Hey all. Ive had my X-Fame 460 XVR 8 3/4 barrel for about a year now and still loving it. The recoil isnt as bad as horror stories made it sound. I knew about the flame cutting from the factory 200 grain Hornady ammo. After only 40 rounds I could see it starting. After seeing that I stopped shooting that stuff since my reloading supplies were on the way. Now I usually only shoot the 395 grain hard cast lead gas checked bullets and use 4227 and h110 powder and it seems the flame cutting has stopped or is alot slower with the heavier bullets. My major questions is does anyone have similar experiences?
Also Im not super familiar with smith revolvers so i was wondering how tight the lock up should be? Mine with the hammer back the cylinder has some rotating play like all revolvers but how much is to much. Only ask because I have cap and ball guns that lock up tighter than this does. There is also some noise from the cylinder when you shake the gun which I figured was normal for the size and mass of the cylinder.
Some of the old boys say also lock up the cylinder and press on it to see how much gap you get between the frame and the crane but how much is too much?
Any thoughts and info is much appreciated.

Well let's see...

I have only fired one box of the factory Hornady stuff, since then I roll my own using 240 and 300gr XTP Mags pushed by H110. No issues with that.

I suspect the slight rattling noise you hear when you shake the revolver is either the IL components, internal hammer safety, or floating firing pin rattling. I hear it on most of my Smiths too. There are a few internal parts in there that sort of "float" around. Nothing I would be concerned about.

Cylinder endplay: I sent my 460 back to the mother ship to address endplay. I don't recall the exact measurements mine had since it's been awhile since I did that and unfortunately the email correspondence between me and S&W concerning the matter are long gone. Get a measurement of yours and post it up. Pretty easy to do and all you need is a descent set of feeler gauges. If I remember correct, the S&W rep told me anything over .008" was considered out of spec..but don't consider that gospel, as I said, it was awhile ago and I'm going on rusty memory here.

Cylinder lock-up: Make sure you are checking that by cocking the hammer, let the hammer down while holding the trigger in the fired position and holding the trigger all the way back while checking for excessive slop in cylinder lock-up. I am not sure how to truly "measure" cylinder slop in full lock-up, always been more of a "how it feels" kind of thing for me.

OK, I posted a thread about my endshake/BC gap on my 460 which resulted in my 460 going back to S&W where they repaired it under warrantee. In this thread, I did not post endshake/BC gap after the repair, but there is information about max endshake and BC gap.
Yes, another CG/endshake question

S&W was very good to me in that they did the service under warrantee for me even though I was not the initial buyer. Very kind of them.

Thanks for the great info. I measured my b/c gap and it's at .007 and when the cylinder is held forward I could barley get a .002 gauge in there

No problem.


So you have .007" BC gap and .005" endshake.