Magnums Through K Frames

[WDW]

I just picked up a mint S&W 13-2. I got it because it was $200 & I also want to become more proficient with revolvers as I do not shoot them much & did not currently own one. What's the skinny on shooting .357 through K frames. I have heard/read that they are hard on forcing cones. What sort of round count are we talking here?

[JodyH]

Just avoid a steady diet of 110 & 125 grain magnums and youll be fine.

[TGS]

Just avoid a steady diet of 110 & 125 grain magnums and youll be fine.

This is what I've always been told.....thus, I treat my 19-4 like a 38 that can safely shoot 357's if wanted, but isn't actually a 357.

I'd love to hear from some of the career LE guys on here on what you've seen having maintained armories of K-frames.

[Al T.]

Yep. Using the .357 loads sparingly is also good for your hands and wallet. :cool:

BTW, 200 bucks is a steal. Especially if it's a three inch.

[WDW]

Yep. Using the .357 loads sparingly is also good for your hands and wallet. :cool:

BTW, 200 bucks is a steal. Especially if it's a three inch.

It's a 4" actually. He's got a mint 27-2 I'm gonna pick up next week.

[Simon]

I just picked up a mint S&W 13-2. I got it because it was $200 & I also want to become more proficient with revolvers as I do not shoot them much & did not currently own one. What's the skinny on shooting .357 through K frames. I have heard/read that they are hard on forcing cones. What sort of round count are we talking here?

I used a S&W .357 for more than 25 years. The first 15 years or so, I used a Model 19. The last 10 years or so I used a 686. I presently have a md. 66 which has uncounted thousands of rounds of wadcutter through it but almost no .357. I have never been a round counter so the numbers are mostly guesses based on experience. After about a thousand rounds of .357 you will start to see some end shake and and head space open up. After about 5000 rounds of .357 you will probably have to have the K frame rebuilt to correct the problems. Some where in there you will also have some timing issues.

If you are an armorer, the end shake and and timing is easy to correct, but you will need at least a .357 range rod and I don,t know where to get one at this point in time. I have never had a forcing cone issue on my K frames, but have seen them split. I think this is most probably caused by shooting lead bullets and not removing the lead from the forcing cone before shooting the jacketed .357. One thing I forgot is that a forcing cone can be split when shooting .357 through the revolver when it is out of tine. Checking timing is the most common use of the range rod.

I have also had timing issues caused by excessive dry firing double action practice.

The only problem I have had with wadcutter is a timing issue and that was most likely caused by excessive dry firing double action.

[WDW]

Cool. Thanks for the info. I plan on shooting mostly .38 wadcutters & FMJ's. May try to smoke a whitetail w/.357's if the opportunity presents itself.

[FotoTomas]

One point to remember is heat transfer. The Carbon steel K frames are more reliable with extended shooting due to stainless steel heating up faster. Most of the K-frame troubles boiled down to 125 grain JHPs screaming out of stainless steel K frames and heating up. This causing malfunctions as well as flame cutting the top frame and split forcing cones due to the cone being flattened at the bottom to fit K frames.

Your model 13 will last a lifetime as long as you limit those 125 grain BelchFire magnums to occasional use and qualifying. The heavier 158 grain .357 loads never caused those problems and would be a good option for a deer pistol while the average small game is easily taken with wadcutters.

[TCinVA]

NVM, FotoTomas already answered it. Reading is fundamental!

Foto or Simon: Did you ever notice other long term durability issues with stainless revolvers over carbon steel ones, like an increased tendency for timing issues, etc?

I remember hearing a few "seasoned shooters" complain that the stainless revolvers weren't as durable over the long haul as the carbon steel guns, and I always wondered if it was more old wive's tale than reality.

[Simon]

NVM, FotoTomas already answered it. Reading is fundamental!

Foto or Simon: Did you ever notice other long term durability issues with stainless revolvers over carbon steel ones, like an increased tendency for timing issues, etc?

I remember hearing a few "seasoned shooters" complain that the stainless revolvers weren't as durable over the long haul as the carbon steel guns, and I always wondered if it was more old wive's tale than reality.

I never noticed any more problems with stainless steel than carbon steel, however the only stainless revolver that I have run long term was a Md. 66 That was used as a PPC gun and was used almost exclusively with wad cutters. I have seen stainless steel guns gall when run dry(that is small amounts of metal would pull out leaving tiny pits.) When properly lubed they run ok. the worst I have seen for this was a 1911 stainless frame with a carbon steel slide that had at least 50 rds through it without ever being lubed.

