357 Mag won't chamber

[Steve C]

Don't mistake the cylinder throats for a carbon ring. You won't get the chamber throats out with a brush. I've never found a fouling build up from .38's to be dificult to remove and have always done it with a bore brush dipped in any bare solvent followed by a wet patch and dry patch.

 

[H&R Glock]

Thanks- I just bought a spray bottle of M-Pro-7. I put some loose cotton ball slugs in the chambers and commenced spraying. I was surprised to see FOAM come out of the spray bottle! Anyway it soaked into the cotton and I am gonna' let this Smith sleep for a while with 6 wet cylinders! I also bought a 40 caliber bronze brush just in case Mpro needs help. At about $9.00 with tax this should also re-finish the stocks on my other guns and take out the trash! More reports to follow on the "Strange Case of the Carbon Rings" At any rate all you'se guys have opened my eyes to a lot of things I have never run into before in all my years of re-loading and shooting. Thanks millions!

 

[H&R Glock]

I tried the M-Pro-7 stuff in my Smith 19. Gave it plenty of time to soak and used a new 40 caliber brush. The rings still persist. This sort of makes me want to load up some hot rounds with .358 drill bit segments and blast the rings out. As Lady MacBeth used to say: "Out Damn Rings!"
I'll just have to live with them as they seem to cause me no trouble now.

I have the answer for Broken Bottles who also wrote in this thread. I used (158 grain) conical flat nose bullets as well as RNFP's and had trouble chambering these rounds in my Rossi M92 till I started to taper crimp them. There is a WORLD OF DIFFERENCE!!!! I loaded these between 1.559" and 1.580" and had chambering troubles with all.... TILL I TAPER CRIMPED THEM. IMHO the problem is the loading ramp on the barrel this can be well overcome with the taper crimp die. I have no tools that will get to the ramp so I will let a gunsmith polish it for me when he installs my new Marbles sight.

My sympathys go out to all Rossi owners who have trouble chambering anything other than cleaning rods in their model 92's. Right no I am a happy Rossi owner.

 

[Jesse Heywood]

Try this advice.

Or take a .357 case: sharpen the inside of the case mouth with a tapered reamer or a countersink bit, expand it so it just fits the chambers, push it home a couple of times to scrape the carbon out.

The "sharpen the inside" step is optional, but it helps. It also helps to swab some bore cleaner or transmission fluid in first and let it soak in for a while.

It's a lot easier than using a brush.

 

[witchhunter]

1500 fps with a 125 grain jhp in your 19 is possible with a cup and a half of H110, but it will be hard on it...you will love it though. It will make your carbine sing.