929 and Chamber sizing?

[bigsam]

Dear fellows of the Smith revolver brains trust,

I'm a wheelgun fan in Australia and have waited over twelve months for my 929 to arrive. A beautiful gun it is to look at but a fussy little princess on the range.

It only fires ammo with very soft primers which is not too much of a problem as i'll just use reloads with primers it does like.

The big problem is leading and very very poor accuracy down range. I use cast lead projectiles - a mixture of commercially manufacture and home grown.

At 25metres firing on a standard 50metre target I would be lucky to get 5 of the 8 rounds on the paper with evidence of tumbling in the ones I could see. I have tried different loads with no significant change.

I tried some commercial ammo with FMJ projectiles and all eight rounds went into a tight group in the 10 ring!

WHY?

I pulled a few of my rounds out of the butts for inspection and found no rifling marks on them. Can I use .357 or .358 projectiles instead of the .356 for the 9mm? The cylinder mouths measure .3575.

I'd stay with FMJ's but we aren't really allowed to use them at our range.

Thanks in advance for your input guys.

 

[Wee Hooker]

Wow, a 12 month wait. You are a patient man beyond belief. I'm having trouble waiting two weeks . My 929 is still inbound so I can't comment but your case sounds odd and extreme. I have NEVER had a S&W that would not digest a good cast hand load to satisfaction. ( Heck, even my Glocks like them.) Some guns just take more experimentation than others to find the sweet spot.
Couple of thoughts/questions to help you on your way.
1) What are the diameter, weight, OAL and profile of the FMJ bullets and/or rounds you are using as compared to your cast loads? Any chance your cast bullets are sized for 380 /undersized? Any of those parameters (or a combination of them) can have significant effect.

2) Have you experimented with different commercial loading/handloads in your cast loads?

3) Have you tried plated or coated bullets (which are somewhere in between cast and FMJ)

FWIW, my guess is that that kind of performance gap is more than a lead vs FMJ issue. The key is to check/change only one variable at a time in order to help isolate the culprit.

p.s. I've got a 1000 each of 125 gr cast and 125gr plated handloads ready to test the stuffing out of my 929 when it finally arrives.
Meanwhile I wait....
tic-toc

tic-toc

 

[Ignatz]

I'm shooting .358's thru mine. Many other shooters are too.

 

[scooter123]

I suspect that your 929 features an ECM rifled barrel. If so I have to tell that in my experience the ECM barrels do NOT work well with raw lead bullets.

BTW, it's easy to spot the ECM rifling because the lands and grooves are fully blended by radiusing. Take a toothpick and run it from the groove onto the land, if you don't feel that toothpick catching on a sharp corner you have an ECM barrel.

So, what bullets shoot well in an ECM barrel? That would be copper jacketed, copper plated, and Powder Coated bullets. I would also expect solid copper bullets to do well but they are quite expensive. If you can find a source of copper plated bullets in Australia I would suggest trying them out. I would also suggest that you have a talk with the management of the range you are shooting at and get them to grant permission fo the use of copper plated bullets. Realistically they are no more hazardous than pure lead and polygonal and similar barrels are becoming more common every year. You may also want to point out that copper plated bullets greatly reduces exposure to lead vapor and don't produce the smoke commonly emitted by the lubricants used with pure lead bullets. In fact here in the US lead bullets impart such a heavy filtering load at indoor ranges that many ranges are now banning lead bullets.

 

[bigsam]

Solved - thanks guys

Thank you guys,

Solution found. Loaded with 135gr lead projectiles between .357 and .358.

Now it shoots as good as it looks. In fact the only problem I have now is the fleshy bit squeezing the trigger.

cheers.