Spitting lead I'm used to, but spitting jacket material? 44Mag newbie

U

uglygun

New member
Okay, just took ownership of a 29-3 with a 4 inch barrel. Lockup isn't the tighest I've ever seen on a revolver but it's what most would say is typical for S&W revolvers. Fired about 60 rounds through the gun over the weekend and brought it home to clean it, looking at the cylinder face I see what appears to be the typical bright scrape trails as left by lead bullets when it "spits lead" out the barrel/cylinder gap. Thing is this, I was shooting only jacketed bullets and I'm not accustomed to seeing this sort of thing from jacketed bullets.


Being a magnum and not being used to the higher power 44Mag I'm not sure if this is typical even when shooting jacketed bullets, such high pressures could mean that even a little tiny bit of mis-alingnment would send jacket material shooting out to the sides even if it's a minute little piece. Is this typical from other people's revolvers? Is the jacket material still soft enough to not really worry about this.


Something else I noticed while looking at the cylinder face was that the scrapes all seem to be aligned from the outsides of the chambers in such a manner that when locked into position with the barrel these particles would be traveling upwards towards the topstrap, they don't show signs of traveling outwards in equal directions from the barrel or to the left or right. This kinda makes sense that if it's gonna shave material then it's gonna show signs of consistently doing it in one direction.

Sorry if it's not pefectly in focus, might play with the digital camera a bit more to see if I can clear it up but you get the point right? If I didn't know for certain that I was shooting jacketed bullets I would have figured it was just some tracks left by spit lead.

I'm left wondering if the forcing cone might be a little of concentricity and might be scraping the jacket material of the bullets at the upward area of the barrel by the topstrap.
cylinder.jpg


Here's another pic that I'll just link, the light is reflecting on the cylinder a bit more so it appears a fair bit brighter.
http://home.bak.rr.com/varmintcong/cylinder2.jpg
 
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That's a new one on me! You might want a gunsmith to check this revolver. It might be a forcing cone problem, but I would suspect a cylinder lock problem. Older Smith 29's had a bad reputation for going out of time when fired with heavy magnum loads. Unless this gun is brand new, you don't know what has been through the gun.
 
Yeah, the gun is brand new. I wasn't terribly surprised to see something like this knowing what S&W is capable of, manufacture date on this handgun should have been around 1984.


Yes, I suspect it was the forcing cone. I say "was" because I took it down to the local gunsmith to have him recut the forcing cone, he used an 11 degree forcing cone reamer and just went ahead and likely did the job that S&W should have done in the first place on the forcing cone. The apparent finish on the forcing cone wasn't all that great as it came from the factory, the recut job looks much nicer now and only taking it out and firing some rounds through it will show whether or not the desired effect was reached.


Unfortunately I didn't get to test the accuracy of this gun before the recutting of the forcing cone so I won't get to note any changes in accuracy whether they are positive or negative, I suspect the results should be positive though considering every single chamber of the cylinder was shaving material from the jacket.


Well, the gun is now officially broken in I guess as far as exterior wear goes. One look at the face of the cylinder and you say, "yep! she's been fired!" Gonna be heading out shooting this Sunday again so I'll be able to double check the gun with another box or two of shells.


Thing I want to know is this, how would a person be able to know ahead of time at the gunshop if the revolver in question might be prone to spitting lead? I mean this seems like one of the things that would be hardest to test without firing the gun.
 
Did you take any measurements of the gap? I'd say those must be pretty large chunks...either that or somethin' else isn't in sync...Either way that must be a bit uncomfortable to shoot?! No? Take the measurements of the cylinder/barrel gap and see what you've got first...If it's as loose as you describe, there may be multiple problems there...Revolvers are nice machines when they're workin' right. If not...barrel of monkeys...'specially magnums...Good Luck
 
I sent a new model 60 back to Smith & Wesson for a spitting lead problem. I only shoot jacketed ammo and the copper was shaving. Did not notice a problem with the .38 loads, only the magnums. Perhaps the higher velocity magnified the problem with the magnums. Did not have the same appearance to the cylinder face that you show. My problem was rectified by reaming out the forcing cone. Since they returned it, no problems since.
 
