S&W 19-9: 5000 round review

[Totem Polar]

Awesome thread, post, and pics. Welcome to P-F.

[vermilionbird]

@jh9 - the wear on my recoil shield definitely seem a little deeper than yours but I'm struggling to get a good angle with a picture in focus:



@Navin Johnson - two light primer strikes; I did not fully seat the cartridges in the charge holes due to fouling and that's what caused the light primer strikes

[JWintergreen]

Fantastic Review. Thank you for taking the time to do this.

[defilade]

Great review! You inspired me to take mine out today and do a little shooting. I don’t have as many rounds through my 19-9, I’m only around 1000.

I purchased mine used so I don’t know how many total rounds have been fired.

I know the original owner sent it back to Smith and Wesson a few times. Once to fix the bluing, and another time to fix cylinder rotation.

I found that it almost completely froze the cylinder when shooting lead bullets. I sent it to DougGuy from castboolites to have him hone the cylinders and also chamfer the charge holes.
It works better with lead, but it still gets pretty bad so I don’t go much more than 150 before it gets scrubbed and cleaned.

Overall, I really like the gun and it is one of my favorite carry guns.



I had had to remove the JM grips. Unfortunately I must be allergic to the finish on the grips. They made my skin blister and itch just like a chemical reaction. My other JM grips that were on my 625 did the same thing to me.





148 grain Lee wad utters cast by me loaded with 3.2 grains of Winchester 231 and 20 yards.



158 LSWC at 20 yards, all double action.

I carry the gun AIWB in a JM Custom holster

[penates]

I had had to remove the JM grips. Unfortunately I must be allergic to the finish on the grips. They made my skin blister and itch just like a chemical reaction. My other JM grips that were on my 625 did the same thing to me.

103286[/ATTACH]

Allergic reaction to tropical hardwoods is pretty common. Grip and knifemakers will wear hoods when sanding.

[Moylan]

The wear on the recoil plate is interesting, though; it looks a bit excessive. I went and dug out my old IDPA 686 and for comparison
...
The wear on the blued 19 looks more than finish deep, like the center pin is putting a significant trench in the recoil plate and a bigger divot on the bolt. On the stainless 686 the last picture should capture that it's mostly just finish-deep. Roughly 8k on the odometer with ~10ish years of IDPA from 1-4 matches a month.

Can you get another angle on your 19? Kind of wonder if @03RN can capture the wear on his 66. I wonder 1) if most of that is early on and the metal is work hardened by the center pin such that by the time you're here it's probably as bad as its going to get and 2) if the blued carbon steel is wearing different than the stainless.

I'm very interested in hearing more about this issue, too. I have a used Smith 65 that came with a bit of a swipe on it, not as bad as vermillionbirds, but worse than yours. I took out the pin and polished it up pretty well, and I make sure to follow Jerry Miculek's advice as best I can and be sure to push fully on the cylinder release before I push on the cylinder itself. But I'm still worried about the wear. I have somewhat similar wear on my 642. Interestingly, basically no wear on my early 70's blued Dan Wesson--however, the Dan Wesson had clearly hardly been shot when I bought it. I have no idea what's normal and I'm keen to learn more about this. Thanks for asking this question.

[defilade]

Allergic reaction to tropical hardwoods is pretty common. Grip and knifemakers will wear hoods when sanding.

It seems to be the finish that Hogue uses? Both my JM grips give me the rash, however no other wood grips have done that to me. My gun currently wears a set of Ahrends grips and I haven’t had any issue.

My JM grips were walnut that came with this gun and the other pair were on my N frame and I think are the pau ferro grips.

I really liked the feel and look of the walnut ones. I moved them to my 617 since it isn’t carried against my skin. They don’t bother my hands, just my stomach. I read somewhere else online someone else had the same issue and they thought it was probably due to the finish itself not the wood.

It’s a very painful, burning itching rash. It looked like a chemical burn. It felt like the grips were getting hot against my skin when it first happened.

I used to do a lot of wood working and I never had a reaction like I did with those grips.

Wade

[DamonL]

@vermilionbird

Did you have any issues with the integral lock? I know I don't like it, but that is my own prejudice. I grew up without them. I enjoyed your links to Revolver Guy. I experienced the dreaded cracked forcing cone in my Model 19 and did not know it was a design weakness.

[vermilionbird]

@DamonL I've never had a problem with the internal lock. I've owned a handful of S&W revolvers over the last few years: a model 60, 642, 638, 60, 686, 625 .45 ACP MG, this 19, and two trade-in 64s. I've shot a fair bit through all these revolvers, some more than others, though many of you all have a much greater sample size than me. I've never had an issue with the internal lock however. The most catastrophic failure I've experienced was when the hammer stud for my 638 sheared off. The other was a broken firing pin in one of my trade-in model 64s.