Basic Question

Status
Not open for further replies.
L

LlanoEstacado

Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2006
Messages
59
Location
Back Home in Texas
I recently bought a new revolver. It seemed fine, but I did not check the cylinder bores. First time I loaded it, I noticed the cartridges were rattling around in the cylinder when I moved the gun around:uhoh: I had a gunsmith look at it - he noted .008 variation in bores around the cylinder (6 shot). I had it sent back to the factory. Just got it back. The bores are now within .001 of each other. However, they are .010 to .011 larger than the factory cartrideges. I compared that to a S&W .38 and a Ruger .44 (both revolvers) I have - they seem to average about .004 over factory cartridge size.

Question: I had hoped to be able to reload for the new gun. I'm thinking, however, that the .010 cylinder bores will "stretch" the brass way too much for me to be able to reliably resize and load. Am I right?
 
Maybe, maybe not.

It depends on the caliber, and how much case expansion you actually get when you fire it.

A low pressure round like a .38 Spl might not stretch nearly as much & stay stretched as a .357 Magnum or other high-pressure round.

Still, .010" is an awful lot.

What kind of gun & caliber is it?

rcmodel
 
rcmodel...That .010 is less then .005 at any given point around the chamber when a cartridge is fired in the chamber. Really not very much...

Sounds like S&W redrilled the chambers.
 
It is a Ruger SP101 in .327 Fed. Mag., so, the pressures will be high. I could measure the test cartridege and see what it is. However, the manufacturer said they replaced the cylinder during the repair. I guess I can see what I get when I fire it - have not had a chance to do so yet.
 
I just measured three revolver's chamber diameters. One .38 Special and two .357 magnums. I came up with an inside diameter of .380 +/- .001 on all three. I measured several of my reloads for both .38 Special and .357 magnum just below the bullet. They averaged at .374...That is a difference of .006 +/- .001 clearence between the chamber and the unfired case...
 
Thanks Bushmaster, that gives me a point of comparison since I've never reloaded. Seems like 1'm around 3 - 4 .001's over what you've been working with - maybe that's in the ball park after all.
 
.010" slop in a .32 chamber is a lot more then .010" slop in a .45 chamber.

Still seem's like a lot to me.

rc
 
Fire a couple and measure the case at the widest area and see what you get...

rcmodel...It does seem to be a bit more then you would expect...But then again. This is the modern world where we must make everything dummy proof at the cost of those that are a bit smarter...
 
Ya know Llano...I was askin' meself the same question when I typed all that. I just resized some .38 Special cases last night and it didn't even register to measure a few. I normally don't measure fired cases. You (or I) can usually tell by lookin' at a case if it is a bit ballooned more then it should be.

Maybe one of the other guys have a couple of unresized (fired) cases in .38/.357 magnum that they can measure for you at this time...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top