Barrel/Cylinder gaps are supposed to be spec'd at what? .003-.006 total allowable gap? This one looks to be around .003-.004 which if I remember correct is supposed to be about correct for S&W revolvers.



I own other S&W revolvers and am accustomed to what's considered "normal" but this is just my first legitimate Magnum handgun. Also when I saw that marring on the cylinder face I knew something was goin on, lead is one thing and from a 38spl. I might tolerate it a tad like when shooting wadcutters from my 50year old 38/44 that needs an action tuning, but on a new gun shooting truncated cone jacketed bullets this ain't something that should be happening.


I'll certainly repost and let everyone know the results of my Sunday shoot. I might have to put a little cold bluing on these mars so that way I can keep track of any additional marring that might happen when I head out this Sunday.
 
That isn't "typical" of Smith & Wesson at all. Although I don't agree with what their company did with our gun rights but I won't badmouth their quality as a gun maker.
Somebody, somewhere screwed with this handgun. New or not, this isn't even close to the quality they are credited with having.
I own a few Smith's and shot many more and have never seen anything like that.
Smith & Wesson is a quality wheel gun manufacture.
That gun needs to go back to the company.
TS
 
Please be sure to wear a good pair of shooting or protective glasses to prevent possible eye damage should the shrapnel fly back at you face. In the case of my model 60, I got hit by several peices of flying jacket, even had to remove one peice that stuck in my ear lobe. Thats when the revolver went back to Smith. Turn around was excellent, had the snubbie back in less than 10 calendar days.


Also make sure no one is standing on either side of you when firing, unless you have a good lawyer (contradiction in terms/oximoron) in the family.
 
UPDATE.



Think I tracked down the problem after very close examination of the gun and what it was doing. When you look at the gun with it sitting there in your hands it's possible to notice that the lines in the cylinder face are all in a specific orientation or specific arc. I think I mentioned earlier that there was a bur on the forcing cone that wasn't removed by the factory, well I tried to burnish that bur a bit before shooting but I suppose I managed to leave just enough of it for it to get caught when closing the cylinder. The cylinder momentarily hits the forcing cone upon closing if you are closing it while muzzle down, that sharp little edge managed to hit the cylinder and scrape right through the finish. I managed to find it after carefully lining up the cylinder and closing it, I could get the lines to exactly follow the path of arc that the cylinder would follow on closing.



Other than the finish is a bit screwed now the gun functions fine, took it out shooting again the other day just to make darned skippy that it wasn't spitting jacket material and the face of the cylinder remained score free. I'm a little miffed that I let the finish get screwed up by something I could have caught but I'm more concerned with the gun functioning properly, it's going to be a high use gun so the finish isn't likely going to remain fresh for an eternity. It would have been nice to have it remain pristine for a little while longer but now I can be spared some agony that always comes with that first scrape or nick to a gun's finish as I've already been through it.
 
If the cylinder had been titanium...

..you could have had more of a disaster on your hands. The front of a ti cylinder has a somewhat clear coating on it. A few little scratces like that on it would have removed some of this coating, thus making the front of the cylinder prone to corrosion. A few days ago someone left a few posts regarding corrosion on the front of a ti cylinder. He was NOT a happy guy.

KR
 
Yeah, I had that same thought go through my head about if this gun had been one of the little titanium guns. The mear thought of having a gun that can corrode at the slighest little nick really would raise concern for me, I was interested in the titanium guns right up until somebody mentioned what happens with a scratch.
 
Titanium, coatings, and corrosion? I'm just starting to look into a snubbie and have been researching the titanium options, but this is the first I've heard about coatings and corrosion and such (sorry, I sleep late). What's the deal on this?
 
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