I thought that quote from the movie "Stripes" would be a good title for this post. That was Bill Murray's response when asked where Sgt. Hulka was during their performance at the parade.

Anyway a good buddy of mine works at a LGS/Indoor Range. He knows I like Smith revolvers, as does he. In the last 3 weeks he has seen two 357 revolvers launch their barrel down range. He sent me pics both times. One appears to be a model 60 and the other a 686. Hate to see that. Doesn't instill confidence. It was reported both were fed mainly standard pressure .38s. Not sure of the round counts. But the J Frame was supposedly not very high.

Any of you guys seeing much of this lately? I saw post here a couple of weeks ago with a 342 that had the same thing happen.

Wouldn't that make it hard to aim?

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Don't You Ever Wash That Thing

Instead of tightening the barrels so tight that they crack off, maybe they could add a little cross pin holding the barrel.

Ya think? What a revolutionary idea!! Do you suppose we should tell S&W about that?

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Eccentric old coot

Is that your way of asking to go back to the old school of pinned and recessed? Not going to happen.

I’d wonder if either or both of these revolvers had been fired with a fouled bore? With all the clueless shooters out there, I wouldn’t be surprised. Don

Thanks for sharing the disturbing photos. Two in one month? Just one of those weird happenstances, I suppose.

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Now go make God proud...

I wonder if the guy who does the reloads for the range has gone into hiding

Never seen it and don't expect to!

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Brad

Looks like reloads to me...

Reloads or an overcharge have nothing to do with the barrel separating in that area. As stated, probably a fracture from over torqueing or some other mechanical reason. I had a brand new Ruger do the same thing first time I shot it. Bad cast on the barrel. Sent it to Ruger and got it back with a new barrel installed. No damage to the gun and it was as new. Both of those pictured guns are still perfectly serviceable. Install a new barrel and they are good to go. My invoice after repair from Ruger stated they installed a new barrel and ejector rod.

Having two different guns do that in a short period of time is a freak coincidence.

Scary to me. Just wondering what those on the forum would say immediately after this happened to them? I know what would come out of my mouth and I'd tell you but it would just show up as stars here instead of what I actually type.

I have seen this before on the newer S&W's,I think it has to do with the 2 Piece Barrel's.The key words are "I Think".....

First time shooting the brand new gun. Couldn't get the rounds on paper at 25'. Probably started separating after the first shot. Shot a total of 14 while playing with the sights and on the last shot I see the barrel fly down range. (indoors). Looked down at my hand and I was holding a snubby. Let out a couple expletives, called a cease fire and proceeded to retrieve my barrel. Quite humiliating as most people think it happens because of an overcharged reload.

No such thing as "coincidence". IMHO.

Kinda brings S&W's new "crush fit" barrel installation to a new perspective doesn't it?

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Eccentric old coot

Wow! The 686 appears to be an older one and that's a pretty clean break looking at the pic. Guns are mechanical devices and we all know any mechanical device has the potential to fail, scary as hell when one does.

Chinese steel??

Sad commentary on the steel industry in this country today.

Weren't we once the best?

Sad.

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Back to back World War Champs.

You're right. Must have been those dreaded barrel gremlins.

Did your friend happen to mention anything about the shooters...whether they or anyone else was injured when this happened?

No kidding "I Think" are the KEY words. Both the model 60 and 686 shown in this thread feature ONE PIECE barrels, so this isn't a failure that can be blamed on the 2 piece barrels. The most likely cause for this is too much torque applied when the barrels were mounted.

BTW, over on Youtube there is a video by Mythbusters where the shot squibs into the barrel of a 6 inch 686 until it was packed from muzzle to crown with squibs. Then they fired a full power 357 Magnum into that mess. The barrel didn't come off the frame, the cylinder didn't even explode, all that happened was that 2 squibs dribbled out the end of the barrel. So, I think we can rule out shooting into a squib or even overpowered reloads for this. This was either a flaw in the steel bar the barrel was made from or too much torque at assembly.

No Reloads at this range. Only factory ammo. American Eagle 130gr .38 standard pressure is what they are selling there right now for range use. Plus you can use your own ammo at this range.

No injuries at all.

Or a squib slug lodged down bore.....

I'm interested in the purchase of either one of them or both for that matter. If the owner's are interested in selling put them in touch with me via PMs. Thanks .................. Big Cholla

Many indoor ranges will not allow reloaded ammo because of liability issues.

is that one of those new fangled take down revolvers?

Looks like the threads severed from the barrel being over torque. This would be from an assembly error.

Redhawks were having the same problem. They stopped offering the redhawk and pushed the stronger super redhawk.

Anyone can screw up.

The fact is that both pinned and non-pinned barrels are "crush fit". The only difference in a non-pinned" barrel is no flat machined on the barrel shank, no hole in the frame for the pin and no pin. If you think that pinned barrels are just turned into the frame until they hit TDC and then the pin is inserted-you'd be wrong. The thread on the barrel is timed so that it becomes "hand tight" 60-90 degrees before TDC and is then turned to TDC with special frame wrenches, etc.. When the barrel shears off in the fashion depicted in the attached photo's, the failure is due to gross over torquing of the barrel as previously stated.

So, in actuality, that failure and others like it bring Smith's assembly and QC standards into question but the so-called crush fit barrel installation method-not really.

