I noticed that when I shoot service loads with jacketed bullets they barely come out of the barrel with either of my 1905’s. These very loads function fine with my more modern M&P models.

I’m curious as to whether this is common for the 1905’s, or do my particular revolvers simply have too large a cylinder gap?

Your thoughts appreciated.

What specific service loads just barely come out of the barrel? And how do you know - do you have a chronograph? You must have an old revolver as S&W ceased calling them a Model of 1905 before WWI.

If you are referring to the commonly found 130 grain FMJ 38 Special ammo, most of it is pretty mild stuff.

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VCDL, GOA, NRA

I meticulously followed the reloading manual and stuck a jacketed bullet about 1/2 way out of the barrel of a short-barreled revolver. I had used the "starting load." Other rounds with the same recipe fired (before) had seemed mild. Moving up into the middle of the load range fixed it. You may have gotten some loads at the low end.

Gents, I’ve been reloading for 50 years and I know what I’ve loaded.
DWalt, How do I know? Didn’t need my chronograph. When the bullet doesn’t come all the way out of my 6” bbl 1905 .. that’s a clue. When it bounces off a target 6x6 that’s 3 ft away from the muzzle of my 5” 1905 .. another clue.

When I fire that same 125gr JHP load in a more modern 6” M&P (1951) all is well.

As I haven’t received a reply that tells me otherwise, I suspect the .010 gap between the cylinder and the barrel is the issue. The 1951 has a gap of .006. Lead bullet loads work well with my 1905s. Guess I stick with them.

My first question is what is the age of your Model 1905? If it is indeed over a hundred years old, why do you feel the need for jacketed bullets? Pre-WWI revolvers were designed and built with lead bullets in mind. While jacketed bullets work in these vintage guns, pressures can be higher than lead given the same loading and weight bullet. This is an often debated issue, but being a long time reloader, I can say from experience that it is a lot harder to drive a lead core copper jacketed bullet through a bore than a lead bullet.

Steel strengths prior to WWI era were 30,000psi to 40,000psi, plenty strong enough for the standard 38 Special round pressures at or under SAAMI max of 17,500 psi. Today's steel is much higher tensile strengths, allowing for higher pressures and offering a larger safety factor.

As I understand things, there is a risk of shooting copper clad bullets at lower speeds, because the bullet may not expand enough to fill the grooves, sealing the bore, and can result in stuck bullets. Some reloading manuals used to state that potential issue, and so that may be a possible reason why you are having problems. In my opinion, these vintage revolvers have shot lead bullets from day one and shooters should consider doing the same moving forward. Also, at target load speeds, you should never see leading. I shoot my old M&Ps at 700 fps and they give remarkable results still today.

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Gary
SWCA 2515

One must have a very light load to stick a bullet in the barrel of a revolver. Generally, the MV difference between a lead bullet and a jacketed bullet load, all other ammunition and gun factors being identical, will be around 100 ft/sec due to the greater friction of a jacketed bullet in the bore. Somewhere I have seen a very detailed article proving that experimentally.

I wouldn't think a 0.010" barrel-cylinder gap would result in enough gas escape adequate to cause bullet barrel sticking problems with any factory load. I have several .38 Special revolvers with large gaps (one of which is an HD with a 0.012" gap), none of which have given such problems even with jacketed bullets.

This is a mystery. Although not up to previous standards, S&W considers .12" to be max acceptable though many revolvers work just fine that exceed that. You report using mid spec reloads with jackets bullets which work acceptably in other revolvers. I would suspect the ammunition and particularly the powder as possibly not burning fully for some reason.
I don't think it's the gun. Try some ammunition from a different batch or even commercial mid range target loads.

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NRA LIFE
Reserve Officer 9yrs

Doubles, since you reload, would you care to share the load that acted this way?
thanks,
Stu

I personally shoot mild RNL reloads out of my 1905 and similar Revolvers. It's not that the Revolver is incapable of handling Jacketed rounds, but since copper is not as good a lubricant as lead, in order to drive a copper bullet of the same weight as fast a lead one at the same speed - more powder is required and pressures would increase. I do not like to push 100 + year old guns to their limits and therefore stick to 158 grain lead.

In those old war horses I load 158 RNL to about 750 fps. Works great, accurate and no stress on the old gun.

Thank you for your responses Gents. Stu1, my “problem load” is a 125gr JHP XTP over 5.3gr of Unique. I’ll chrono the some loads tomorrow and see how the 1909 6” compares to the 1920 5” and a 1951 6”. Maybe my powder has just gone bad? The two 1905s lockup just fine with good actions so I’m stumped. I’ll make sure to use a variety of powder loads to figure this out and will post results.

Flagman, .012 gap? Jeez, ya could drive a Kenworth thru that ��

5.3 grains of Unique should push a 125 grain bullet a whole lot further than 6 inches!! I use 8 grains of unique in 44 special for 255 grain bullet and that will wake you up no matter what side of the gun you are on. Maybe your powder was contaminated somehow?? I do not think a .10 b/c gap is a problem in an older well used revolver. Not enough to cause those sort of problems, maybe accuracy is effected but not a huge velocity issue.

