Hello all, I'm trying to sort out a problem for a friend. He was recently firing his grandfather's bring-back 37M when the chamber formed a circumferential crack (around the barrel rather than down the length of it). I have not personally seen it nor the full extent of the crack. This is the type of crack I would anticipate forming through excessive extraction forces based on tensile stress rather than hoop stress. I believe he shot around 50 rounds and began to experience poor accuracy and stovepipe FTEs and inspected it to find the crack had formed. I have seen the gun before, and it is in excellent to very good condition.
The only thing I noticed that concerned me was that the barrel is marked for .32 ACP (7.65mm) and the barrel is chambered in .380 ACP. I did not get a chance to look at the breech face/extractor to see if it had been converted or was otherwise suitable for .380. I also do not know if the recoil spring in the pistol is the proper strength for .380 or if it is .32 spec. It did apparently feed from the magazine. I have told him how to check to make sure that the breech face is cut/converted for .380, and I hope to hear back what his findings are (I'll update the thread with the new info).
So a number of questions come to mind:
1) Could the .32 slide/.380 barrel combo have caused this if the slide was not machined or converted to .380?
2) Is anyone aware of this as a common problem with this pistol design?
3) Does anyone know where a replacement barrel could be found (hopefully when I find out how the breech face inspection went, I can recommend to them to either replace it with a .32 or .380 barrel)?
The only thing I noticed that concerned me was that the barrel is marked for .32 ACP (7.65mm) and the barrel is chambered in .380 ACP. I did not get a chance to look at the breech face/extractor to see if it had been converted or was otherwise suitable for .380. I also do not know if the recoil spring in the pistol is the proper strength for .380 or if it is .32 spec. It did apparently feed from the magazine. I have told him how to check to make sure that the breech face is cut/converted for .380, and I hope to hear back what his findings are (I'll update the thread with the new info).
So a number of questions come to mind:
1) Could the .32 slide/.380 barrel combo have caused this if the slide was not machined or converted to .380?
2) Is anyone aware of this as a common problem with this pistol design?
3) Does anyone know where a replacement barrel could be found (hopefully when I find out how the breech face inspection went, I can recommend to them to either replace it with a .32 or .380 barrel)?