Colt SAA .38 Special black powder frame.

[Vern Humphrey]

Quote:

The steel didnt turn into something else

All steel is not made of the same minerals and mixture. Do you think steel made today is as good as what was made in the 1940's or in China today?

His point is, at one time the steel was strong enough to take .38 Special loads, so what has changed? If it was strong enough then, it should be strong enough now.

And as Old Fluff points out, there is no record of failure with older SAAs converted to .38 Special by installing new cylinders (and barrels, if needed.)

So why should THIS gun be the first to fail?

Quote:

As has been previously alluded to, it is the cylinder, not the frame that must contain the pressure of the cartridge firing.

Frames can stretch over time after firing enough strong factory loads for example +P in alloy frame guns. It was not uncommon for K-Frame revolvers chambered in 357 magnum for the frames to stretch.

Frame stretching is not the same as a disastrous failure of the cylinder. The consequence of frame stretching is the gun going out of time, not disintegration.

 

[Old Fuff]

Frames can stretch over time after firing enough strong factory loads for example +P in alloy frame guns. It was not uncommon for K-Frame revolvers chambered in 357 magnum for the frames to stretch.

Again I'll agree up to a point, but a Colt SAA of any age wasn't made of aluminum or other lightweight alloy, and it would be a cold day in a hot place when Colt would convert a black powder era gun to .357 Magnum. In fact they made some changes in the frames they used to make pre-war .357 Magnums, and carried those changes over to 1956 production going forward to today, regardless of what cartridge they were/are chambered to use.

You can rest assured that if Colt had heard of any issues with their converting sound black powder guns to .38 Special the practice would have stopped, "at once!"

As an aside: During the 1920's and 30's Elmer Keith detonated two black powder Single Action's when his experimental loads crossed the line in the wrong direction. But he had a gunsmith weld a new topstrap on the frame, replaced the cylinder and barrel making them into .44 Special's, and carried on. Over years of use with heavy loads the revolvers remained serviceable - with no evidence of frame stretching.

It's not something I would recommend, but by the same token I wouldn't worry about .38 Special's.

 

[Jim K]

"...it is the cylinder that withstands the pressure of the cartridge firing, not the frame."

True to a point, but not quite correct. When a revolver is fired, the cartridge case pushes back against the recoil shield as well as outward on the cylinder walls. That backward pressure tends to stretch the frame, which is why a revolver with a top strap is stronger than one without it. In a percussion revolver, though, the entire cylinder moves backward in response to firing pressure. A Colt percussion revolver is adequately strong since the pressure is transferred to the center of the heavy frame boss, not to the top of the frame.

All of which has two points. When Colt went to cartridge revolvers for heavy loads (i.e., the SAA), they found it necessary to use a top strap; the open top system just was not strong enough (even had it been acceptable in other ways). And the current fad of converting Colt-type open top percussion revolvers to fire cartridges has its limits in terms of pressure and can lead to trouble.

Jim