Revolver Problems

[FPS]

You’re not using the Lee Auto Drum powder measure by any chance? I’ve had a ton of problems with light charges with that recently so thought I would ask. Powder check die catches it but with some loads I have gone back to the auto disk.

[Lester Polfus]

Those are pretty revolvers. And those are pretty cartridges also.

I'm beginning to think your powder measure is sometimes dropping light charges. I would clean everything in the powder measure and look for chunks of plastic or something like that in your powder and measure that could be causing light charges. Also make sure that your powder dropper activates properly each time. A buddy had a little piece of something in his powder measure that caused light charges occasionally.

How old is your powder and could it be contaminated somehow?

Your charge levels look OK according to some of my sources. Do you have any other powder to try? Is HP38 the powder that is the same as 231. I've personally found that 231 is a dirty powder. I use almost all Bullseye for my 38 Special ammo.

edit to add: You said you might get rid of some of your K-Frames if you can't figure this out. Remember your friends here when you are ready to sell. LOL. You'll get this figured out and be able to enjoy your revolvers.

I'm theorizing here, but would essentially no crimp give you a squib with some powders? Seems like you gotta let the pressure build a little before you pop the cork.

[willie]

There's a simple fix for cylinder binding. With an old tooth brush or similar brush, clean under the extractor star and on top of cylinder where it fits. Burned powder kernels and other crud are raising the star enough to bind on the firewall. When ejecting empties, keep the barrel straight up and down and then eject. This method helps keep the area under the star clean. When the star is raised even slightly from crud, the result can cause a cushioning of hammer force and hence light strikes.

I suggest removing the slide plate and blowing out the mechanism with Rem Oil. Clean the inside of the plate and hammer surfaces contacting frame and plate. If dirty and grimy or caked with dried oil or grease, hammer fall is slowed down.

About strain screw. If the end touching the spring is flat and not evenly rounded, or if it appears altered, then someone has ground it to reduce mainspring strength. Replace it. Sometimes shooters bend mainsprings to reduce strength and achieve a lighter pull. Replacing yours is one option.The only other mechanical cause of light strikes might be cylinder endshake--back and forth movement great enough to cause problems. This event is unlikely.

My opinion as a S&W tinkerer is that cleaning the areas mentioned, replacing an altered strain screw, and replacing the mainspring will solve your problems. Cleaning by itself may do so.

[Kalashnikovkid]

Lol, joy of being a broke military dude is HP-38 and Winchester 231 are all I currently got

I'm going to take a look at my hopper and throw a bunch of charges and weigh them to see if it's throwing light, but I doubt it. I'm using the auto disk, not the drum hopper, which I was actually thinking about buying.

I'm of a line of thought with Mr. Polfus- I think that the bullets being seated out too far combined with the no crimp loads I initially created (threw partially burned powder flakes out the front of the muzzle) were essentially caused by the gases not getting enough dwell time to adequately propel the bullet. Once I started adding a crimp, I experienced far fewer squibs, but I think the bullet being seated so far out still wasn't enough pressure build time. With the loads I posted earlier, the bullet is not only seated deeper and crimped, but crimped in the right place. Hopefully this is the solution.

[Lester Polfus]

Lol, joy of being a broke military dude is HP-38 and Winchester 231 are all I currently got

I'm going to take a look at my hopper and throw a bunch of charges and weigh them to see if it's throwing light, but I doubt it. I'm using the auto disk, not the drum hopper, which I was actually thinking about buying.

I'm of a line of thought with Mr. Polfus- I think that the bullets being seated out too far combined with the no crimp loads I initially created (threw partially burned powder flakes out the front of the muzzle) were essentially caused by the gases not getting enough dwell time to adequately propel the bullet. Once I started adding a crimp, I experienced far fewer squibs, but I think the bullet being seated so far out still wasn't enough pressure build time. With the loads I posted earlier, the bullet is not only seated deeper and crimped, but crimped in the right place. Hopefully this is the solution.

FWIW, I've loaded several hundred 10mm loads since I switched to the Lee Turret press with Auto Disk measure, and have gotten excellent consistency in powder chargers.

I'm going to throw this at you. The answer is probably "yes," but for the sake of completeness, you have checked your charge weights to make sure the Autodisk cavity you are using is actually throwing what it's supposed to?

[Kalashnikovkid]

Just threw 10 loads and weighed them individually- ALL 3.4-3.5 grains on .32 CC.

[Jim Watson]

The cartridges in post 19 look good to me; crimped in the crimp groove and plunked.

I'll say it again, revolver bullets have crimp grooves and seating to the crimp groove automatically sets the OAL. If you are not using the exact same bullet as your source, what it says does not mean anything. (A lot of bullet casters sell smooth sided bullets for .38 Special. You can seat those to whatever OAL you like and taper crimp as you do for automatics.)

Your "squibs" are likely caused by airspace. Are you starting from a low ready and bringing the gun up to the target? That throws the small powder charge against the bullet, far away from the primer flash. I had that happen when I cut corners and loaded 125 gr bullets without changing powder charge or seating die from 158s. They were the grooveless variety, really a 9mm bullet just sized .357" instead of .356". I fixed them by seating the bullets deeper. You CAN seat your bullets deeper, crimping over the front band instead of in the groove. Elmer Keith did that so as to be able to shoot his design of .38 Heavy Duty semiwadcutter in .357 Magnum. Or you can increase the load. A maximum standard velocity .38 Special load will not overload your K frames.


The only cause I can think of for misfires with stock mainsprings and strain screws is high primers. A swipe with a fingertip as you box your ammo will find high primers.


I have sometimes felt that lumpy, binding cylinder rotation. I don't know what causes it in a properly adjusted clean gun.

[Spartan1980]

I think Jim Watson is onto something with the squib issue. I've never loaded with HP-38/231 but have loaded 1000's of .38 and .38 Short Colt for USPSA competition. If your powder measure is throwing properly the process of elimination is:

Bad powder
Bad primers
Powder position

If all of that checks out my gut feeling would be powder position IN COMBINATION with a light or no crimp condition. I've not heard of HP38/231 specifically being position sensitive but I have heard of issues with both of these conditions in cowboy action loads, so maybe. It's usually in larger cartridges and really light spider fart type loads. You can actually see their bullets fly to the target sometimes and they make Trail Boss powder specifically for this issue. Your powder choice is perfectly fine for what you trying to do. The loads in the pic above look fine to me too, if I did anything different to those I'd crimp just a tiny bit more and make sure the case mouth is rolling into the groove and not mashing into the bullet itself, you never want that. If you are measuring .005" diameter on your crimp, that's only .0025" on each side of the bullet, you may need a tad more but you are close.

High primers for me have either just not gone off at all (usually the case), or gave me problems shutting and/or binding the cylinder on the recoil shield (rarely). Keep at it, you'll get it figured out.

[willie]

No crimp bullets are not providing adequate resistance to provide sufficient pressure required for complete combustion. This is one reason for unburned powder at the muzzle. I'm surprised, though, that a fast burning powder like 231 is showing this trait more commonly seen in large charges of slow burning powder in magnum loadings. Bullet pull or "grip" from the neck contribute to this resistance. An oversized expander ball or button would produce inadequate pull, especially if bullet diameter were smaller than standard.

Does the op realize that HP38 and Win 231 are identical except for label?

[Malamute]

Lost River mentioned seeing a definite improvement in accuracy, particularly at longer ranges, when he started crimping very heavily. He used a particular crimping die I believe, but dont recall which. It wasnt the Lee Factory crimp, it was a different Lee crimp die I think.