my new 610 is beautiful

[jrrando]

Can't believe I spent $749 for a handgun, but darn is it pretty....loaded with some full power ammo should make a great close up deer gun this year....anyone out there shoot a whitetail with their 10mm??

 

[MO_mule]

jrrando:

Can't believe you didn't post a pic!

Congrats on the acquisition. Any trouble getting that by the missus?

Chris

 

[Sportsterguy]

Don't own a 10mm but do own 3 .41 mags. Ballistics are fairly close. My 6" 57 has 37 deer to it's name over the last 33 years. Most were take with the old standard Remington 210 gr. JSP and were all 1 shot kills under 50 yards. I did have some 210 gr. hard cast bullets for last ditch bear protecion when I lived in Ak. They would do a number on a deer from any angle! Your 10mm should work just fine with a heavy bullet that will penetrate to the vitals. It all comes down to shot placement.

Thats a darn good price and congrats on the 610! Would love to get my mitts on a 3" 610.

 

[DonD]

My 6" 57 has 37 deer to it's name over the last 33 years. Most were take with the old standard Remington 210 gr. JSP and were all 1 shot kills under 50 yards.

37 deer? That's an impressive track record.

As for the OP, don't sweat $750, you have a fine revolver. A fair number of shooters don't hesitate to ante up 3-4X that much for 1911s. I think you have a far better value price wise along with more power than any normal 1911. Don

 

[animalmother]

Congrads the 610 is a great revolver. Tied with the 686 in my book as the all-time best. I still have as of yet to get a -3 610.

NIB Model 610 5-inch (original 1990 run)
NIB Model 610 6½ inch (original 1990 run)
LNIB Model 610-1 Classic Hunter 6-inch (1998 reintroduction)
LNIB Model 610-2 (Lew Horton 1 of 300) 3-inch
LNIB Model 610-2 Classic Hunter 4-inch (pre-internal lock)

 

[scooter123]

Congrats on the 610, it's a great revolver. However, if your planning to shooting a lot of 40 S&W with your 610 you may want to read the following link. It illustrates what I found when shooting jacketed 40 caliber with my 610 and what I did to resolve the problems that I had with my gun. I am not saying that you'll have the same problem, however you will want to pay attention to any presence of shaved jackets in the cylinder chamber when shooting the shorter cartridge. If you do find you have the same problem, I would suggest that you contact S&W and ask them what to do. You could try duplicating my effort, however I will warn you that it's a very tedious and delicate operation to take on by hand. What took me about 20 hours of handwork, S&W could do in under 2 minutes on one of their CnC machining centers. However, they won't become aware of the problem unless enough 610 owners alert them that there is a problem. I'll also note that I didn't see any posts on my thread about other 610 owners having this issue, so it's possible that I received a cylinder that had a finishing operation left out.

http://smith-wessonforum.com/s-w-smithing/102667-barrel-leading-issue-need-advice.html

PS, hindsight says that I should have sent my 610 into S&W. However, by inclination and profession I am a mechanical problem solver. So, when I see something that needs to be improved I do it myself instead of letting someone else do the work. Basically, it presented a puzzle I couldn't resist solving.

 

[jj2am44]

 

[m657]

I've got a 3 7/16" unfluted 610. It has become my favorite revolver especially after I put a set of HiViz on it.

No trouble with 10mm OR 40s.

 

[jrrando]

I had a springfield 1911 trophy match .45......did nothing for me. I will pay attention to the issue of shooting .40's through it as I have lots of access to them. Guns Galore in Fenton, MI has 610's in stock for $749.99. Every other place told me that haven't seen one of these since May or so...got to make time to shoot....

 

[2hawk]

This thread is missing something...

 

[wheelgun610]

....What took me about 20 hours of handwork, S&W could do in under 2 minutes on one of their CnC machining centers.

I think it's more likely that S&W would have some sort of purpose specific (hand held) de-burring tool for that job. If it was an issue to me, I'd ask S&W if my cylinder could be reamed to eliminate the 'shelf' in the chamber. That would totally eliminate the shaving, but would require moonclips for head spacing.

What's interesting is that at least some of the earliest 610's had true revolver style chambers - without the head space 'shelf'. Of the three I've owned (all from the 1990 run), my first one (a 6-1/2") had that type of chamber. The other 6-1/2" as well as the 5 incher I still have are chambered to head space without moonclips.

I bought my first 610 before the .40 S&W even existed, and I have since only fired maybe a dozen .40's through any of 'em, so the shelf in the chamber has never been an issue for me. In fact, this is the first time I can recall ever hearing about lead shaving in a 610 chamber.

Mark

 

[scooter123]

Actually I was shooting Federal Champion FMJ from Walmart when I had this problem, at 13.97 per box it's made the 610 cheaper to shoot than either my 38 or 357.

It wasn't shaving lead, it was stripping jacket fragments. When this happend, it resulted in a bullet with raw torn lead being sent downrange and caused a lot of lead buildup in the first 1.5 inches in the barrel past the forcing cone. Getting the barrel clean after the first range outing was a huge PITA because of the leading. I also found a jacket fragment in one chamber that was 5/16 inch long by 1/8 inch wide and it was a bit of a hassle to free it from the shelf where it had lodged. Good news is that the chamfers that I added has solved that problem and it still headspaces the 10mm properly. Now all I have to do is lap the forcing cone and I expect I won't ever have to worry about leading.

I'll also note that my issue seems to be rare. It may simply be that I recieved a cylinder that had not had that edged deburred due to a missed finishing operation. Sometimes things like this can happen to the best of manufacturers. Unfortunately, dealers are not going to stock a "niche" model such as the 610 so I have no way of checking other samples to see how their chambers were finished. Good news for me is that it's fixed now and the only other refinement my 610 needs is some smoothing of the forcing cone because it's rough enough that it's causing a very minor bit of leading.

I wish that S&W would wake up and smell the coffee. Commercial rimmed cartridges are now sold at such low volumes that it's become expensive to shoot them. The days when the only ammo cheaper than 38 spl. being the 22LR are long gone. Makes me wish I could go back in a time machine to 1972 and pick up 10 or 20 cases of 38 spl. at the prices it sold for back then. Today the ammo that is sold at the highest volume is the 9mm with the 40 S&W running second, which is why they are the least expensive higher powered calibers on the market. I believe that if S&W were to offer 9mm moon ring cylinder assemblies for the newer 686's and 620's they would find a stampede of buyers for them. In addition, by offering a 40 S&W specific cylinder for the 610 they could probably increase the demand for that model, perhaps enough to justify adding a 3 inch model to the standard lineup.

BTW, I am a fan of the 40 S&W. I happen to think that a 180 grain bullet running at 1050 fps. is certainly adquate for personal defense and it's a compromise that yields a recoil that is easily controlable. No, it doesn't have the punch of the 10mm, however it is NOT a weak round. Fact is I like the 40 enough that 4 of my six handguns shoot that caliber and I found that I shoot it quite well.

 

[Allen-frame]

610 5 in picture

Regards ,,AlleN-Frame