My 460 forcing cone is smoothing out the reamer marks on the bottom of the forcing cone much faster than the top. I had assumed the leade would wear in evenly. Is this a problem? This gun also struggles with accuracy and won't keep the 200 FTX inside a foot at 50 yards.

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Something is out of line between the cylinder and the barrel. It looks like the barrel is not centered in the frame, either. Can't tell what's what without it on the bench.

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protocalldesign.com

What do you need to see? I can upload more pictures later.

Thanks for the response.

How many rounds through the gun? I agree, with Protocall, the alignment looks to be a tad off. Have you ever shot lead bullets through this gun? You are shooting handloads?

If you are using handloads, have you varied the charge to try to improve accuracy?

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Pete
I ain't no fortunate son

More pictures won't help much in this case. We would need to do measurements of the parts and their relationship to each other. I would send that one back to S&W and see if they will fix it. They might just say it's in spec. (It isn't). Load development may get better groups, but I don't see that one ever being a tack driver in it's current condition.

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protocalldesign.com

No lead bullets. 200/225gr FTX, 240gr XTP Mags, 275gr Barnes XPB. All with H110 and laddered from minimum to nearly max in 1gr incremements (I stopped at sticky extraction). I also tried Blue Dot with the 200 FTX, but results were the same. The 225FTX and 240 XTP Mags tend to run the best hovering between 2-5" at it's most accurate powder charge (2-3" with the 240s and 4-5" with the 225s). It wasn't uncommon for them to open up over 6" with charges it didn't like. Results were similar with irons and a red dot. The best groups always have horizontal stringing. The Barnes was worse and the 200 FTX can barely stay on the target backer. I tried LR and LRM primers as well as varying the crimp. SD and ES seem to be all over the place with velocity sometimes varying nearly 100fps with the same charge and the same cylinder chamber.

I'll take any insight you have and thanks for responding.

I suspect a misaligned yoke. That would hold the cylinder tilted.

Check this using feller gauges see how much room between cylinder and top strap at front of cylinder and at recoil shield. Difference?

Does a feeler gauge drag at top of barrel before bottom?

I made a tool (you can buy them but not sure about for 460&500) I slips in the yoke tube and has a point on it. It also has a rod the size of ejector rod. I slips in yoke and when yoke is closed and you press on rod it should slide out and hit center of bolt tip in recoil shield that presses out center pin. This tells you if the yoke is aligned properly.

I keep thinking of buying a cheap set of feeler gauges and making the .002-.008 ones 1/2 as wide. Clamp 1/2 of there width tightly between 2 pieces of steel and grind away exposed portion. Most are too wide for K and J frames anyway.

Call the mothership

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213th FBINA

brownells sells alignment tools to check that or if you have something that is extremely close to barrel dimension you can check if it lines up ?

Erosion, caused by flame cutting and bead blasting from the unburnt powder, was a problem with the mod 53 22Jet!! The solution back in the 60s & 70s was to reduce the powder charge!



These are a couple mod 53 barrels and I have seen many many more over the years! On many of the barrels the cutting is not even all the way around the forcing cone! I have a 6" mod 53 that is my shooter, and it has barrel erosion. The group at 50yds is not very impressive but at 100yds it is a better pattern than a group! The solution for these guns is a new barrel
jcelect

Is that forcing cone cracked in two places?

Well. I'm getting an education, for sure.

I measured cylinder to cone gap at the top and bottom. Not what I was expecting, but the top was .005 and the bottom was .004. Cylinder to top strap was .014 in the rear and a tight fitting .012 at the front. Seems counter-intuitive to the wear pattern but gauges say it is what it is.

The gun definitely seems to have a cylinder alignment issue. It's always been a bit hard to open, but I just figured a big magnum should be tight. I did some reading and found the gun won't "carry up" on two consecutive cylinders. At this point, I'm not surprised.

Anything else I should look at?

The ratchet looks concerning as well.

Sounds like the problem is your forcing cone. The entire reason a "forcing cone" exists is to accept a bullet striking somewhat off-center which is then "funneled" into the bore. You will never get a forcing cone to chamber alignment that is "perfect" nor is such a thing needed - again, the reason forcing cones exist.
However, it's not uncommon to encounter forcing cones that are too blunt versus a nice, smooth "360 degree ramp" into the bore. Such a cone can cause bullet upset that distorts the bullet enough so the base ends up "cattywonkus" to a perpendicular axis to the bore axis thus allowing high pressure gasses to jet out from behind the bullet in an uneven, usually focused direction as the bullet leaves the bore.
The answer is to have your forcing cone professionally "bluprinted" to create a longer "leade" with larger entry diameter to allow the bullet to pass into the barrel with less distortion.
I've actually used a hardened steel RCBS chamfering tool to "recut" forcing cones to a nice, gentle slope with outstanding results, but this is a job best given to someone who understands the process.

p.s. I would expect to obtain BETTER accuracy from heavier bullets because they will distort less during bore transition, but the RIGHT answer is to have the forcing cone "tuned"....then you're gun will become a tack driver. The .460 XVR is fully capable of going into an inch at 100.

Actually there is no need for a new barrel the rifling is fine. I removed mine, took .02777 of the rear shoulder and some off extension face. Reinstalled it, set the gap and then recut the forcing cone. Good as new. You could even take of enough to do 2 or 3 turns (.05555 or .0833) no problem. With 3 knurling on the end of the ejector rod would get a bit short, but that too can be dealt with

Lots of burning powder blasting on steel will damage it for sure. A lesson I learned with a 220 swift. It ate the first bit of rifling away fast.

I don't know as the picture was sent to me from a collector many years ago! I never noticed what appears to be cracks. The top picture is my shooter, well-worn but still fun to shoot and at 25yds and with open sights it is as accurate as I can be!
jcelect

I always ASSUMED the process of setting the barrel back would be very costly to have done! However, today there are no new barrels from the factory, so it is definitely a way to save an old gun! I have always walked away from a gun with erosion! My attention has been changed to my new
.224 Harvey K-Chuk built on a 17-6 8 3/8" gun! None of the problems of the Jet and just as much fun to shoot!
jcelect

Those might be cracks, but it could just be lint as there seems to be quite a bit of lint present in the picture.

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Here's a picture of the extractor and looking down the bore on the first cylinder chamber that doesn't carry up in SA.

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Interesting thread, I’m learning a lot too.

In your photo through the bore and cylinder, what’s the orientation of the barrel? Sights straight up, straight down… angled at x Degrees?

Thats a straight up view. Sights would be at 12 o'clock. Cylinder rotates to the right so it's stopping prematurely on two chamber's.

I have no idea what to make of the gouges in the extractor/ratchet. I don't spin the cylinder or flip the cylinder closed or any other nonsense. I have close to 200k of logged semi auto pistol rounds under my belt, but I was relatively ignorant of revolvers before I picked this up. I doubt I would have noticed any of this on my own if the gun would print decent groups. Next time I'll do better research.