Another one bites the dust.........

[Hillbilly77]

.........a friend brought over his revolver for me to clean. It is a model 38 that he purchased for protection. SN# shows 1985 mfg.


....After clearing it I looked at the frame and sure enough it was cracked.....


....Hope he purchased it new and maybe S&W will replace

If S&W decided to replace his gun, it'd be out of the kindness of their hearts. Back then they only offered a 1 year warranty.
I don't know offhand when the lifetime warranty started.

 

[PALADIN85020]

I've only cleaned another's gun a couple of times.

The first was when I was in the service, and a neighbor, an Army major, wanted to know if I would thorough-clean his WWII P.38, knowing that I had one. I did know how to completely take the gun apart, and was pleased to do as he requested. Nice thing was that he gave me a WWII-vintage G.I. "tanker" .45 auto shoulder holster in return for the favor. Those are quite valuable now.

The last time was for a neighbor who was well into his 80's, and had a Marlin model 60 .22 semiauto rifle that had never been cleaned, apparently. I had to look up how to take it apart, but I found a good reference and gave it a complete scrubbing. He died a few years later...

I see no harm in helping someone out - for me it's an enjoyable way to relax and do a favor for a friend.

John

 

[rosewood]

Some folks are perfectly capable of shooting a firearm. Some of those same folks are incapable of giving it a good cleaning and reassembling it correctly. I don't mind one bit doing things like this for folks in need. In fact, I enjoy it. Some folks pay others to change the oil in the car. Nothing wrong with that either.

Rosewood

 

[Cal44]

Has anyone had a crack on a Scandium gun?

Perhaps adding Scandium to the alloy really does work.

Or maybe you don't see as many cracks because there aren't that many Sc guns out there.

 

[stonebuster]

I guess my question is why would a "friend" bring you his revolver for YOU to clean? Let him clean his own gun.

If he doesn't know how to do it, watch him do it, correct what might be wrong and be done with it. Don The Good Book has something like that in it...."Feed a Man a Fish he's feed but 1 day..teach a Man to Fish he's feed for life".. or something akin to that.

My wife's version..."Teach a man to fish and get rid of him for the whole weekend."

 

[rosewood]

That is one of my favorite sayings though. I too thought it was in the Bible for years. Then a few years back, I decided to track it down and found out I had been wrong all of those years.

Rosewood

 

[mikerjf]

"Build a man a fire and you warm him for one day. Set him on fire and you warm him the rest of his life."

 

[Muley Gil]

I guess my question is why would a "friend" bring you his revolver for YOU to clean? Let him clean his own gun.

If he doesn't know how to do it, watch him do it, correct what might be wrong and be done with it. Don The Good Book has something like that in it...."Feed a Man a Fish he's feed but 1 day..teach a Man to Fish he's feed for life".. or something akin to that.

The way I heered it was "If you give a man a fish, he can eat fer one day. Iffn' you TEACH a man to fish, he'll sit in a boat all day and drink beer."

 

[ISCS Yoda]

Nice quote but it isn't from the Bible. Not nearly that old. The oldest noted usage of that proverb is less than 150 years old. Still very true and appropriate to the situation at hand.

AFAIK the only Biblical reference to teaching anyone to fish is Jesus calling his disciples to follow him and promising to teach them to become "fishers of men" (i.e. "catching" people for His kingdom).

Late 19th century, actually. American author. You are correct - it is post-Biblical.

Maimonides, in the 12th century, wrote about 8 degrees of charity. Number 8 is this:

"The person who helps another to become self-supporting by a gift or a loan or by finding employment for the recipient."

You can see how that leads to the oft-quoted teaching to fish maxim.

Y'all can look up the other 7 on your own time. Best way to learn something.

As for cracked frames, when I had a Model 12 I was afraid to fire it but I did take it to the range once. My 638 that was stolen was one of the most difficult guns to shoot well that I ever handled. My 642 wasn't too bad but one day I said to myself, "Self, you're being ridiculous, carrying that 642 when you have a M649 that you shoot better and it recoils less AND it weighs just a little bit more and you'll never notice it". Retired the 642. Have been carrying the 649 almost every day since. No big deal.

 

[HamHands]

My old 642

Ohhhhhhhhh, that is bad, really bad! Thanks for sharing that pic!

I bought the wifey one of these to carry back in April after a scare she had. In fact we spent almost 2 hours at the range yesterday getting her doubly acquainted with its operation and on the finer points of target acquisition (simply putting the front sight only on center mass and pulling the trigger as quick and smooth as possibly), as opposed to yanking the trigger. She put 60+ rounds thru it and only complained on the last cylinder of hand fatigue.

I'm going to clean the snot out of it today and keep an eye on the area yours cracked at. We'll never put anything +P thru this Revolver even though the barrel is marked .38Special +P in light of your picture (thanks again for posting btw as it's eye opening.) With all the great standard pressure loads i.e. (Buffalo Bore's 150gr Hard Cast Full Wads), these are absolutely devastating on bone and soft tissue alike that I see zero need for anything +P to be carried in this particular snubby M642. YMMV...

Looking back and thinking about a particular wound channel of the aforementioned Buffalo Bore 150 HC-Wads from a 2" snub... it appeared to have come from a heavier caliber due to its projectile profile/full Meplate, and 850fps+ Muzzle Energy.

Pic of my groups (top bulls eye), and wife's groups (center bulls eye) yesterday at the range, 10 Yards out, 158gr S&B...

 

[BC38]

Pic of my groups (top bulls eye), and wife's groups (center bulls eye) yesterday at the range, 10 Yards out, 158gr S&B...

Any 5 of those 8-9-10 ring shots should be enough to take care of about any attacker...