I am not new to revolvers, especially those made by S&W, however my 17-9 is relatively new to me.

I noticed last night while shooting at the range, that every once in a while I would get hit by particulate on the top of my left thumb when I fired the gun. My hold in the gun keeps my thumbs well clear of the cylinder gap, so I got a bit concerned. Inspection of the area around the forcing cone shows some particulate build-up, though nothing I would consider abnormal, just a little build-up around the area where a flame cut would form on a center fire revolver. I also inspected my cases for signs of splits or cracks in the off-chance they are splitting and blowing gases backwards, but no evidence suggests that this is occurring. Last night I shot a box of Winchester 222, and shot DA only, which is typical. Edit: I want to add that I perceived no loss of accuracy while shooting, which were at varying distances between 15 and 25 yards, producing groups averaging 3 to 4 inches at those distances, with maybe the largest group at 25 yards being around 6 inches (I am not a marksman by any stretch). There was also no sign of key holing either.

Is this relatively normal? Could a factor be the ammo I was using? I usually shoot CCI AR Tactical in all of my guns, sometimes Winchester Super X, the 222 was a box that I happened to have hanging around.



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Short answer: Normal.

Longer answer: I have experienced what you are experiencing from the following models similar to a 17-9:
K-22 Masterpiece (i.e. pre-model 17), Model 17 no-dash, 17-2, 17-3, 17-4, and a 617-6 (newest version of model 17 in stainless steel). In my experience the phenomenon you describe is more likely the dirtier they get, typically after about 200 rounds without cleaning, and as best I recall seems more likely with plated .22 ammo but also occurs with non-plated ammo.

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Scoundrel & Ne'er-Do-Well

Have you measured the B/C gap? For best results a gap of .005 to .007, but it is quite normal to find the gap up around .010 or even .012. Usually the wider the gap the more the possibility of "spitting" and the closer the gap the lesser the possibility. Keeping the gun clean and the residue accumulation on the top strap scrapped off helps. It is a very common condition with .22 revolvers.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

Thanks for the info, I have not measured the cylinder gap, however if I estimated based on my experiences with Dan Wesson revolvers and the 0.006 gap they use, I'm going to guess that my 17-9 has gap that is roughly equivalent or maybe a little tighter than that. I do also keep thisngun very clean, she gets a thorough scrub down after each range trip, so she was clean when I started shooting last night. Rarely, I will go two range trips without cleaning, but the fowling in the chambers usually becomes a problem. I'm guessing the Winchester 222 is just a little dirtier than the CCI AR Tactical that I usually use, which is why I never noticed the flying particulate before.

I will add that regardless of brand, 95% of the time I shoot copper jacketed bullets through all of my 22s (all of my center fire guns too), as I find they tend to leave less mess to clean up, and the fowling does not build up as fast. This habit goes back to a 500 round batch of 38 special I loaded several years ago using 158gr Speer LRN bullets that left my guns with a hard to remove build-up of lead inside the forcing cone. I spent more time with a tornado brush and brass pot scrabbers removing lead from the barrels of my guns than it took to fire all 500 rounds at the range. I have had the same issue with other 22 revolvers as well. Since then it has been all jacketed bullets, even 22 caliber, the exception being the occasional use of CB longs, or Super Colibri.

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Ammo can definitely be a factor I notice some particulate blow by when I used the lower quality ammo like Winchester and Remington. But no such occurrences with CCI or the European makes.