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Karate

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I was looking at SW 360 38 spl...it is a scandium frame revolver...here is my question...if scandium is stronger and lighter than aluminum...then why does it have a heat shield above the forcing cone and the 442 637 638s do not

thanks
 
I believe the 360 is a .357 and the 442 637 638 are 38spl. I think the light .357 and .44 mag have the scandium frame with the heat shield. the 38spl are aluminum and do not have the shield.
 
There were some .38 Special chambered 360's released in 2004.

But since the 360 was designed as a .357 Magnum, and needed the blast shield, they had to use the blast shield to fill the slot in the frame on the .38 anyway.

Nothing odd about it, other then it's a pretty rare model variation and you won't find very many of them.

rc
 
That doesn't surprise me that they made a limited number of one thing or another. Thanks for correcting me RC.
 
Regular aluminum pistol frames are actually some form of "duralumin", which is an alloy of aluminum with a little copper (and maybe other metals, I'm not an expert).

"Scandium" frames are an alloy of aluminum with a little scandium (and once again, probably other stuff). Scandium is a fairly rare atomic element, and I guess the only places where it is found in any quantity used to be behind the Iron Curtain. Once Communism collapsed, the price of scandium in the West went down to the point where it could be used in firearms.

The scandium-aluminum alloy is superior to the copper-aluminum alloy, to the point where scandium can be used for the cylinder of the revolver, which was never practical with duralumin. (They might still use steel chamber inserts in the scandium guns; I don't have one.) But as far as I know, that's why the scandium guns are so much lighter than the older "aluminum" guns, which had steel cylinders.

Apparently scandium-aluminum guns don't resist flame-cutting any better than the duralumin guns.

BTW, if you want to save some typing, it used to be common to abbreviate duralumin as "dural". Dural was the primary material of most WWII airplanes, and it was improved so much during the war that it became possible to make firearms and many other things (like lawn furniture) out of it.
 
I believe the 360 is a .357 and the 442 637 638 are 38spl. I think the light .357 and .44 mag have the scandium frame with the heat shield. the 38spl are aluminum and do not have the shield.
The 360J is the .38sp only version of the 360. S&W has made several runs of them , the first was in 2009. It uses the same frame as the M&P 360. It's the lowest priced scandium framed revolver S&W has made, I bought one from Bud's in 2009 for $409. PSA recently had them on sale for $449, IIRC. I used mine for a lightweight 9mm conversion project.
 
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