Dan Wesson caution........

B

Bob Wright

New member
Seems to be some interest in the Dan Wessons hereabouts lately. I've never owned one, but both of my sons-in-law have, and I'll pass on this happening for whatever its worth.

This happened to a 6" Heavy Barrel Model 15 .357 Magnum. My son-in-law tried to remove the barrel shroud and found it stuck tight. He tried WD-40, Liquid Wrench and a host of other break free solvents to no avail. Finally took the gun to a gunsmith. After some effort, even he could not free up the barrel and shroud. With permission, he sawed off the shroud and barrel just in front of the gun's frame to finally get the parts off. He could not accout for the frozen barrel.

I trying to track down the cause of the problem, we finally hit upon this cause. We had been hunting and returned one very cold day to a partially frozen creek to do some plinking. The creek bank was very steep and provided a good backstop, and floating shotgun shells made a good target. Apparently while plinking, water sprayed up into the bore of his Dan Wesson. When fired, the water swelled the barrel inside the shroud and froze it in place.

If you will recall Ruger encountered a similar instance in testing their prototype .44 Magnum Blackhawk.

Bob Wright
 
I may be the one responsible for the most recent commotion with DW, as I just bought one, started a tread and ask a whole bunch of questions. I only took my DW on the range once so far and had enjoyed my time with it very much. I have switched 6" and 2" barrels right on the range. This gun is a ton of fun. But as with everything there is the flip side of the coin. Removable barrels account for more complicated design which under some circumstances (such as the one you described) may fail if not addressed properly. I want to thank you for the story. Something to take in consideration during maintenance!
 
IIRC when DW introduced their "Power Port" system-their answer to Magnaport-they warned against using lead bullets, saying the residue from them would clog up the ports and make the shroud hard to remove. I recall one of the gun scribes admitting he fired his DW-with the barrel removal nut in the bore-and ruined a barrel and shroud. DW then introduced the one piece barrel nut and handle to prevent that.
 
Sounds more like the shroud was put back on dry and rusted into place. I grew up hunting in south Florida's swamps 36 years ago. Wet to many times . Like wet as in under water. Also been in freezeing rain and never issues with any firearm . I never tightend a barrel nut real tight , just snugged up good with clp on the treads. Lubed inside and out. I did buy a .22lr vesion a few years ago. The owner had never in the ten years he had it taken it apart to clean. I eneded up soaking the end of the barrel in KRIO OIL for 2 days and the nut came loss like it was never stuck. Buy some .
http://www.kanolabs.com/

This stuff is beyond good and works well on abused metal. Like the rifleing with coppering and leading. Serously doubt any selling from water splash.

Better find another gun smith!!

sigshr Your right with the early vented barrels . The inside the shroud vented barrels could build up powder lead and metal till it was plugged. Then you had to soften it to get apart. Another good time to use kroil oil!! I don't think I used the vented barrel for my 44 more than a couple times and order a regular non-vented barrel for it. Then some time down the road they made the external compensated shrouds. Nice.
http://www.danwessonforum.com/archive/models-2/revolvers/compensated-series-revolver/
 
I'm curious about the bulged barrel as well. Did you actually see the bulged barrel or were you just told it was bulged?
 
I did not see the remnants of the barrel/shroud myself. My son-in-law told me that the shroud was placed in a vise and an attempt was made to drive out the barrel, but the two pieces seem to be "welded" together.

But if ya'll recall that a similar thing happened when Ruger was working on the .44 Magnum. The gun was held vertically and fired downward into a water filled tank. A rubber membrane was placed across the tank to prevent spray, but droplets entered the bore anyway, bulging the barrel. Supposedly this led to the design of the MR-44 frame.

Bob Wright
 
I wonder how well that bodes for the new S&W multi-piece barrels on the new 686's? Essentially they're a non interchangable DW type!:eek:
 
Well it looks like the bottom line is take your time when you screwed up a firearm when it comes to "fixing" something out side your ability AND watch what idggit smithy you take your firearm too. When the hacksaw comes out run. And the term "drive the barrel out" when talking about a DW revolver says so many things about the smithy skill level.
 
I have (among others) a Dan Wesson 44 with a ported barrel, and I'm here to tell you, if you shoot lead out of it the lead WILL form a thin film between the barrel and the shroud making removal very difficult.

The removable barrels don't actually make the design much more complicated. A barrel is screwed into the frame (just like any other revolver) then secured at the muzzle end by a threaded ring (barrel nut). They say that this arrangement evenly tensions the barrel because it's being pulled from both ends rather than just the bore end. A bulged barrel no matter what the cause would certainly make it difficult if not impossible to remove the shroud. If you can't remove the shroud, you can't remove the barrel. A bulged barrel would be a pretty expensive problem with a Colt of an S&W, but (assuming you already had a replacement barrel, and the bulged barrel removed from the gun) a 6 year old could replace the barrel on a Dan Wesson with $5.00 worth of tools.
 
