question on frame cracking

[Moonshot]

I'm not well versed on this site's search function, so please forgive my question if it has been addressed before.

Just how common are cracked frames in S&W J-frame airweights? When it happens, is it more likely caused by high round count, high +p round count, or low round count coupled with over-torqued barrels?

I have a 642 that I use for training and a seperate 642 for carry. The first gets shot a lot and the second almost never. This is due exclusively to my concern over cracked frames.

Even the steel j-frames don't seem to be immune, yet I have never heard of one in an SP101, and I thought Ruger's investment castings were less dense (more brittle?) than Smith's forged frames.

[LSP972]

They are not common, though not unheard of. The cause is USUALLY (but not always) indicated by the location of the fracture. For instance, a crack underneath the rear of the barrel, in the yoke cut-out, just about always says over-torqued barrel.

A crack (or stretch marks) in the top strap means too much shooting, or too high a pressure on the ammunition.

Unless your 642 is an early (pre +P rated) example, and/or you shoot a lot of +Ps, I wouldn't worry too much about it. A +P rated alloy gun, shot with mainly standard-pressure ammunition, should last a good long time. But keep an eye on it, just in case…

.

[Tamara]

I'm not well versed on this site's search function, so please forgive my question if it has been addressed before.

Just how common are cracked frames in S&W J-frame airweights? When it happens, is it more likely caused by high round count, high +p round count, or low round count coupled with over-torqued barrels?

In a decade and a half of working in places that fixed busted guns, every single cracked J-frame I saw with my own eyes was an overtorqued barrel cracked right there by the yoke cut. I have seen pictures of frames cracked in other places, but I think that says something about relative commonness of the two.

And, fwiw, I doubt it was a total of a half-dozen guns I saw with that problem in that time period, so it's not really that common a thing.

I've seen a lot more guns just flat blowed up than I have wore out.