With semi-auto pistols if you shoot enough rounds the frame will eventually crack of the slide rails fail. Is it the same thing with revolvers, if you shoot say 200k rounds will the frame also crack? Ive also heard of the frame stretching, is this the end of life for a revolver?

Yes. Very much..depends..?
Hot loads, slamming the cylinder home, wear on the hand, wear on the cylinder stop, etc, etc.
Moving metal parts get wear.
Same as semi autos just different locations.

Revolvers have a fraction of the life of automatics.

Care to be a bit more detailed in that response?

Not at all my experience over the last 40 years.

My go to is an early 50’s combat masterpiece 38. It is all original parts. Still runs like the day it was made.

My model 17 ( 22) was bought used in the 1990’s I have put 120k plus through it. All original parts.

Revolvers don’t need routine spring replacement or maintenance like autos.

Heavy use of full house magnums regularly ( which realistically no one really does) especially in the lighter frames may eventually result in enough wear to retire a revolver, but even then will take 50 thousand rounds or more.

I shoot a lot- pretty much rare the week that I don’t shoot at least 100 rounds and have been for closecto half a century now. I have only ever worn out to the point of scrap one gun - a high standard bullseye competition gun and it took around 150 thousand rounds to do so.

Autos don’t come out of time, flame cut the top strap, crack the forcing cone etc. Of course, if you use light wad cutter loads that’s not an issue but that’s not going to do what most of us expect a handgun to do. Autos often go hundreds of thousands of rounds with small parts replacements that can be accomplished at the range by an advanced user. A revolver has to be seen by a specialist and those guys are headed into the home.

MR73 Manhurin revolver laughs at full house magnums.

From previous posts I suspect that Captain 127 has shot guns as much as I have. I have a .22 l.r. with over 110,000 rounds through it but since I have a dozen damn cheap Glocks, none has over 60,000 rounds through it. My Korths have very high round counts and an unloved Ruger GP100 does, too. I wore out more than one reloading machine and shot 3,500 rounds per months for a while.

At $15 / box of 9mm you will have spent $30,000 on ammo when you reach only 100,000 rounds, not counting shipping or taxes. At almost $40 a box of 50 rounds of .38 Special the cost of ammo will be around $80,000 for 100,000 measly rounds.

Who the heck cares for a $1,000 or even $3,500 gun at the current price level of ammo and the absence of components?????????

87% ??

From what I’ve seen a lot of revolver issues that cause long term damage is abuse rather then simple use. Slamming the cylinder home like you used to see on TV for instance. Spinning the cylinder then making the cylinder stop have to stop the rotation and mass. Fanning them things like that. Not to say that running magnum loads with jacketed bullets isn’t going to cause wear.

I've had slides break, breach faces crack, locking blocks break, recoil springs break, extractors break on Glocks and lose tension in 1911s and probably a bunch more I can't remember right now.

A revolver doesn't need a specialist if you crack a book. I've taught myself to fit every part in a k frame. It's not hard.

I have over 25k magnum rounds and probably that of heavy +p .38s in my m66-8 and I just had to replace the cylinder stop/spring.

My experience matches yours and others in the sense that I rarely have a revolver wear out.  Autos wear out quicker in my experience but still only after a lot rounds through them

With enough shooting revolvers can go out of time due to wear. E.g., I got to handle the S&W Model 19 that Walt Rauch carried when he was a Secret Service agent. He shot it a lot. It had been back to S&W twice to get retimed.

OTH, I have never felt a revolver with an action that was nearly as smooth as that one's.

Yes!

Normal wear will involve:

1)  forcing cone wear.  Bullet weight has little to do with it, but the type of powder used will.  Colloidal ball powders like H110/Win 296 are relatively slow burning and use large charges in the 15-16 gr range with 158 gr bullets and 20-21 grains with 125 gr bullets. Those large charges of powder create about 35% more felt recoil than 8-9 gr charges of medium burn rate flake powders that will produce 25-100 fps less velocity depending on barrel length. Worse, those large charges result in a lot of partially burned powder flowing through the forcing cone and they create a lot more forcing cone erosion.  Those v shaped cuts can potentially create forcing cone cracks if they get bad enough.