Re: water splash causing barrel bulging.

Do I remember wrong, or back in the sixties they discovered that a revolver could be shot underwater? Seems that I remember filmed demonstrations. If that be true, then the theory of a few drops of water in a barrel causing bulging would be suspect inasmuch as, if the gun were shot underwater, the resistance of the whole ocean would have caused bulging or even bursting... that was never mentioned as an effect of doing so.
Also, if I remember correctly, there have been instances, albeit rare, where a shooter had a bullet stick in the barrel, unbeknownst to him and fire another shot that drove the bullet out without an apparent bulging of the barrel.
If those things be true, than a few drops of water does not seem to be likely to cause bulging.
 
Several guns have been fired underwater. G&A magazine did a test back in the 80's on this. The trick was to have no as in zero air present. by swapping air for water everywhere the pressure/compressability difference equalised.

Thats a very different situation from a partial bore obstruction by water!
 
What seems to be in order here, is someone spray some water into the bore of a revolver and shoot it. Then we will know for sure...anyone willing to do that?
:D
 
So it didn't happen with Ruger?
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I do not know...The two possibilities are, that it happened, caused by the water. Or, the other possibility is that the barrel was already bulged from a different cause, becoming a "Red Herring" after shooting into the water. I do not know, would like to know, but am not willing to accept that as fact without a more scientific test. If the bulge can be replicated in a test, then I am definitely a believer.
The fact that hundreds if not thousands of deer rifles must have had rain in the bores during deer season and not bulged the barrels when shot makes me suspicious that a revolver would.
 
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I have a model 40 Dan Wesson, 357 Super Mag. This thread got me thinking as I had not taken the barrel off for 15-20 years. The Super Mags came with a spare barrel so I have an unfired barrel I want to compare the used one with. Anyway, the nut would not move. I sprayed some PB Blaster (BEST penetrating oil ever made IMHO) waited an hour and it unscrewed. If someone has one that is tight, give that a try.
 
Blaster Kroil or 50/50 mix of synthetic ATF and kerosene all work well to loose parts. It sure sound like some unskilled smithy killed a barrel and shroud needlessly.

And the water in the barrel trick. I know I have had water in my DW 15-2 . maybe two many times to count of the years. And fired. I loved to hunt in the rain as game tends to not lay around between feeding . Never had an issue with a DW revolver or my oldest hunting rifle. Both are darn near as accurate as when new or maybe that's just me getting worse.

Now about ruger??? Maybe ruger was using a metal at that time of the testing that was NOT up to snuff for there water test. They made it right and went on. Dan Wesson did hold his degree in metallurgy and material science so strength was never a problem and unlike bill ruger that was a designer first had a designer that helped him part his ideas to paper. .
 
I have to admit, I have doubts about the water story, a much more likely cause is someone putting the gun away and letting it sit for a long time, without any oil on the barrel or inside of the shroud. I've seen a couple of DWs with very light speckles of rust inside a shroud and on the barrel, but the shroud still came off ok. I had a 6" barrel and shroud I bought online and some clown had put red loctite on the nut. It took soaking in solvent and then some heat from a propane torch to get it off. When it finally did come off, the loctite came off in chunks. I have no idea why it was put there, if the nut is snug, it doesn't loosen up!

I bought a 15-2 on Gunbroker a while back, and the grease DW used back 30 years ago or so had turned into a white concrete like substance that made it very difficult to get the shroud off. After pulling and twisting it (I didn't care if I broke the pin off), I finally took it to a friend with a big ultrasonic cleaner. He stuck it in there and after about 10 minutes, we took it out and the shroud fell off. The cleaning fluid looked like milk. I've seen a couple other DWs with the same stuff under the nut, but the shroud came off with just a light whack from my trusty rubber mallet.
 
IIRC when DW introduced their "Power Port" system-their answer to Magnaport-they warned against using lead bullets, saying the residue from them would clog up the ports and make the shroud hard to remove.
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my 44 magnum snubbie is the results of this... my local retired smith buddy was barely able to separate the barrel from the shroud after I inherited the gun from my FIL... I don't think he shot all lead, probably just a mix, but they were in effect "soldered" together... once apart, & because I like to shoot cast bullets, we trimmed down both the barrel & the shroud to remove the ports... IMO, the problem with Dan Wesson's porting system, was the ports weren't lined up, so the exhaust gasses had to pass through like 1" of the small gap between the shroud & the barrel ports, to get to the shroud ports
 
Yea I have a have a non ported barrel for my 6" assembly that came with the revolver when I bought it used and my 8" barrel shroud is non vented. DW's latter designed "compensated" shroud took care that problem .
 
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