Oddball Triple Lock "half target" on its way

[hkcavalier]

I got to examine it while doing my 4473...10 working days and I can come get it.

Bluing is in better shape than I thought it would be. Grips seem too nice for the bluing loss along the backstrap. As has been pointed out, they are likely older than the gun. I did not take them off to look for a S/N.

Back of the cylinder was left in the white. Charge holes before the "step" aren't nearly deep enough for .45 Colt, this definitely was a .455 gun from S&W, so not all of the Shapleigh shipped TLs were converted to .45 Colt by the factory.

I found this .45AR by Steinel Ammunition that seems like just the ticket for this old bird: 45 Auto Rim Low Pressure 185gr SWC- Steinel Ammunition Co.

If you have another better/cheaper source, please post it!

 

[BillyMagg]

Gorgeous

I won an online auction for an intriguing early TL that probably won't move the needle for a purist, but seemed like an inexpensive way to get one. After all monies are exchanged, I should have it in the safe for less than 8 bills.

I made the decision not to ask the auction house too many questions, since they'll often do further research and include that info in the auction itself, which can drive up interest. I've seen with my own aging eyes an auction go from "S&W .357 revolver" to "S&W Registered Magnum" and almost certainly from somebody asking for more info (not me!).

Looks like an early example given the stocks (serial just under 10,000 suggests 1912). Most likely a shaved cylinder .455 to accommodate .45ACP. Barrel markings removed, rear drift sight and sling swivel added, but other than those modifications it seems pretty original. Any thoughts? Anyone else seen another TL with a drift sight added?

From what I've seen here, maybe I need to look into reloading some .45ACP with lead .454 bullets, but I'll wait till it's in hand and I get some trigger time first.

Gorgeous, don't let anyone tell you that's not a prize! I've lately developed a desire for a nice triple lock,, you'res would scratch my itch for a lot less than what I'm looking at, lol...

 

[hkcavalier]

Finally got it home. The .45 Auto Rim is still on its way.

 

[hkcavalier]

I probably should start another thread for this, but here goes:

The gun shoots but needs some reaming work. Specifically, one of the charge holes isn't deep enough by just a smidge, and it makes closing the cylinder tough and, naturally, rotation too. Shooting .45AR with Starline brass. The funny thing, once that first shot is fired it's good to go; I believe the small amount of play in the cylinder is smacking that one round in there and "solving" the problem.

I reached out to Frank Glenn to do the work, but he recommended TK Custom as they do a ton of moon clip & ream jobs. But I didn't hear back from them --- any recommendations from the group? Most of the local gunsmiths are going away/retiring/etc due to terrible and patently unconstitutional WA FFL laws.

 

[hkcavalier]

I'm still searching for a shop that can do this reaming work. I pretty much shut down my shooting bench during the winter, but with things warming up I want to get this gun squared away. Never heard back from TK Customs despite 2 emails. I also reached out to Clark Custom Guns with no response.

Any suggestions from the group?

 

[A10]

I've ordered moon clips through TK Custom but haven't tried them for machine work.

I'm kind of interested since I just bought a 1917 for a real good price. It'll be in Inslee jail for another week. The rear face of the cylinder on mine appeared to be shaved as well so it may have been a .455 gun at one point too. Time will tell.

 

[Jim Watson]

If you feel brave, you can rent a reamer for $49 a week.
45 ACP (C) - 4D Reamer Rentals

 

[dwh]

Before you go and modify the gun. Just trim your brass until it chambers correctly. It’s a much cheaper alternative than messing with revolver.

 

[hkcavalier]

If you feel brave, you can rent a reamer for $49 a week.
45 ACP (C) - 4D Reamer Rentals

I just might end up going this route. I have some friends with machinist chops that can help too. The gun is historically special but not exactly a museum piece...it needs to be shot!

Re: trimming brass, I definitely could do that, but would like to shoot factory ammo from time to time. Why the original gunsmith of old didn't make it right the first time is a mystery. It's far enough out of spec to be noticed right away when you go to shoot it.

 

[Jim Watson]

He probably didn't have a headspace gauge and just cut the chambers to fit ammo he had on hand. And it was a bit short. There used to be a lot of that done in the Golden Age of sporterizing surplus rifles: "I ain't goin to shoot the gauge, I'm checkin it with my ammo."

