HomeSmith Trainwreck: Squibly

[Muley Gil]

That's a nice restoration. I LOVE the .32-20 cartridge and round butt revolvers.

However...

"(a quick shout out to the folks at Power Custom for making the screws on their handy-dandy ejector rod loosener/tightener long enough for the tool to open wide enough to fit over the LERK),"

a LERK (large ejector rod knob), as defined by the members on this forum, refers to a barrel shaped knob that was introduced in the late 1920s-early 1930s. Your revolver has what I (and others) call a mushroom head knob.

 

[CH4]

Holy cow!
Stuffed those in there like a roll of Mentos.

 

[AJ]

I saw a novice shooter get five stuck in the barrel once. A friend wife was new to shooting and he started her in .38 Special with light loads. She shot and no hole on the target so she kept shooting. Only when she could not cock the revolver did she say there was a problem. The fifth one had entered the barrel,but the base was still stuck in the mouth of the chamber. Took it to the gunsmith and he was able to drive out the last round back enough to open the cylinder and drive out the rest. They were shooting someone else's reloads and we guess he missed putting powder in one row. She was lucky.......

Great thread by the way! Enjoyed it very much.

 

[mckenney99]

When I was in the Academy, they used an in-line automated reloading machine to reload all the .38 spl ammo we used. The reloading equipment was flat worn out and we continually had problems with squib loads, flipped primers, crushed primers and folded case mouths. It was so bad that the range officers walked the line with brass range rods, hammers & pliers to drive the squibs out.
We were shooting standard 4 inch S&W M10 HB that were also "well used", mine was noticeably out of time, but the Division Armorer deemed it still functional.
By this time in training we were taught to attempt to clear any perceived malfunctions and "get back into the fight".
Near the end of our training we were shooting at 25 yards in low light (targets illuminated down range and rotating red patrol car light bars mounted to the ceiling behind the firing line). On the command to fire, I began firing but on round #4 I fired a round that didn't feel right. I opened the cylinder checked down the barrel and thought I saw light, so I closed it back up (now running behind on the clock) and proceeded to quickly fire off the last 2 rounds. I knew the last round fired definitely didn't feel or sound right. When the lights came back on I looked down at my revolver and there was a bullet sticking out of the barrel (again, not unusual). I immediately opened the cylinder and raised the weapon to signify a problem and the range officer came over to remove the offending stuck/squib bullet. Only problem was that it was just 1 of 3 stuck in the barrel. There was just the slightest ring in the heavy barrel that could be barely felt and only seen in the right light. The Division Armorer deemed the firearm still sound again and I carried that M10 until they were turned in for new M681's, approximately 6 years later.

 

[Shotguncoach]

When we last saw Squibly he was wearing a set of Ken Driskill antler stocks. I really wanted to use a grip adapter to help with my big paws and unfortunately Ken's stocks are just a bit too fat to work with the adapters I had on hand. A set of diamond magna stocks and a BK grip adapter went on for today's geriatric range trip with The Geezer and Mr. Fitz.

As usual, the first test shots were with the lightest .38 ammo I have available (Federal 148 wadcutters) and all following shooting was done with 3.5 grains of Bullseye and 158 grain lead semi-wadcutters. I seem to have gotten the replacement barrel on straight because our left-to-right alignment was spot on.

There was only one hiccup during Squibly's first outing since the unfortunate bullet-stacking incident: the cylinder unlocked once after firing and jumped off of the cylinder stop. It wasn't a consistent problem but once is enough. I'll be spending some quality time with Squibly and his cylinder stop over the next few days. Other than that everything was perfect...every round went bang, empties fell out of the cylinder just by turning the muzzle up, and the bullets went where I wanted them to go.

Considering how badly hurt Squibly was when we met and how drastic the surgery was to bring him back, I'm still going to call this a success. Stay tuned for more.....