They told me that both my model 36 revolvers were made in 1969 and definately NOT to use any +P ammo,even for carry.

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Anchors

They told me that both my model 36 revolvers were made in 1969 and definately NOT to use any +P ammo,even for carry.

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Anchors

+P has been discussed to death here.

Suffice to say we all make our OWN Choices.

Any Model 36's made that recently are perfectly safe to fire with +P .38 special ammo. Will wear be accelerated over standard pressure ammo? Somewhat, but not enough to worry about. The frame is certainly strong enough. A J frame .38 special cylinder is as strong as a K frame and, in one respect (no cylinder stop cuts directly over chambers), stronger. Probably the weakest point to be affected is the gas-ring/yoke interface. As long as headspace and endshake are within limits to being with, you will probably never fire enough +P's to ever notice the difference.

If you want to carry them with +P, feel free to do what we all do - ignore the "official company line" and load up. Just don't shoot alot of them. If it bothers you that much, then buy a newer J frame that is rated for +P.

Various agencies used +P for years before the guns were marked for it and before S&W officially approved of it. The guns will not have a catastrophic failure - they might just wear faster.

Plan on alot of gun fights? Load up with +P and practice with regular ammo.

I'm confused. My M36 was manufactured in 1968 and IIRC, S&W told me not to use +P ammo. Then why sould we take the advice from others on the internet over the gunmaker? Just curious.

First of all, S&W has to be politically correct and take into account the worst case scenario. If they approve +P, then someone will use +P+ or some ridiculously hot handloads. In this day of having to label coffee as "hot," probably someone will use too hot a load, damage a revolver, and end up blaming S&W. The factory's safest bet is to just say "no +P" and leave it at that. The other thing is, they want to sell more revolvers. They are an easier sell if the new .38's will handle +P and the older ones (supposedly) will not.

I would like to add to this that factory ammunition has been watered down in recent years. I can't speak for pressure limits, but .38spl from the 60s and 70s had bullet weights and velocities that meet or exceed that of modern +p ammo.

Another reason is that, as others have pointed out, the main reason for avoiding +P in a non-rated steel J frame seems to be the potential for accelerated wear, not to avert a gun-destroying kB!

Blown-up gun threads and pictures spread like wildfire on the Internet, often creating ongoing controversies and urban myths that just won't die. This topic comes up often, but I have never seen an example of a steel J frame that catastrophically blew up while using a factory .38Spl+P load. (I've seen cracked Airweight aluminum frames, but that's another topic.)

The absence of kB! anecdotes makes me confortable concluding that it rarely if ever happens. YMMV.