2) cutting of the top strap.  This one gets talked about now and then but it’s a non issue.  It’s a self limiting process.  You’ll see some minor top strap cutting initially and then it stops. Total non issue.

3) cylinder locking bolt and recess wear.  The locking bolt that rises into the locking recesses in the cylinder will create a turn line on the cylinder, which is cosmetic only.  However it will also create some wear on the leading edge of the cut in the cylinder, but it’s again a non issue.  

4) hammer and sear wear.  This isn’t any worse than it is for a DA pistol, but it will show up as “push off” where pressing on the back of the hammer will cause it to fall.

5) Cylinder end shake.  This occurs over time, but can usually be corrected by shimming.

6) Cylinder timing issues.  This can occur over time due to wear on the hand and or the notches on the ejector star.  It’s repairable and not a huge deal.

Then we have abnormal wear:

7) clyinder stop wear noted above is normal, but shooter abuse can cause some serious abnormal issues.  If you spin the cylinder and close it, the locking bolt and recess have to absorb all the energy of that heavy spinning cylinder and that can damage the bolt and peen the ends of the cylinder recesses. Close the cylinder into the frame like you’d close a book, and move the cylinder just enough to index the bolt into the next recess.

8) bent ejector rods.  There are a few different ways to speed load a revolver;
- the FBI reload.  It is fast  but best suited to revolvers with full length ejector rods, firing .38 Special;
- the Universal reload.  It works better with short ejector rod pistols and with .357 mag loads, but  the thumb partially blocks the ejector rod and the palm striking the rod can strike it as an angle and bend it.  That’s the number one cause of bent ejector rods, not so much slamming the crane into the frame, although that isn’t good for the revolver either; and
- the Stress Fire reload, which is a little slower but solves a whole bunch of other problems including bent ejector rods.

——


Getting maximum life out of a revolver is mostly common sense and avoiding mis treatment of the revolver.  

L and N frame S&Ws as well as the older Ruger Speed/Service/Security Six and current GP100 revolvers shouldn’t have any issues with the frames stretching provided you are not seriously hot loading the ammo.  None of these pistols are prone to forcing cone cracking either as the forcing cone doesn’t have a flat cut on the bottom side like the traditional K frame.

A note on the cylinder stop wear. It's not just caused by abuse. Lots of fast DA shooting/dryfireing can lead to wear that will cause skipping.

When my m66 started skipping I looked into it and it's pretty common with N frames and competitors chasing under 0.20 splits.

Fortunately it's a super fast and cheap fix.

I'm curious, have you had any Glock frames or 1911 frames crack? I'm curious because there's a thread going in this forum from a rental gun range that mentions Glocks having cracked frames, but it doesn't specify what part of the frame. If it's the part that near the slide rails, the sort of plastic rails, then that's mostly cosmetic as it has metal underneath.
Regarding your K frame, any issues with the frame itself, or with another 75k of heavy +p .38 do you anticipate the frame stretching or cracking?

Any issues with the frame itself, stretching or cracking?

I've never had a personal frame crack but I've seen them crack at the range I worked at. It was one of the rear metal inserts.
I've slowed down my heavy use of my m66 to help negate any future issues since it's my favorite carry gun. I picked up a m65 for training and competition.

Was it a part of the frame that can't be replaced, or a replaceable part?

Revolver wear usually means replacing/fitting small parts that are meant to wear.

Shooting a large number of magnums produces no out of the ordinary (like frame) wear when the basic firearm started life up to that task. When you're shooting them in a smaller than normal frame size, or a large frame Airlite gun, you can expect more and more frequent maintenance but that's just the price paid for the smaller or lighter gun.