Eight grains of Unique is mighty powerful in a 44 Special. My normal max with .431 Oregon Trail laser cast 240 grain SWC is about 6.5 grains of Unique. With Speer swaged .430 240 grain swc's I normally use 6.8 grains of Unique. But I did have a .430" 240 grain JHP lodge at the end of the barrel with a 6.8 Unique load though. After that I gave up on jhp's.

My error I just checked my recipe card that actually came with the 28-2 from the guy that actually converted the gun in the 1970's to 44 special, with his target to prove it.(pictured here) It is 7 grains of Unique NOT 8. My bad. Of course this is a lead bullet. Still it is a poweful load. So 5.3 should be plenty in 38 special with jhp 125 grain.

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This is only an opinion, but that load seems way too hot for a hundred-plus year old S&W and please don't shoot jacketed bullets in your 1909! With the light bullet, I bet you are at or above 900 fps and shooting jacketed to boot! Pressures could well approach or exceed 17,000psi and why do you want to do that?

Slug your bore and compare that to the diameter of your jacketed bullets. After that buy some lead 148g HBWC for those vintage guns, load up some light loads of Unique (under 3g) until you get 700 to 750 fps and you will have just about the most accurate load ever made for the 38 Special.

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Gary
SWCA 2515

I agree, but I have found that 3.7 grains of Bullseye does better than Unique with 148 grain lead wad-cutters. In my opinion Unique is for moderate to heavier loads, but Bullseye is best for target loads. Further, with me, Bullseye meters a lot easier than Unique.

My experiences as well.

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VCDL, GOA, NRA

Actually, I have used just about every shotgun powder ever made in 38 Special reloading and most load and shoot just fine. Currently, I almost exclusively use Trail Boss for my old S&Ws. Trail Boss is a high bulk powder meaning one will never double charge a case and the powder gives me about the lowest SDs one can load. Some say it cost too much, but so do my revolvers and I want to shoot them for a long time without the chance of having issues down the road.

I shoot by chronograph, not by min/max loading, finding that many published loads run at significantly different velocities than published. Differences in barrel lengths, bullet diameter. bore diameters, hardness of lead, crimp, primer brand, and even brass all have a bearing on the velocity of any particular load. Just about every S&W caliber shoots fine at 700 fps using lead bullets and never have a barrel leading problem, so have no idea why shooters seem to have a need for speed??

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Gary
SWCA 2515

Love these threads, as a new loader I learn a lot! I'm using 3.2 gr. Red Dot under a 158 gr coated SWC, dont own a graph...any guess as to FPS??? its working great,just curious now!

That is pretty close to the low end magnum load. Or you might say +P. I don't have a chronograph but my guestimate is over 850 fps.

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Guy
SWHF #474 SWCA LM#2629

My Red Dot loads from the past are as follows:

- 140g LRN, 3.0g Red Dot, 731fps.
- 158g LRN, 3.1g Red Dot, 763fps.

Don't forget that there are many variables to consider that affect velocities and pressures.

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Gary
SWCA 2515

When it comes to MV for a revolver, believe nothing you read in a reloading manual or elsewhere. Every revolver makes its own rules, even two which are otherwise identical, when shooting identical loadings. This is principally attributable to slight differences in the barrel-cylinder gap and possibly other slight dimensional differences in chambers and barrels. Don't forget that barrel length makes a large difference.

If you want to know the MV of some specific load in a specific revolver, the only way to know for sure what it is, is to chronograph it using that revolver.

Took the various revolvers to the range and chrono’d them with an assortment of ammo. All of them worked just fine. I’m writing off those few rounds as an anomaly. The rest of that batch of ammo is now relegated to the “highly questionable” box, and scheduled for disassembly.

And BTW, y’all were right ... the larger gap of .010 didn’t seem to matter all that much. I expected it would, but it was not that big a difference.

Thank you Gents for your input.

Ballistics By the Inch ran tests on the effects of increasing barrel-cylinder gaps.

BBTI - Ballistics by the Inch :: Cylinder Gap

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VCDL, GOA, NRA

That is interesting information, and it took a lot of work to get it. I once did a somewhat similar test using a Colt .357 vs. a S&W K-38 Masterpiece, both having 6" barrels. I carefully loaded some .38 Special ammunition (I think I used 158 grain SWC bullets) for the test. While I did not measure the B-C gaps, the Colt's gap was so slight that only the tiniest sliver of light could be seen through it, very close to zero. The K-38 gap was somewhat larger visually, my guess it was maybe 0.005", possibly more. The average MV difference using all chambers of the cylinders was close to 100 ft/sec in favor of the Colt. My test goal at that time was merely to demonstrate that significant MV differences exist between similar revolvers, which it did.

Somewhere among my old reloading manuals from the 1970s is one from Hornady or Speer (don't remember which) that contains an article entitled (something like) "Why Ballisticians Get Gray" that thoroughly discuses the MV differences existing among different revolvers firing the same loads.