Possible cyldiner face damage?

[crawl0985]

Hi all,
I am new to revolvers and I might have a question that seems very basic. I have owned my SP101 .357 snub for around 10 months and shot about 1,000 rounds through it. I have noticed that there are nicks in the face of cylinder that is oriented forward. I noticed this quite some time ago, but didn't think anything of it until recently when I cleaned my gun after going shooting and the number of nicks has increased. In addition to this, there is also a faint circle that is etched into the face that is slightly larger in radius than the distance from the center of the cylinder to the closest edge of any chamber. I have no scratches on the gun that are deep enough that I can feel with a toothpick, other than the ones on the cylinder. I would appreciate it if anyone could shed some light on this issue. -Chris

 

[tipoc]

Have a picture?

tipoc

 

[crawl0985]

 

[VA27]

I don't see anything to worry about. Shoot that puppy!

 

[pinkymingeo]

If you shoot a lot of heavy loads with light bullets in .357 you can expect some accelerated wear on the cylinder face and forcing cone, and some extra topstrap cutting. Nothing to worry about, usually. I don't shoot light bullets at high velocities in .357, because I've never seen a need for it.

 

[Slamfire]

Everything looks fine. I cannot explain the "nicks", as I don't see anything that I recognize as severe.

As for the concentric rings around the chamber mouths, cosmetic only. If it really bothers you, (and this is a stainless pistol?) use soft scrub and a toothbrush.

 

[Old Fuff]

I have seen similar, but much worse, on Taurus Magnum revolvers with Titanium cylinders. Without exception they had tight cylinder/barrel gaps.

I concluded the the elastic cylinders were literally hitting the barrel face when heavy loads were fired. The marks didn't seem to hurt the revolver's performance, although they were not cosmetically pleasing, to say the least.

That said, I don't see anything on your SP-101 that would give me concern, but I would keep an eye on it.