I have fired loads out of a 19 that required the use of a small mallet to extract the fired cases. That same ammo came out of my 28 with just finger pressure.
The fact that you had to pound the empties out of you Model 19 suggests that either the charge holes were extremely rough and/or dirty or that the loads were over pressure for that gun. I believe that it was probably the latter. I had a similar incident with my Python and a friend's 5" Smith Model 27.
Back when cars had Flintstone wheels, a stiff but safe charge for the .357 magnum was 15.0 grains of H2400 below a 155-160 cast bullet similar to Lyman's 358156. I shot many hundreds of this load out of my Python. It was stiff but extremely accurate and the empties extracted easily. A friend I was shooting with brought along a 5" M27 he had just purchased a week or so earlier and asked if he could try a string or two with my ammunition in his gun. The first 5 shot group produced an equally small cluster of holes on his target but that effectively ended that gun's fun time for the day. None of the empties could be extracted. It took a short length of wood dowel and a mallet to extract those cases. That load was just too stiff for that particular gun. That Model 27 was clean and the charge holes were not rough. It has nothing to do at all with the relative strength of either gun.
Over the years, the 15.0 grain charge of H2400 has been reduced once to 14.5 grains and again to 14.0 grains. Some folks consider the latter still too heavy but this is another time and, in fact, another century. Anyway, I would never shoot somebody else's handloads out of my gun unless I had tried that exact load in my gun first and observed the results. It would also have to be somebody I really trusted. Most folks won't do it for any reason and I understand that line of reasoning completely.
Incidentally, I don't find the fact that the N-Frame Smith .357 magnum revolvers appear to be beefier than most others out there a reason to shoot overpressure handloads thru them or do the same with Ruger .44 magnums, etc.. The stouter construction just provides an extra margin of safety factor in case of an oops. It seems obvious from some of the comments I read that many shooters don't feel that way. This line of thought processing was a major but not the only reason many folks felt that the AutoMag and the Smith & Wesson M29 were weak/fragile guns when, in actuality, people tried to make them into something they were not.
IMO, the only thing the M19 is superior to the N-Frames is in ease of carry. It is not inherently more accurate and the heavy N-Frame cylinder carries up pretty quickly in double action shooting once you get it moving but that part of it is debatable I guess.
Bruce