Handguns, like any other tool’s working life is dependent on three things:

1) Quality of manufacture materials & methods

2) use

3) abuse

In general, revolvers from 100 years ago can safely be used, but the metallurgy from then means uber-hot handloads may cause problems.

I have several revolvers from the 1960s & they work as fine as the day they were made.  S&Ws were quality works of art then.  And, .22 LR, .38 Spl are low pressure loads.

Number of rounds, and level of rounds really has input tho.
I was raised by a Dad and uncles & friends that pushed .357 mag to the outer limits for entertainment. They DID wear out guns, but those guns were rebuildable and just continued soldiering on.
As a 3 year old I watched them cast Kieth bullets and launch them till the cases were on the ragged edge and the primers were well abused

That work, not pursued by many, accelerates wear on mechanical guns. Ruger Blackhawk 357's are almost immune to bleeding edge 357 wear. Late Colt SA's will show the wear after a while, S&W 586's almost don't wear but enough rounds call for a sprucing up, the N-frame Smith's the same only more.

People who call Ruger DA .357's out as much more stout than Smith's DA .357's are, in my opinion based on observance of a lot of guns used at the upper end of "hard", misstaken.

I see no need to go Ruger over S&W in .357 for durability reasons (considering L & N frames, under that I have no knowledge).  If you just like the big cast Ruger DA's then go for it with gusto.... but don't think the big(ger) Smiths won't hang with you round for outrageous rounds because they will based on my observance and experience.

Nothing in top end .357 beats the Ruger Blackhawk for longevity unless you go to the semi custom SA revolver world and even then, it's a crap shoot. My 6 1/2" Blackhawk has absorbed soooo much (in the 2 generations before it came to me) it amazes me. 357 lives in a much easier to contain place than the bigger magnums but a random 586 will imo last just as long as a Ruger DA with a worse trigger.
As long as you're burning powder happily, I'm good with whatever your chosen lancher is

I've seen one "worn out" revolver in my lifetime. A lend-lease S&W .38. It looked like it had been to hell and back.

Other than that a few broken S&W Model 12's (prone to cracking under the barrel) and a few Colt Detective Specials that were out of time (checked properly).

Jerry Miculek's 686 did around 1M rounds before the firing pin broke, IIRC.

That semi auto's last longer might be true for anything other than a Colt, Ruger, or Smith.

I have a S&W Airweight with a lot of rounds that could use a cylinder shim...but those shouldn't be hard use guns, anyway.

I have a model 14 that more Tham likely has 400K through it. I personally put 300K or a little more through it.

I bought it from a guy who shot it in PPC.

I continued to use it that way for about 10 years.

I had the firing pin tunnel and pin on the hammer replaced twice. I had the tunnel crimped back in about 6 months after I got because it was not done properly when the guy I bought it from had it replaced or it had worked loose.

Matter of fact Ron Powers did it for me at a match we where both at. Nice guy.

Needless to say the DAO pull is slick.

It also had the front lock. Up removed and a ball detent put in. That takes a lot of wear and tear off it opening and closing it.

Jerry, we love him, shoots (very, very fast, and very well) ammo/lite.
That's not a decent reference for revolver lifespan, everybody that shoots competition style shoots the fastest to load and the lightest charge that meets spec.
Basic revolver lifespan depends on a medium number of factory level loads. They'll all live thru that.

A different result comes for high volumn hunters and others who launch a lot of bigger bullets at higher velocities. In .357, using modern day loads doesn't relate to old timers who battered those guns with higher velocities. A high round count .357 in today's higher end loads won't correlate to the same practice in say the 70's because those cats launched em harder.

Right, wrong or indifferent, people today list the 357 mag round count of their gun, but it's just not at the level of old days, at least the enthusiasts (!) of old days.
Revolver wear with modern .357 should really be no issue for shooters. .357 in todays max loads is a pretty neutered round, still very usefull but not close to it's potential. Not that everybody needs that, but it's still there

There are so many available chamberings in the upper range that .357 just resides in it's current weak form today. If it does the work, then no problem. But it'll do a lot more even if there's no real need for it too.

