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S&W Model 340 PD cylinder issue

2K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  MikeG 
#1 ·
This is the scandium-framed, titanium cylinder .357 Magnum on the Centennial style frame.

It is a hand full of recoil with magnum loads, of course, but rated for it. 158-grain Federal Hydra-Shoks are one of the few loads that won't jump the crimp after four rounds, so I often have some of those in it and fire a few every once in a while just to impress the girls.

Anyway, on its most recent outing this past weekend, I fired a dozen .38 Specials through it and then a couple Magnum Hydra-Shoks for grins. I couldn't extract the cases in the usual manner of pushing the ejector rod. After a little manly coercion I managed to instead push the entire cylinder up with the ejector rod. It even scratched the finish at the bottom corner of the cylinder opening in the frame. Pushing the cylinder back into position will cause the sidearm to act normally again, and it won't slide up without that force, but it is still just a finger force that does it.

With the cylinder back into position, the revolver dry-fires as normal, but did something break? Do I need to call S&W? I guess I will, but thought someone might have heard of this issue before.
 
#2 ·
The .38s built up some crud at front of the chambers, odds are. Then the .357s were hard to extract due to that.

Chuck a .40 cal or so brass brush in a battery operated drill and use that with some solvent to clean the chambers out one at a time. If you are careful, may be able to do this without pulling the cylinder out.

If it still doesn't lock up and open normally, the crane might have become slightly bent due to the force required to eject the .357 brass.

Lesson, don't run .38s with lead bullets through a gun without cleaning it if you are going to shoot .357s later. It probably wouldn't hurt a Blackhawk doing this, but the light framed guns have thin cylinders.

My opinion.
 
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