Bruce

I thought that 686 looked familiar... just saw it listed for sale as a "parts gun" on that well known gun auction site.

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Conrad
SWCA #1830 SWHF #222

Oh, so now I know what they mean when they refer to a 2 piece barrel.

I guess we have to track KaBooms in GLOCK 40s, Shield 40s, and now revolver barrel KBooms.

Edmo

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TRUTH: Don't delete my posts!

Coincidently, I was at a LGS about a month ago and was talking to a guy I've gotten to know there...we were talking about S&W 357's and he mentioned his close friend just bought one there and on the forst time to the range the barrel just brook off. I'd never heard of that happening before but apparently it does happen. My guess is poor steel, maybe over heat treating...and shallow threads are the cause. Over torquing shallow cut threads is a recipe for this sort of thing to occur. Quality Control over there is not what it used to be unfortunately.

How does S&W handle this? Hassle free warranty repair or not their problem, must have been caused by something owner did.

I had the same thing happen to one of my 329 PDs – this was back in 2006. We have a one room building with a wood burning stove and “portals” for winter shooting. There is a covered outside porch in front of the portals with a sloped roof off the main building. I was shooting in front of the covered porch when the barrel let go on my 329PD. The fired round didn’t sound right and the gun felt lighter than usual. Looked at the front of the gun and discovered the barrel was missing. Went down range looking for the barrel and couldn’t find it. Looked back to where I had been shooting and saw the barrel on the porch roof.

These are not “KABOOMS” per se, but rather assembly and or material related problems. S&W said it was not ammo related and most likely was the result of over torqueing during assembly. They sent me a new gun.





Stuff like this happens – as mentioned above, Ruger had a similar problem with Rehawks some time ago. Everyone has to do what they feel comfortable with regarding issues like this – I still have two 329s and have shot 6,000 to 8,000 rnds (too lazy to go look it up) thru them without recurrence. I have numerous other S&Ws – mostly new ones with the mim parts, etc., purchased after the above, and shoot them a lot – the incident has not deterred me from buying more S&Ws.

FWIW,

Paul

So, how much do you want for those snubbies there on the case?

Is that a custom job? Never seen a 60 or 686 with a half-inch barrel before...

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But then, what do I know?

All the guns look like 1993 and newer. Has this been a problem with the guns that were made in the 80's or older? Seems like the one I see on the internet are newer guns.

James

The first time I ever saw this it was a Ruger Redhawk 44 Mag. This was in the late 80's or early 90's. Belonged to a friend, and when he sent it in to Ruger they replaced it with a upgraded one with the accessory scope rings. We later did hear there had been a small rash of the same, due to an employee giving the "crush fit" an extra 2nd yank tight to get the front sight to line up center.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

We haven't been the best in manufacturing quality steels in a longtime. The Swede' s surpassed us a longtime ago. I believe there electric furnaces had something to do with it.

The Chinese are making steel from our scrap rail road track. Just ask any gunsmith how tough the steel on the norinco 1911 is.

Trying to get structural steel in this country is very hard delivery time wise. Some comes from Canada. Some comes from Japan. Just don't put a cutting torch near the Japanese structural steel. Stand back if you do. It bends up on its own.

It could be from tightening but????

If the tolerances of the thread diameters are at the lower limit on the male thread and the upper limit on the female thread it could be a loose enough thread fit to crack. I've seen the limit and fit on metric thread tolerances go so wrong. We're not educated enough on the metric system yet. Some companies are forcing the metric system here so we're politically correct to do business around the globe. One world measuring system.

There is no quality control they got let go on the first cut back in the 80's. Colt has been having quality problems since then more so than everyone else.

Plus its the pressure to ship it out the door too. What do you want quality or quantity?

Using cnc machines every part should be exactly the same "if" they keep changing there tooling inserts. Cutting with dull inserts changes the sizes of the parts. Plus the cnc programming is garbage goes in garbage comes out. Facture in the human error.

That is not a barrel fracture. The Airlite alloy frame let go.
Did S&W replace the gun?

I have an early 80's Redhawk and I caught a crack inside the barrel just forward of the frame before it let go.
Ruger replaced it and I now have a very nice gun.
No endshake after 30 years of mostly magnum loads.
Accurate too.

My Smiths range from the 80's to the 2000's and have not had any problems I could discern.
I don't shoot a lot of magnums in them, especially the ones chambered for 44 special .

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Nemo

If they can figure out a way to get that barrel to go 900 feet per second it would be quite a weapon.

Smith is still a front runner in revolvers. When you sell millions and have all walks of life building and shooting them, stuff happens. Human error during assembly, metal blend errors, or a Friday afternoon gun. Smith seems to always back up there product which is key to my being loyal to the brand. I understand it's frustrating but it's a tool that has thousands of psi going through it. I've laughed with buddies saying I'm surprised more don't blow up with the extreme pressures and temperatures. Anyway I've went on long enough happy shooting. A good reason to always wear glasses while shooting.

The Redhawk problem was ultimately identified as the type of "cement" used to glue the bbl to the frame. Changed the "cement" the seizures and failures stopped and the Redhawk went on.

When I said fouled bore, that really means a slug lodged in the bore. Don

Only if there was a way to track assembly dates. Wouldnt want a Friday afternoon happy hour gun

Wow. Those went from looking like a Smith & Wesson to a Dan Wesson like that ! [snaps fingers]