But, yes, we all love Jerry

I disagree that today’s high end 357 factory loads are neutered compared to yesteryear’s.

And I really disagree about yesteryears’ shooters shooting high volumes of top level 357s.

In the later period of widespread police use of revolvers, most departments had migrated to issuing one standard round for duty, practice and qualification. If any revolvers saw lots of high end rounds, it would be the police issue revolvers. I have five police trade ins, an M10, an M66 and three M65s. None had/has any issues related to actual shooting use, as opposed to cosmetic wear and tear.

Wrt to Jerry and his 686 … I don’t care what ammo he was shooting, a million cycles is a just a huge number of cycles. It would be a huge number of cycles even if it was with snap caps.

It's historical fact, feel free to disagree with it tho

Considering cop revolver use to be the high end of "hard use", well ok, but again that's not accurate.

Jerry says he has a million rounds down the range, if you ascribe every one of those to his 686 you're mistaken, he has a large volumn of 45acp thrown thru moonclips, all reduced loads.

The cops , all medium loads.
You can hang your hat there, but it's a mistake, you do you.

There are segments of the shooting world who've shot a LOT of top end rounds thru everything available (I keep repeating this, the handgun sillhuette shooters lead that pack). They are NOT cops or Jerry. Competition shooters can give us input into longevity, they cannot give us input into longevity with high round count magnums.
Cops cannot give us input into high round count magnums. Others HAVE done that work and we can learn from it.

Jerry also worked for Mr Clark in his younger days, and married Mr Clark's daughter.
Having a world class revolver smith in the family will make your gun shoot light loads for an indeffinite lifespan

I've seen revolvers frames crack before. When I worked at a gun club the S&W 500 mag broke rather quickly. The S&W 629 44 mag lasted longer, but eventually broke as well. Semi-autos are less powerful and seem to last longer. Didn't have a rental 38 Special to compare however. But most people don't shoot the crap out of their revolvers because revolver ammo is more expensive and it holds less ammo and takes longer to reload on average. Most semi-autos go for around 100,000 rounds before they are done. But only competition shooters run enough ammo to totally break a gun. Most of us average people will never get close and the guns will last forever if taken care of.  

Current SAAMI max pressure for .357 mag is 35,000 cup.That's a 20% - 25% reduction depending on who you listen to, over the former spec.

Of course we can measure pressure much better than they could 40, 60, 80 years ago. But 40, 60, 80 years ago, 357's of the time were not blowing up with those loads.
Today we have much smaller frames chambered in 357, that does make a difference.

But those loads were shot a lot in 1930's state of the art steel guns (large guns) and they lived happily thru it.

Take from that what you want, but modern .357 IS neutered, for better or for worse.

I'm curious, when you worked at the gun range what pistol frames did you see crack from usage?

One of the things with the police revolvers were they were running typically 125-158gr loadings from factory manufactures if they were running 357. I’d also hazard a guess that for every department running a top performing 357 there were probably ten running 38+p.

As for standardization I can’t say what all places did for practice but guys I talked to who went to the academy with revolvers bitched about the dirty wadcutters and LRN tying up guns during firearms. I also know there were agencies who for either PC reasons didn’t like 357 magnum loadings and others that didn’t because some folks did poorly with the recoil. Just like todays law enforcement there’s some guys who put in work at the range and some guys who just don’t.

Not to say there weren’t guys and even departments shooting tons of magnums through guns and developing data.

Look at a Speer #8 manual max loads, look at a Speer #14 max loads.
SAAMI mcp was before they dropped it, 46,000 cup, or approximatly 43,500 psi.
S&W asked SAAMI to reduce that to 35,000 psi because their K frame guns were seeing damage. Today SAAMI maintains 2 standards for 357, 43,500 psi and 35,000 psi. Most manufacturers roll with the 35,000 psi. Buffalo Bore, Corbon, Double tap? maybe, maybe not.
43,500 is still the european standard, your european 357 may be warm.

