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Posted: 4/23/2015 2:21:49 PM EDT
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I posted this in the Revolver forum, but it's pretty dead over there today so I thought I'd post here as well.
I just picked up a brand new 357 S&W pro series 686 plus revolver. I took it out to the range last week and had probably 6-7 out of 100 rounds with a light primer strike. I was using handloads with CCI550 (small mag) primers. I'd hit them 2-3 times with only one going off with a 2nd strike. My buddy was there with an older 681 and every one of the rounds that would not go off in my gun, went bang in his on the first attempt. I also shot probably 50-60 38spl handloads with CCI500 primers and never had a failure with those. I shot it the same day I got so I didn't give it a thorough cleaning before hand (I just ran a patch or 2 down the barrel). I've since cleaned it extremely well, but I haven't had a chance to get back to the range. Has anyone else had/heard of any issues with this particular model? I'd blame the primers but they all went off no problem in the other gun. If the cleaning doesn't fix it, it is going back to Smith. |
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Primers not fully seated is the first thing that comes to mind.
Plus the magnum primers are harder and thicker to withstand the extra pressure. CCI's are one of the toughest primers available, combine that with not being seated fully and you get some that don't go bang the 1st time. It also sounds like that gun may be S&W's highly worked over model (smoothed out ), so it may have lighter springs in it. Same thing happened to me when I was doing some trigger work on one of my Uberti SAA's. Lightened the hammer spring too much and some wouldn't fire. Got some Winchesters from a friend and they all worked fine. You could try a different brand primer, all you need is one sleeve (100 primers) to find out for sure. |
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On the outer edge of possible causes might be that your firearm has a weak spring.
I suggest looking over your reloading practices, and correcting any flaws that you might find. I would also suggest firing as many different mfrs factory loads as convenient. If all the factory loads go bang, then that would seem to confirm some fault in your reloading practices. If there are some problems found with factory loads, then send the pistol back to the mfr, or replace the suspected springs yourself. Wolff springs have a good rep. |
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S&W still use a leaf spring for the hammer like my old 586/686?
Take the grips off. Look at the front bottom of the frame. See the screw head? See if it's loose. See if you can turn it clockwise (increasing the strength of the spring when the hammer is cocked). Then see if you have light strikes. |
| Only one of the rounds that failed went off with a second strike out of my gun. I hit some of them 3-4 times without going off. Every single round that did not go off in my gun went off in my buddy's. The rounds were loaded on a Dillon 650. I've loaded 10,000+ rounds on that machine and have never had any issues with primer seating. I've loaded several hundred 357 rounds that shot perfectly fine for my buddy. I don't think I have an issue with the reloading process, but I'm no too stubborn as to rule that out as possibility. I hope it is not a primer/gun combo as I bought 3k CCI primers when I bought the gun. I'll check the set screw on the leaf spring and head to the range after work today. |
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