Counterbored Cylinders vs. ... Not

I have both. Currently own 8 S&W revolvers, from early 1900's 32-20 Hand Ejector
to a 2015ish Mdl 627 Performance Center 8 shot.

All operate just fine, but I do tend toward the old Pinned or Pinned and Recessed
models. Not because of any real or perceived advantage conveyed by the pin or
recess, but because the guns made in that era display a level of material, craftsmanship, hand fitting and finish that is not economically feasible in current revolvers.
 
A "thank you" goes out to dgludwig and dahermit and lee n. field for asking about "P&R" and providing a definition. I appreciate it and I suspect many other lurkers to the thread do too.
 
I prefer the older S&W revolvers because they were better. They were finished better, the actions were better, they were usually right right out of the box. The new guns nearly always have something wrong with them. In my experience, 642, bur in the forcing cone, 617, may not even have a forcing cone, spits, 642 #2, extra heavy hammer spring, had to replace it, 686, out of time on 2 chambers, 625, extractor was bent, forcing cone looks like it has threads, back of bbl has a dip in it as if they let a Dremel tool get away from them, and has pits on bbl, 629, dished spot on bbl rib, hard to pull trigger at first of the D/A pull. Every new S&W I've bought since the MIM, frame mtd firing pin era has something wrong with it. HOW CAN ANYONE SAY THEY ARE BETTER????
None of these defects have anything to do with recessed chambers or pinned bbls or MIM parts, it's a lack of quality control. The new guns are good shooters after you repair them tho.
 
My Dan Wessons have counter bored cylinders, but the barrels are not pinned. (Sarcasm).
Like fluted cylinders, my BP Colt and Remington repros do not have them, then they were introduced, became standard, the reasons why forgotten. But people accepted and bought them.
 
" Can't think of any round designed after the late 1890s that had balloon head cases, and the older ones switched over to solid head cases after the turn of the century and by WWII balloon head cases were pretty much a rarity."

There are actually three types of case heads...

Balloon head
Semi-balloon head
Solid head

All three were in production at the same time right up through World War II.

Balloon head cases were used mainly for blackpowder cartridges, although some of the early semi-smokless and smokeless loads for those old rounds were also loaded in balloon head cases. Believe it or not, balloon head cases were still being loaded commercially in the US into the early 1960s for some cartridges like the .45 Colt and the .45-70.

Semi-balloon head cases were introduced around the same time as smokeless powder and were a lot stronger than the old folded head balloon head cases. Rounds like the .44 Special, .45 Auto Rim, .45 ACP, etc., loaded prior to WW II were often loaded in semi-balloon head cases. Semi-balloon head cases also survived until well after WW II.

Solid head cases didn't become universal in US production until nearly the 1970s.
 
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