Modern Self-Defense Revolvers

[Malamute]

I have two older, blued Model 17s (one a 17 no dash, and a 17-3) and a modern 617 (can't remember the dash). The modern 617 is the way to go.

1) ten shots versus 6

2) the more charge holes mean less rotation of the cylinder on each pull of the trigger. This speeds up shot times because there's less momentum on the cylinder when it stops.

3) I find my model 17s are more strictly target guns. The tolerances are tighter. This sounds good, but I have to run a bore brush through the charge holes about double as frequent (every four reloads vs every 8 reloads) to clean out the carbon ring in the chambers. Admittedly, I'm using the crappiest ammo I have. The chamber are reamed tighter, and this shows up on the paper, but it's much more maintenance intensive. Coupled with the 4 extra chambers, the 617 will shoot much longer than a 17 before needing attention.

I believe the chamber tightness is likely more individual to each gun. The family 6" K-22 from the early 70s had looser chambers than a model 18 I had in the 80s. The K-22 would shoot about 1000 rds of the old waxed lead Winchester Wildcat 22 economy ammo before getting sticky with extraction, the model 18 about half that, and I think with cleaner ammo. Both shot extremely well, though I never put both on paper side by side. The cheap ammo today may be worse than the old Wildcats, it was cheap and relatively grungy on chambers, but reasonably accurate and very reliable for the most part. I think if I had a gun I liked a lot and had super tight chambers to the point of being a pain in the butt to shoot much Id get a finish chamber reamer and hand chase the chamber to open it up slightly. You could lap or polish it with various methods also. Whatever possible loss of extreme accuracy that may be lost would more than be made up with being easier and more fun to shoot. It youre not doing better level match shooting I doubt most of us would be able to tell much real practical difference, and ammo selection may make up for whatever difference with cheap ammo there may be.

It drove me up the wall having the mess with cleaning the chambers of the model 18 at 500 rds. An average day out shooting either was 500-1000 rds. That put the damper on shooting the model 18 very much. Taking cleaning stuff out to shoot wasnt part of my routine, and certainly not when I had a gun that would easily chug through many more rds without issue.

[john c]

I believe the chamber tightness is likely more individual to each gun. The family 6" K-22 from the early 70s had looser chambers than a model 18 I had in the 80s. The K-22 would shoot about 1000 rds of the old waxed lead Winchester Wildcat 22 economy ammo before getting sticky with extraction, the model 18 about half that, and I think with cleaner ammo. Both shot extremely well, though I never put both on paper side by side. The cheap ammo today may be worse than the old Wildcats, it was cheap and relatively grungy on chambers, but reasonably accurate and very reliable for the most part. I think if I had a gun I liked a lot and had super tight chambers to the point of being a pain in the butt to shoot much Id get a finish chamber reamer and hand chase the chamber to open it up slightly. You could lap or polish it with various methods also. Whatever possible loss of extreme accuracy that may be lost would more than be made up with being easier and more fun to shoot. It youre not doing better level match shooting I doubt most of us would be able to tell much real practical difference, and ammo selection may make up for whatever difference with cheap ammo there may be.

It drove me up the wall having the mess with cleaning the chambers of the model 18 at 500 rds. An average day out shooting either was 500-1000 rds. That put the damper on shooting the model 18 very much. Taking cleaning stuff out to shoot wasnt part of my routine, and certainly not when I had a gun that would easily chug through many more rds without issue.

My issues with my S&W .22 revolvers isn't extraction; it's having rounds stick a little when chambering. Also, I don't clean my revolvers very often, but I do carry a bore brush in each of my SpeedBeez loading trays and speedloader holders. I have a loading tray and speed loader for each type of S&W .22 revolver I have; 10 shot k-frame, 6 shot k-frame, and 8 shot j-frame. Every certain number of cylinders fired, I punch the chambers with the bore brush once, to keep down the carbon ring ahead of the case mouths. That's once every four cylinders with the tighter model 17s, and once every 8 cylinders with the 617s. A quick scrub over the forcing cone and cylinder face every couple of outings with a stiff toothbrush keeps them running fine.

I'm shooting up a couple of cases of Remington Golden Bullets I got in early 2013 after Newtown. They're such garbage that I had a hard time finding a gun that would function with them. My revolvers work well, but you can still hear the different sounds of each shot going off, and sometimes I get unexplicable fliers. These rounds are copper plated, so there's no wax buildup to clean up. It's just the carbon ring in the cylinders.

While I appreciate the craftsmanship of older Smiths, I do think the newer ones have more engineering thought put into them. They work better in small ways that add up to a better experience. The firing pins are cut to size so they don't impact the cylinder when dry fired; it's easy to do this with CNC machining. I'm sure the chamber size was set loose enough to allow easier insertion and extraction without sacrificing much accuracy, etc. The older ones, in my experience, were just built tight, and worked tight. That showed up on paper, but the shooting experience of just plain fun is less.