School me on "Pinned & Recessed"

[Driftwood Johnson]

The 357 Magnum was a gun and round aimed at hunters and long range target shooters. S&W didn't think so many would be interested in a hand gun so powerful.

Howdy Again

That is correct. If you read Roy Jinks' 1977 book, although he does not mention anything about recessed cylinders or cylinder material, he has a fair amount to to say about the production of the original 357 Magnum revolvers.

The new revolver was to be Smith's most deluxe revolver, with a retail price of $60, $15 more than any other revolver sold by S&W at the time. Don't forget those are 1935 dollars, and this was the height of the Great Depression. The factory did not anticipate high volume sales, instead the revolver was going to be a custom built item. The customer could specify barrel length, type of sights, finish, and type of grip. Each customer would get a registration certificate, with the registration number stamped on the frame under the yoke. But demand proved to be much higher than Smith and Wesson anticipated, and by 1939 the Registered Magnum program was discontinued, with about 5,244 units having been produced.

 

[Jim K]

As I said first, the recessed head of the .357 was not primarily to deal with .357 Magnum cases, but with .38 Special cases (and yes, in the 1930's most .38 Special was still loaded in balloon head cases). The .38 Special can be (and often is) loaded to pressures in the .357 Magnum range; there is plenty of space for an overload of most powders.

I also have seen "hot" loaded .357 rounds that had the case head spread out enough that primers fell out of the cases when the cylinder was opened; .38 Special balloon head cases given the same treatment would likely have blown out at the head rather than just stretching the primer pocket as happened with the .357 cases, and done the revolver no good at all.

Jim

 

[Jim Watson]

Phil Sharpe said "The semi-balloon head, while it has been abandoned in cartridges of the .38 Special variety..." I don't know if that was in the 1937 or 1941 edition, though.

Elmer Keith was always careful to distinguish between balloon head and solid head .44 Specials, but I do not find any remark he made about it for .38s. Beneath his notice, no doubt.

I wonder about a gun company being so careful of the safety of handloaders, especially in those days. Most guns now, known use of handloads will void a warranty. In those days, it was hard to get any good information on reloading, the ammo companies wanted you to buy fresh.
The only example I know of is the data still published for reloading the attenuated 8mm Remington Special meant to protect users of leftover 1888s after WWI.

Some say current .38 Special is loaded down from its heyday and that present +P used to be standard. Somebody ought to shoot some old stock to check that one out.

 

[WVGunman]

Thank you for saving a lot of typing. P&R is primarily nostalgia.
...
So to the OP: pinned and recessed means you can sell it for more if you ever want to get rid of it.

I have a Rohm RG 38 revolver.

It has a pinned barrel.

 

[CraigC]

I will have to disagree with you there Craig.

Wasn't talking about CAS shooting or CAS loads but heavy duty five-shot guns. Oversized, recessed cylinders are an advantage here for the reasons stated. It supports the loading gate, which can be sprung otherwise and also looks much more refined.

 

[Elkins45]

I have a Rohm RG 38 revolver.

It has a pinned barrel.

I saw one of those go for over $100 at auction not long ago. Not sure if it was the barrel pin that put it over the top

 

[tipoc]

I have a 1939 catalog with Colt SAA, New Service, and Shooting Master .357 Magnums advertised. Blue Book says 525 first generation .357 SAAs produced, no count on New Service or Shooting Master. Probably not many, but some.

I was wrong there thanks for calling it out. I misremembered something.

Colt did chamber the fixed sight New Service in .357. Timothy Mullin in his book "Colt's New Service Revolver" tells us on page 149 and 150 that Colt offered it in 4", 5" and 6" barrels with the latter being the most popular. It was offered blued and nickel plated. The grip frame was made slightly smaller as well. The only changes they made to the big gun, other than the sights and what I mentioned, was...

"A small star was stamped on the front of Colt .357 cylinders to denote the special grade of stronger steel used to ensure safety with the higher pressures. Sometimes these cylinders seem to take on a different color when blued, due to the differences in the steel formulation."

Colt did not sell a lot of the New Service in .357 as the demand for fixed sight .357's was not large at that time according to Mullin's (there may have been other reasons as well). I think he's right on that.

This was the first fixed sight da revolver offered in .357 Magnum. and was intended for self defense.

Some versions of the Shooting Master were also chambered in .357 in the pre-war period which had adjustable sights.

Colt produced 525 SAAs in 357 for the first generation guns. According to Doc O'Meara's figures (after John Parson's) from his book on the Colt SAA. A number of these were assembled after the war from pre-war production parts.

In all Colt sold relatively few guns in .357 in the pre war period. During the war production of the .357 ceased. The machinery for the New Service and the Colt SAA had been set outside the factory to make room for wartime production and allowed to rust. Colt announced that no more SAA's would be produced. It took Colt nearly a decade to produce another gun in .357 Magnum after war's end that was not made from pre-war parts.

Mullin compares Colt's rush to produce guns in .357 following the rollout of the Registered Magnum to Glock's rollout of the 40 S&W. Something they rushed some and the guns suffered from it. The post war guns in 357 were more carefully built.

