I had just received my brand new M&P 340 (103072) and did a quick swab out and wipe down. I wanted to get a few rounds through it and make sure it went bang when it was supposed to and it was too cold for normal recreational shooting. I grabbed a small handful of Winchester .357 Mag 110gr JHP and headed out to the back yard.
I had fired five rounds through a friend's 340PD several years ago and vaguely remembered it as interesting at the time. So anyway I drop five rounds into the cylinder and girded myself for the fierce and ferocious recoil that I had read about.
I prepared myself with a firm grip and squeezed of the first round and other than the sound shock because I'd forgotten to put my muffs over my ears it was somewhat anti-climatic. I fired numbers two through four with the same results. There was plenty of muzzle flash and blast and the recoil was stout but nothing like what I had expected.
Then came round number five. The blast and everything else was like the first four combined. My hand was numbed. I went to open the cylinder and couldn't.
I ended up taking the revolver into the house and got the cylinder open with the assistance of a dead blow hammer. Tipping the cylinder upward I tried depress the ejector rod and it was solid. I tapped it with the hammer and four of the cases fell out of the cylinder. Fearing bending the ejector rod I ended up removing case number five out of the cylinder with a hammer and punch.
The revolver appears unaffected. I got it cleaned up and everything works and appears normal with the exception of the finish around one of the chambers on the front of the cylinder. It almost looks like a lead smear but since these were jacketed bullets I'm wondering if the black finish on the stainless cylinder didn't flake or get blown off.
I tried taking photos of the casings but can't manage to get anything clear enough to show detail. Number five (middle case in the photos) has a flattened primer with a little bit of flow around the firing pin indentation. While lining them up for the camera I noticed that number five was noticeably longer than the others and I measured them as well. 1 – 4 were between 1.277 and 1.280 in length and all were .381 in diameter measured just in front of the case rim. Number five was 1.308 in length and .385 in diameter. My books say 1.290 and .379 are normal (I assume unfired or resized).
I can't quite get my head wrapped around this. Am I overlooking something or did I just get so unlucky that I happened across the one bad (read that as hot) round in the box of many thousands of boxes produced by the factory on any given day?
I had fired five rounds through a friend's 340PD several years ago and vaguely remembered it as interesting at the time. So anyway I drop five rounds into the cylinder and girded myself for the fierce and ferocious recoil that I had read about.
I prepared myself with a firm grip and squeezed of the first round and other than the sound shock because I'd forgotten to put my muffs over my ears it was somewhat anti-climatic. I fired numbers two through four with the same results. There was plenty of muzzle flash and blast and the recoil was stout but nothing like what I had expected.
Then came round number five. The blast and everything else was like the first four combined. My hand was numbed. I went to open the cylinder and couldn't.
I ended up taking the revolver into the house and got the cylinder open with the assistance of a dead blow hammer. Tipping the cylinder upward I tried depress the ejector rod and it was solid. I tapped it with the hammer and four of the cases fell out of the cylinder. Fearing bending the ejector rod I ended up removing case number five out of the cylinder with a hammer and punch.
The revolver appears unaffected. I got it cleaned up and everything works and appears normal with the exception of the finish around one of the chambers on the front of the cylinder. It almost looks like a lead smear but since these were jacketed bullets I'm wondering if the black finish on the stainless cylinder didn't flake or get blown off.
I tried taking photos of the casings but can't manage to get anything clear enough to show detail. Number five (middle case in the photos) has a flattened primer with a little bit of flow around the firing pin indentation. While lining them up for the camera I noticed that number five was noticeably longer than the others and I measured them as well. 1 – 4 were between 1.277 and 1.280 in length and all were .381 in diameter measured just in front of the case rim. Number five was 1.308 in length and .385 in diameter. My books say 1.290 and .379 are normal (I assume unfired or resized).
I can't quite get my head wrapped around this. Am I overlooking something or did I just get so unlucky that I happened across the one bad (read that as hot) round in the box of many thousands of boxes produced by the factory on any given day?
