Recently, my Smith 586 has been jamming -- for lack of a better word -- after firing maybe three rounds. It then sort of locks up. The trigger will pull back only slightly, the hammer can't be thumb-cocked, and the cylinder can't be rotated by hand.

The cylinder will open without any huge resistance,and it's not a bullet in the barrel-cylinder gap, nor does it appear to be a high primer. (No scuffing of the primers is apparent.)

I suspect that the problem is that the plunger inside the ejector-rod housing is not fully disengaging the whatchamacallit that keeps the gun from operating when the cylinder is open. In fact, the symptom sounds exactly like that, so I have just disassembled all those parts and cleaned and oiled them, and reassembled the gun, and it now operates fine on snap-caps.

I haven't yet gotten to the range to test this possible cure for the probem. Does anybody have any suggestions about any other possible causes for the problem?

It could possibly be a bent crane or cylinder axle, especially if combined with shooting lead bullets that coat the front of the cylinder and reduce the gap!