I have never had my hands on a stainless K frame that was shot a lot with full .357 loads. I shot 3 or four thousand rds of .357 through a Md 686 and never noticed any excessive wear. As to 125 grain loads in .357, I never used then for anything, I thought that was two light. Our issue rd in .357 was jacketed 158 gr hollow points. Later when I was allowed to, I used Winchester silvertip 145 grain loads.

When I was tuning actions for PPC guns almost no one was running stainless, so I didn,t have my hands on very many. As a firearms instructor, I did examine a lot of well used Md.19s and a lot of them were sent to the Dept. gunsmith for rebuild. These guns were the original runs from S&W during the 1950s for the federal gov. and were well used.

[Simon]

NVM, FotoTomas already answered it. Reading is fundamental!

Foto or Simon: Did you ever notice other long term durability issues with stainless revolvers over carbon steel ones, like an increased tendency for timing issues, etc?

I remember hearing a few "seasoned shooters" complain that the stainless revolvers weren't as durable over the long haul as the carbon steel guns, and I always wondered if it was more old wive's tale than reality.

I never noticed any more problems with stainless steel than carbon steel, however the only stainless revolver that I have run long term was a Md. 66 That was used as a PPC gun and was used almost exclusively with wad cutters. I have seen stainless steel guns gall when run dry(that is small amounts of metal would pull out leaving tiny pits.) When properly lubed they run ok. the worst I have seen for this was a 1911 stainless frame with a carbon steel slide that had at least 50 rds through it without ever being lubed.

I have never had my hands on a stainless K frame that was shot a lot with full .357 loads. I shot 3 or four thousand rds of .357 through a Md 686 and never noticed any excessive wear. As to 125 grain loads in .357, I never used then for anything, I thought that was two light. Our issue rd in .357 was jacketed 158 gr hollow points. Later when I was allowed to, I used Winchester silvertip 145 grain loads.

When I was tuning actions for PPC guns almost no one was running stainless, so I didn,t have my hands on very many. As a firearms instructor, I did examine a lot of well used Md.19s and a lot of them were sent to the Dept. gunsmith for rebuild. These guns were the original runs from S&W during the 1950s for the federal gov. and were well used. I don,t think stainless is less durable than carbon steel unless an inferior quality stainless is used. There are as many types of stainless as there is carbon steel.

[rsa-otc]

We still run a large inventory of stainless K frames, 64, 65, & a 66 or two. Two things I noticed with S&W stainless guns:

The side plate seems to be soft at least on earlier guns. Not so much as scratches but dents and dings. Kind of looks like you ran the curved end of a butter knife over soft butter without removing any butter. Never saw this on carbon steel guns.

When they rust/corrode they pit. Carbon steel will tend to get a light coat of surface rust that is easy to remove with a gental cleaning. When stainless corrodes it leaves deep pits. Even our most heavily rusted carbon steel gun never had pits like the lightly corroded stainless guns had and you never noticed any problems until the pits appeared. S&W found early on that true stainless would warp during the machining process. Think of a straight wood 2 X 4 cut it lengthwise down the center and a lot of times the resulting pieces will have definate curves to them. The grain from either side of the 2x4 was interacting on each other keeping the 2x4 straight, remove each side and then the grain no longer has an opposing interaction to keep it straight resulting in two curved pieces. The grain of stainless steel reacts the same way. So S&W reduced the amount of what makes steel stainless (chromiom I believe) until this issue went away leaving us with corrsion resistant, not corrsion proof guns. Technology has come a long way since the interduction of the first Stainless gun and this may not be an issue with today's models. We had a greatly reduced corrosion issue with stainless guns compaired to carbon but when things went bad they were really bad.:mad:

[MikeO]

Back in the day the feds did some testing where they shot (or tried too shoot) 10K of 125g 357 Mag through S&W, Colt, and Ruger revolvers. The Rugers held up the best. That test led to the Colt King Cobra, S&W586/686, and Ruger GP100. Which were all great guns, but the rush to semi-autos was on.

The shorter bullets (110/125) are harder on the guns than the longer bullets (>145).

I had friends who were issued Rugers well into the 90s for BP (Security Six) and USMS (GP100). The BP ammo was 125g Rem SJHP, and the USMS ammo was Win 110g SJHP. The 3 inch GP100 w compact grip is still my favorite carry wheelgun. 125 Rem GS or 135 Speer GD for carry ammo. I like the 145 Silvertip too.

[John Hearne]

At the risk dating myself, the "school" revolvers at my first academy were K frames with lots of 357 magnums through them. After the first day, I picked up a GP-100 because the Smiths were literally falling apart on the line.