Both Colt (the .357 Magnum) and S&W (the Highway Patrolman) introduced new guns in .357 in 1954. Both the guns for the first time were aimed at the police market.

The Registered Magnum was not aimed at the police market. That it did well there surprised S&W. The most popular barrel length in the prewar period was 8 3/4".

tipoc

 

[tipoc]

A bit on balloon head cases...

The Complete Guide to Handloading by Philip B. Sharpe.
Phil Sharpe in his book The Complete Guide to Handloading written in 1937 describes the problems with what he refers to as semi balloon head cases and his description fits almost identically to what is observed in the cases being discussed here. Sharpe discussed a difference in loading density and that the brass had a tendency to upset and flow into extractor cuts. Sharpe also reported that the protruding primer pockets of these cases tended to break off. Sharpe does say that reason the pockets break, was never clearly defined. He also reports problems with balloon head cases was evident in black powder, smokeless powder and low pressure black powder and smokeless powder loads. Sharpe stated these same problems are rarely seen in modern solid head drawn cases. Sharpe finally noted that although as late 1937 the manufacturers of revolver ammunition still used balloon head cases, all rifle cases since the turn of the century were solid head construction.
The balloon head of the CBC case gives it a far greater volume than the solid head case. This is not bad unto itself. Sharpe touches on this in some experimenting he did with 38 SPL cases he found that when loaded with the same bullet, primer and amount of powder, balloon head cases gave lower pressures values than solid head.

Emphasis added by me.

http://cartridgecollectors.org/cmo/cmo08aug.htm

I wonder about a gun company being so careful of the safety of handloaders, especially in those days.

Good observation. But look at Doug Wesson cause this was something unusual. He worked for years to come up with something to compete with the 38 Super and to outdo it (yes the initial impulse for the 38/44 and the .357 was to compete with Colt's 38 Super). He worked hand in hand with Elmer Keith and Sharpe for years on developing the 38/44 and then took it beyond that. He took the prototype round and gun hunting and shooting to test it. This wasn't common.

The evidence suggests that the counter bored chamber mouths was an effort to protect against overloaded rounds and new or older brass not up to snuff. It also made the gap between cylinder and frame smaller. No evidence that it was simply a custom touch exists.

John Taffin, in his book "Big Bore Sixguns" has a decent chapter on the .357 Magnum and discusses Sharpe's cautions on loading for the 357 from 1937. Due to the pressures. If you don't have Sharpe's book handy you may have Taffin's. He quotes and summarizes from Sharpe a good bit.

tipoc

 

[Dframe]

As someone noted earlier. Pinned and Recessed is, for the most part, nostalgia. It really doesn't mean much in todays' world, unless you're writing ad copy

 

[tipoc]

Awhile later but let's close the door on this one.

In his 1935 book "Handbook of Pistols and Revolvers" Major Julian Hatcher write in chapter 2 in the section on the S&W K-22:

This gun was first designed when Remington brought out their Hi-Speed .22 caliber ammunition in 1930. This very greatly improved .22 caliber cartridge was sold with a caution against using in pistols or revolvers where the head of the cartridge is unsupported and there might be danger of injury to the shooter from burst heads due to the very high pressure necessary to get the increased velocity...he built this new gun specially for the recently designed high speed ammunition. The heat treated cylinders that Smith & Wesson had been using for some time had of course more than ample strength for the cartridge; the only weak point was the rim. This point Major Wesson took care of by producing a countersunk cylinder with recesses for the cartridge heads, so that the rims of the cartridges are supported all around, and the danger that the fingers will be cut or burned by escaping gas, or that the adjacent cartridges in the cylinder will be prematurely exploded, is absolutely avoided.

A few pages later in his section on the new Magnum revolver and the .357 round he writes;

In order to handle this cartridge with absolute safety, the extra precaution has been taken of recessing the cylinder so that it completely surrounds the head of the cartridge the same as it does in the K-22.

Later the same year Elmer Keith reviewed the new gun in which he had a hand in developing. He wrote in teh November 1935 issue of American Rilfeman;

The cylinder is recessed for the shell-heads, as is the case with the K-22 revolver. Smith & Wesson were the pioneers in bringing out this feature in their excellent K-22 Model, and have now adopted it for the .357 Magnum. It is a very good feature, and will be appreciated particularly by handloaders, as it absolutely precludes the risk of injury to the shooter or a bystander from particles of flying brass in case the head of a shell cracks off or bursts. I once had the head of a 45 Colt black powder cartridge to blow completely off, the escaping gas blowing the loading gate off my Colt Single Action and through the right forefinger, cutting it to the bone.

You can find the article here...

http://www.elmerkeithshoot.org/GA/

http://www.elmerkeithshoot.org/AmericanRifleman/Keith357.pdf

I figure this closes the door on the issue. There was a clear reason for S&W to recess the heads of the cylinder. It was not just cosmetic. They believed there was a purpose to it.

tipoc