I was delighted to receive a very nice Korth Target revolver in .32 S&W Long with a 5 1/4 inch barrel recently. The revolver appeared to be barely used with the recoil shield showing only a few rub marks.

I collect Korth revolvers and you guys can probably understand that I rapidly fell in love with this gun!


I loaded up a box of ammo and headed to the range on Friday, having my other Korth in .32 S&W Long and a .22 Korth along for comparison. Both guns are tried and tested and shoot well.

I started out warming up with the .22, a proven performer that I had salvaged as a rusted gun without grips for $400. The result is on the left target.

When I fired the first shots to sight the "new" used Korth in, I was appalled at the groups. I do all my shooting off-hand, for accuracy usually at 25 meters/yards, whatever is available. The gun just didn't group! Already getting vexed I shot the .22 l.r at the same target, it grouped. That is the picture to the right, the .22 impact marked in yellow, the .32 holes marked with black and blue.



I wondered about my reloads. No way that a Korth could shoot that bad!!! It grouped okay with my old gun but lower with this target load.



I was disgusted and a quick inspection did not reveal any obvious cause for that terrible inaccuracy. I had time to cool off and inspect the gun more closely, comparing it to my other .32 Korth. The chambers on the bad one are slightly wider but the forcing cone is humungous!



You can stick a 9mm into it!


I wonder if someone at the Korth factory started Monday with a hangover and a .357 forcing cone cutting tool ....

Its no wonder that someone wanted to get rid of it! Given the scarcity of Korth's in general - trying to fix it seems almost impossible.
A beauty to behold but that's about all for now. : (

There are several things that might cause the inaccuracy besides the forcing cone. First off check the size of the throats in the chambers. The bullets need to match that. If they are larger than the bore, the bullets need to be larger. If they are smaller than the bore, they need to be reamed to match the bore.

Check for leading of the bore. The previous owner may have got it leaded up and not cleaned it. That will cause horrible groups for sure.

Check the muzzle crown. A bad crown will cause bad groups from any barrel. Most S&W revos have factory crowns (and forcing cones) anywhere from OK to horrible. Every one is different.

A .355 bullet fitting into the lead of a .312 bore isn't going to give great accuracy. I would be getting this gun to a "competent" revolver smith, possibly Frank Glen, to pull the barrel and cut it back enough to be able to re-cut the forcing cone correctly. (Frank is in AZ).

__________________
H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

I have a much simpler solution; I am returning the gun today. Cutting the barrel back won't work in a Korth, it has a barrel sleeve. The only solution would be to get a new barrel made by Korth in Lollar but that is not my issue.

I have checked that faulty gun out carefully, every chamber and the barrel was slugged and of course the crown was inspected when I first held the gun. I came up with a makeshift range rod in .32 but the oversized forcing cone was detected last.

I should have noticed it first because when taking the gun in my hands, I right away noticed the absence of the typical carbon and lead rings around the chamber.s and a sparkling clean cylinder front, that is a telltale sign but something I did not expect in a Korth.

I am sure that the first owner did not really shoot the gun or never noticed the inaccuracy. Korths are popular in Germany, even the inventor of the gummi bear, Harald Riegel of Bonn, founder of the Haribo brand, owned a Korth Combat.