sp101 Issue?

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357_

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I was looking at my spent cases and I saw that 1 out of every 5 rounds was struck off center, not by much but enough to notice it. I check the lock up and noticed that on 1-2 cylinders it was a hair loose. Not a lot loose but the other cylinders all have the welded feel and zero movement, these ones move slightly as if you can turn the cylinder just a smidge. I stuck a pen down the bbl at each end of that "rotation" and wasn't able to feel any misalignment so it is small if it's not just all in my head.

Any idea what happened? It shot accurately, I am just curious why some strikes were off center and if that is an issue? Is there a way to take apart the revolver and replace a washer or what-have-you to straighten out any looseness? Do I even need to worry about any of this? The gun has thousands of rounds of .357 through it (I don't think I've shot more than 100 .38's out of it) but it has yet to complain.

Thanks.
 
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Does anybody maybe have some pictures of bad primer strikes?
 
Did you check the cylinder play while holding the trigger back as described in Jim March's revolver checkout sticky at the top of this forum?

Cylinder play

1) With the gun UNLOADED (check for yourself!), close the action.

2) Thumb the hammer back, and while pulling the trigger, gently lower the hammer all the way down while keeping the trigger back - and KEEP holding the trigger once the hammer is down. (You've now put the gun in "full lockup" - keep it there for this and most other tests.)

3) With the trigger still back all the way, check for cylinder wiggle. Front/back is particularly undesirable; a bit of side to side is OK but it's a bad thing if you can wiggle it one way, let go, and then spin it the other way a fraction of an inch and it stays there too. At the very least, it should "want" to stop in just one place (later, we'll see if that place is any good). The ultimate is a "welded to the frame" feeling.​
 
yes, it moves EVER so slightly. I could not see it move but the feeling is there and it wasn't before.
 
This thing was solid for thousands of rounds and now it moves tad, not a QC issue.
 
As far as I can tell they look fine. I did notice that little piece of metal on the bottom that catches them is a bit loose now. Would that account for the primer strikes being off center? It does allow some movement. The strikes are only off by a tad. Most hit dead center, the ones that are off would still touch a strike in the center if you compared it to shooting.

Is this a hard part to replace? I'm handy, just never taken my revolver apart that far.
 
You are lucky then. The SP101 is maybe the easiest revolver to disassemble out there. Look on youtube for a video of disassembly. You will laugh when you see how easy it is.
 
If it's shooting well and not fouling from misaliagnment I wouldn't worry about it. I have yet to examine the firing pin indents from any of my revolvers to see how well centered they are.
 
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