What do you think, too hot?

GymB

GymB

Picking it up slowly.
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Had a great revolver day, the bullets just decided to go in the holes.

The .357mag round was more lively than the .38special rounds, and I’m thinking maybe a little too lively, but nicely accurate.

Gun was a S&W M19-3.

So two facts to base your feedback on.
Fired 20 rounds and then decided to close the box. Round 12 locked up the gun, had to pound the cylinder out. That round, and all others, ejected from the cylinder easily.
The attached pic compares the primers of the fired 38special vs the 357mag rounds.
One bonus fact, load does not exceed published data.
3A81D745-FC77-46D8-B61E-F28173B6A9D9.jpeg
 
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Assuming its Loaded to spec, I see the primer edges are rounded, bolster is not imprinted on the face of the primer, ejection is easy, so, maybe not an overload or pressure issue.

So.....I'll take a stab at it. You loaded a light bullet, say, under 140g. And you selected a soft primer, like a fed, win or remington. And you Possibly fired these from from a smith k or l frame revolver?

The flow is between firing pin and hole in the bolster tieing up your cylinder. kind of a classic sign the hole is big, the pin small and maybe the primer soft.

Inspect the gun, triple check the load, conduct necessary repairs to the gun and or load, and always use harder primers for magnum loads.
 
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The loads look fine to me since the primers are not flattened all the way to the base of the case and still have a lot of curvature on them. The 357 primers are a bit flatter, but I have seen lots of worse primers from factory loads. It looks to me as if the firing pin hole is a little too big for the firing pin or the hammer spring is too light and some of the primer is flowing back into the hole around the pin. What revolver were you shooting?
 
Sharps40 said:
You loaded a light bullet, say, under 140g. And you selected a soft primer, like a fed, win or remington. And you Possibly fired these from from a smith k or l frame revolver?
Click to expand...

158g bullet over 12.0g of VV N105. I need to check the primers, I thought CCI500 but I could be remembering incorrectly. Gun is a model 19-3.

The hole is between 1/16” and 3/32”, I don’t have a 5/64” punch that’ll fit down the barrel, but I bet that’s the size. Here is what it looks like.
AD6EC31B-46A1-4E3C-A943-38366639CFD5.jpeg

The hammer spring could have been replaced at some point, this gun is new to me. The strain screw is in tight and appears to be full length.
21DBF172-0966-46B4-9600-401F74231E55.jpeg

So, replace the hammer spring because it’s cheap and easy. Is the hole oversized? Shoot, I should have measured the firing pin, that will have to wait until tomorrow.
 
Enlighten me? How does a spring lead to this problem?
 
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Take a fired primer, remove the anvil, use a punch to flatten the firing pin dent. Place the fired primer over the end of the strain screw, then tighten the strain screw, stopping about a half turn from bottoming out. Try a few mag rounds and see if the problem persists. If the primers look better, go ahead and bottom the strain screw and see if that fixes it.

Soft primers can also cause this. Try some cci small pistol mag primers and see what happens.

If none of this helps, it's probably time to get a smith to check the firing pin hole. It doesn't look bad, but might need a bushing.
 
Check your extractor rod. If it loosens up a bit, it lengthens the shaft the cylinder rotates on and pushes the cylinder rearward. Possibly causing a bind.
 
They are a sign of several things, overpressure being one. I dont see any *other* signs of overpressure so it makes sense to keep looking, right?

I came here to learn something. If I'm wrong tell me why.
 
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The first on the left still has a radius around the edges of the primer...…. very good to go as far as pressure is concerned. The case on the far right has little to no radius left to see.... this is a flattened primer - pressure is high. Sometimes a magnum or a hot load will flatten out a primer a bit and its normal for a given load.

wpid-photo-jun-4-2013-1018-pm.jpg

search
 
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Catfish said:
Enlighten me? How does a spring lead to this problem?
Click to expand...

The hammer nose supports the primer for a short time after firing, before the hammer begins to rebound. Pressures rise very quickly in handgun cartridges, and if the spring is weak, there might not be enough support to keep the primer from cratering with some loads.

Usually there is some combination of soft primer/weak or lightened spring/endshake/worn hammer nose/worn firing pin hole causing the problem, not any one item alone. The recoil shield on Jim's 19 doesn't look high mileage, so a light mainspring and/or shortened strain screw seems most likely.
 
So I put an old primer over the tension screw and took it back out today. First round locked up the gun. Primer isn’t flattened, but the firing pin indentation is an outie. Pressure must have pushed it into the firing pin hole.

Got it open, next 4 rounds felt like the same load, but the primers are only slightly cratered, no different than last week. I NEVER mix primers, but I’m starting to wonder if I got a few Federals in the mix somehow.

Fired some factory range ammo, no flattening or cratering.

Unfortunately the cylinder began binding pretty badly so I didn’t shoot any factory SD ammo. I think it’s headed home for an overhaul. While it’s gone I’m gonna pull all of these down and use the primed brass for low-pressure subsonic loads.
 
Since its not happening with every round and it doesnt seem to happen with factory rounds, could it possibly be enlarged flash holes in the old brass?
 
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