km101
Member
Recently purchased a lightly used S&W model 60-15, 3” .357. Had a few handling “beauty marks “ but all minor. Took it o the range to try different loads. It shot to POA with factory.357 ammo, but there was always a “flier”. I thought it was probably me as full house .357 mags in a 3” J-frame are pretty awesome. But lighter loads, even .38 wadcutters, had the same result. Every group had a flier. I took it home and got out the pin gages.
The bore checked good with only a .001 constriction at the frame. Sure enough one throat was under size @ .355. The other four were all .359. Inserting the pin gage from the back of the chamber showed that the throat was .359 except for the last ~ .025 of the throat. It appears that the throat was not reamed/finished completely!
I am “assuming “ that this constriction was swaging the bullets and causing the fliers. I have never seen this or even heard of anything like this before. How could this get out the door?
I was very disappointed, and called S&W to see what could be done. They sent me a return label and I sent it to them. Just over 3 weeks later Fedex delivered it to my door.
The paperwork just says “Inspected Repaired Test Fired” Not a lot of info but after checking the gun it appears that they have replaced the cylinder. All the throats now check .359 , there is no turn line on the cylinder and no burn marks on the front except for the three holes that they test fired. No end shake, good lockup, bore/cylinder alignment is good. So far everything is looking good! It still has a 12# DA trigger pull but I will have to fix that. If it shoots a good group now I will be a happy camper!
Now off to the range to see how it shoots! Keeping my fingers crossed! Looks like S&W has made it right!
The bore checked good with only a .001 constriction at the frame. Sure enough one throat was under size @ .355. The other four were all .359. Inserting the pin gage from the back of the chamber showed that the throat was .359 except for the last ~ .025 of the throat. It appears that the throat was not reamed/finished completely!
I am “assuming “ that this constriction was swaging the bullets and causing the fliers. I have never seen this or even heard of anything like this before. How could this get out the door?
I was very disappointed, and called S&W to see what could be done. They sent me a return label and I sent it to them. Just over 3 weeks later Fedex delivered it to my door.
The paperwork just says “Inspected Repaired Test Fired” Not a lot of info but after checking the gun it appears that they have replaced the cylinder. All the throats now check .359 , there is no turn line on the cylinder and no burn marks on the front except for the three holes that they test fired. No end shake, good lockup, bore/cylinder alignment is good. So far everything is looking good! It still has a 12# DA trigger pull but I will have to fix that. If it shoots a good group now I will be a happy camper!
Now off to the range to see how it shoots! Keeping my fingers crossed! Looks like S&W has made it right!
