrich.

https://www.gunpartscorp.com/Products/1154400.htm

I am aware that cylinder swaps need to be timed and have the barrel gap set. What does this involve? Can a novice gunsmith such as myself take this on? Can the original extractor (already timed) be reused?

Alternatively, can anyone recommend a SF Bay Area smith to do this work? Got any ballpark estimates what this work will cost me?

[D1911]

I think this would be best left to a smith. Don't know any in the Bay Area, but Craig Maraviov in Woodland is an excellent S&W revolver smith. His work is reasonable and fairly quick.

[bwiese]

You could also buy the cylinder and have the S&W factory shop work on it.
They are

I too am queer for unfluted cylinder wheelguns...
- S&W 629-2 Classic Hunter
- Ruger Bearcat 22 (dad's!)
- Ruger stainless Bisley Blackhawk, 45LC (Acusport)
- Ruger stainless Bisley Blackhawk, 44mag
- Ruger stainless Bisley Blackhawk, 45LC (Lipsey's special 3.75")
- 2 x Ruger Super Blackhawk 44mag 4.675" one blue, one stnls

[ColdDeadHands1]

Bill, your post is...

[redcliff]

I"ve actually taken two S&W revolvers to my gunsmith to have him swap the cylinders as I thought some fitting would be required; he just swapped them in front of me and checked the timing and said no problems. So sometimes they swap fine.

The revolvers in question were Model 25-2's, I wanted the cylinder with the tighter throat to be on the 6.5" barrel version instead of the 6" version it was originally on.

[9mmepiphany]

Sometimes you can get lucky and they'll just drop in. With the MIM revolvers the ejection stars wouldn't even need to be fitted to the cylinder...but it isn't practical with a older 625 which still have the location pins in the cyclinder.

The biggest thing to check is that each chamber lines up with the bore.

The biggest headache would be if your cylinder gap is off by much. To be set properly, the barrel should be removed and turned down. Then the barrel would have to be reclocked...which can be a bit tedious

[ColdDeadHands1]

Sometimes you can get lucky and they'll just drop in. With the MIM revolvers the ejection stars wouldn't even need to be fitted to the cylinder...but it isn't practical with a older 625 which still have the location pins in the cyclinder.

The biggest thing to check is that each chamber lines up with the bore.

The biggest headache would be if your cylinder gap is off by much. To be set properly, the barrel should be removed and turned down. Then the barrel would have to be reclocked...which can be a bit tedious

Thank you. Exactly what I was looking for. I might try it out and check the timing and gap with the new cylinder. If too much fitting is required, the Performance Center idea recommended above isn't a bad idea.