35,000 psi makes for less maintenance. 43,500 psi makes for harder hits with bullets that perform proper in that velocity.
35,000 is your max loads in reloading manuals, at least most of them.

That, is neutered.

+/- 1450fps 158gr JHP has always been the 357 standard.

But I ordered the Speer manuals.

Silhouette shooters don’t exclusively shoot full house loads, and just not that many.

In one post you agreed with Jerry’s 686 round count, but discounted it because you allege he uses minimal loads. Now r you refute the number of rounds fired as propounded by another member. But now you refute it. Can’t have it both ways.

I have no idea what Jerry's round count is, it's stupendous whatever the number.
It's also power puff level. So yes, anybody with some sense rules out powder puff. The discussion of wearing out revolvers in my estimation runs to hard use.
The average cat won't wear one out.

If you think the silhouette shooters didn't burn buku powder in their heyday, well I don't know what to tell you, competition breeds a lot of practice. You don't knock down rams with light loads, that's why they reached the outer limits of (and abandoned) Smith n frames. The silhuette shooters I knew as a youngster wore out barrels. Maybe you know a different breed?


You seem to disagree with me on every revolver topic, that's fine, go your way and enjoy life, I'll do the same, but be prepared to be corrected when you distort history

Just out of curiosity, do you dispute that SAAMI reduced .357 book pressure?
Do you not believe that .357 load data is more conservative than it once was?
Maybe I'm wrong here...

Most modern semi-autos will never crack a frame if the recoil spring is replaced as reasonable intervals.

Modern revolvers shouldn't stretch unless you are using 1000s of hot loads. They'll wear out of time after a while, but that is fixable by a decent gunsmith.

ETA: A revolver like a Model 60 or K-frame might stretch with tons of magnums, but you're looking at several times the gun's cost in ammo to get there. At that point you have more than enough plinking ammo money to replace it without worry. Revolvers like the Ruger GP100, and to a lesser extent the L-frame, will last effectively forever.

The only modern semi-auto I've ever encountered that had a frame crack under somewhat-normal use were SIG metal-frame guns (220, 226, etc.) in the hands of certain gov agencies that had very high round counts, and it took a lot of hot ammo to get there. Beretta 92s can also do it, but you have to be retarded and never replace the recoil spring to get it to happen.

If you are really worried about revolver wear, just buy a Ruger GP100 and be done with it. They are the unyielding workhorse of the revolver world.

I would think this also.

And they are easier to fix if parts wear out. IF a semi-auto starts to wear it'll usually wear the recoil spring, then the slide, then parts like extractors. All are usually very easy to replace. Anyone with half a brain can do it.

A revolver wears out and you need to hand-fit parts and re-time the action. Not all that easy without a decent amount of experience, and really only suited to those who are already mechanically inclined. Anyone else is better off paying a gunsmith to do it properly.

So I got the manuals you refer too, and, as suspected, you are just wrong.

In fact, other than a cite to TC single shot and Rugers, other “strongly built revolvers,” which eliminates S&Ws, the data in the two manuals lags current manuals.

I’ll post screen shots if you insist.

JPK

I pulled those manual numbers out of the air as an example of "old" and "new", you're saying max 357 loads in both manuals are the same?

My old manuals have markedly higher max charges of 2400, which we burned quite a bit of. I don't think, but maybe I'm wrong, that anybody has listed mid 15 gr. loads of 2400 behind 158's for quite some time.

As for strongly built revolvers, I've tried to wear out a 586 no dash with loads of 2400 that I wouldn't list on the internet but were stout. That gun is still as sound as the Blackhawk that lived on the same diet. The L and N frame Smith's fall solidly in the "strongly built" category in .357. .44 mag not so much.

Out of curiosity, what charge of 2400 do those manuals list behind a 158 (cast or jacketed)? And I'm asking about the max, not a reduced load for SAA's, the max charge listed for 2400/158.

I don't even know you man, we're having a discussion via keypad, why would I think I could "insist" you do anything?