[Wayne Dobbs]

I started my LE career in 1978 and the department I worked for gave lots of latitude (perhaps too much) on duty guns, all of which were privately owned. The two main choices were a 4" M19/M66 or a 1911 (with some 1935s). My first duty gun was a 4" blue Model 19 and being a hardcore shooter, I promptly started shooting the snot out of it. The gun developed endshake and timing problems within a few thousand rounds of .357 Magnum (most being Remington 125 SJHP or the excellent Speer 140 JHP).

To deal with this, I started shooting lots of .38 Special training ammo (a low bid lead SWC commercial reload) and noted that the crap was dirty and left a very stubborn carbon ring in the front of the cylinder charge holes that caused extraction problems with Magnum loads. After thinking this over, I started reloading just about all of my training/practice ammo and developed a +P level load in Magnum cases that was easy on the gun and didn't foul the charge holes. I used quality commercially cast 158 SWC bullets over either 6.0 grains of Unique or 5.5 grains of 231 and I had my combination. Thousands of these were loaded on a single stage RCBS Rockchucker press for some very serious training (for that day).

That work, combined with lots of hard practice got me way down the road to full competence with a revolver. I still get the warm and fuzzies when you put a 4" K-frame in my hand. These days it's usually a Model 15 or Model 10, but there's still a Model 19 in the safe calling to me. When I look back at it, I still think that if we had to return to revolvers we would be just fine as long as we were solid shooters. I recall one of the old time Texas DPS firearms trainers saying during their transition to Sigs that the DPS had never lost a gunfight due to capacity of the revolver, only to bad shooter performance. I think that still holds true.

[LSP972]

I'd love to hear from some of the career LE guys on here on what you've seen having maintained armories of K-frames.

I was responsible for the training and upkeep for close to a thousand revolvers, until we transitioned to bottom feeders in 1989. Then the number fell to about 500 until 1996 when we began issuing Sigs.

Two things to remember; one, the K frames were NEVER built for extensive full power magnum shooting. Doing so will beat one out of time within a few thousand rounds; generally. You hear of the rare exception, but I suspect that has more to do with flights of fancy and inflated round counts by i-experts than an actual "gorilla K frame".

The hard truth is that S&W developed the L frame for this exact reason. With the gradual increase in liability concerns, more and more agencies began shooting full patch "duty" ammunition (i.e., .357s) for quals, and the K frames couldn't take it. We issued M-66s from 1978 to 1990, switching to M-686s in '90 after we also saw that the 66s weren't holding up to the magnum cartridges. Basically, endshake and timing issues were what me and my guys were spending most of their time fixing. The L frames were marginally more durable... but only marginally.

The second thing to keep in mind is that shooting .38s in a .357 cylinder WILL leave a so-called "wadcutter ring", just aft of the chamber step. This is because the .38 cases are 0.1" shorter than the .357 case, but I'm sure you knew that already. The size and annoyance factor of this 'ring' depends entirely on what bullet material is used and how fast you push same. Lead bullets leave the most residue, with softer home-cast examples being the worst villain I can recall.

If you don't keep this "ring" cleaned out/away, eventually you will have trouble getting .357s to fully seat in the charge holes. I have no doubt the pressure will be raised somewhat upon firing as well.

Keeping the cylinder clean takes effort, pure and simple. The only thing that dissolves lead is mercury; I don't think you need an education in the hazards of that stuff. Nope, good old elbow grease is required. But there are tools and techniques to make it easier.

Number one among these is the Lewis Lead Remover. Check it out at Brownell's. It has the bonus of a way to keep the forcing cone clean as well.

Another sure-fire method is a bronze .45 brush and an electric drill. I have to laugh whenever this is mentioned, and the inevitable nay-sayers come out of the woodwork with their dire predictions of doom and gloom. We never got that memo, and blithely used the method a LOT... with no damage to our revolvers. You DO have to be careful, and use an aluminum rod (the little rod that came in S&W "service" revolver boxes was perfect), and make sure the yoke is in place to minimize the chance of getting a bristle into the interior of the cylinder where the center pin rides. Ditto when using the purpose-specific stainless chamber brushes from Brownell's. These are probably the easiet method extant. I have been using them since they came on the scene 20+ years ago, and they work. Just keep them WELL away from any titanium cylinder revolvers you may have.

We are all products of our upbringing. I'm with Brother Dobbs; a quality K frame still brings a smile to these tired old eyes. Enjoy yours.

.

[tomrkba]

I remove carbon rings and lead using Chore Boy scrubbies on a nylon brush.