 

[handejector]

I probably should start another thread for this, but here goes:

The gun shoots but needs some reaming work. Specifically, one of the charge holes isn't deep enough by just a smidge, and it makes closing the cylinder tough and, naturally, rotation too. Shooting .45AR with Starline brass. The funny thing, once that first shot is fired it's good to go; I believe the small amount of play in the cylinder is smacking that one round in there and "solving" the problem.

I reached out to Frank Glenn to do the work, but he recommended TK Custom as they do a ton of moon clip & ream jobs. But I didn't hear back from them --- any recommendations from the group? Most of the local gunsmiths are going away/retiring/etc due to terrible and patently unconstitutional WA FFL laws.

STOP!
WAIT!
That is NOT the problem. The 45 ACP and the 45 AR are much shorter than the chamber of a 455 S&W.
LOOK at what Gary posted above! I'll repost it below \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/

A 45 ACP chambers 1/8" into the chamber of my 455 revolver.
The revolver pictured below is an excellent 455, #58547, with no evidence of the chambers of ever being touched. Clearly, the 45 ACP rounds will chamber .124" deep and not flush with the rear of the cylinder.

SO, your chambers are plenty deep enough. There must be some other problem like a burr from turning the back of the cylinder. Don't start reaming those chambers till you do some more examination!

 

[handejector]

Hi Gary,
As you know if 45 ACP is chambered in an ACP cylinder w/o a moon clip, the case mouth will headspace on the shoulder in the chamber and fire because the shoulder will prevent the round from chambering too deep for the firing pin to reach the primer.

The same thing is true for the long 455 MK I cartridge because S&W seems to have chambered their 455 cylinders for the longer MK I cartridge so that all 455 cartridges can be used including 455 MK II, 455 Eley, 455 Wesley, etc.

I am very skeptical that will work well. It might, but I doubt it will be 100% misfire free.
The only American revolver that has ever headspaced on the cartridge mouth that I am aware of is the 45 ACP guns starting with the 1917. They have the only chambers I have ever seen in a revolver with a SQUARE shoulder. All other revolvers have a tapered or "sloping" shoulder that does not offer much support to the case mouth. To top it off, the 455 shoulders slope more than any other caliber I have ever seen.

I don’t think anyone would want to shoot ACP without clips either, but it was an option in a pinch.

I have done it a bunch, and still do. Moonclips are annoying and time consuming, and back in the day nobody made a tool that I was aware of.

 

[BC38]

I just might end up going this route. I have some friends with machinist chops that can help too. The gun is historically special but not exactly a museum piece...it needs to be shot!

Re: trimming brass, I definitely could do that, but would like to shoot factory ammo from time to time. Why the original gunsmith of old didn't make it right the first time is a mystery. It's far enough out of spec to be noticed right away when you go to shoot it.

I think reaming is probably the route I would go if it were mine.

Just go slow, ream the cylinder a little bit, check the depth with factory ammo, rinse and repeat - until all of the chambers will accept factory loaded rounds.

That just seems like a better solution than trying to load custom rounds specifically for one gun. Making the gun "right" for the ammo just makes more sense to me than trying to load specific ammo for the gun.

JMO, and YMMV....

 

[hkcavalier]

Lee, I'll always take your explanations seriously as you've forgotten more about old S&Ws than I'll ever know.

But the sample .455 pictured doesn't match what I'm experiencing. I can seat .45ACP just fine in each charge hole, and they do stop, but one is clearly not deep enough. I haven't tried to shoot .45ACP, only .45AR, but for the sake of discovery have tried to load up both snap caps and live rounds.

I don't have a good explanation for the differences since my gun clearly hasn't been shaved very far. If the pictured .455 were shaved enough to expose the rim of those .45ACPs, it would be well into the stop notches.

Dimensionally, I don't really understand why a .455 is cut so deep if the case is only about 19mm long. What's pictured is more what I'd expect from a .45 Colt gun.

 

[handejector]

Show us a pic looking into the chambers. It sounds like you have a cylinder chambered for something other than 455. Perhaps it is a 45 ACP cylinder.

 

[hkcavalier]

I'll get some pics tomorrow, but it seems very unlikely since S&W was busy making thousands of .45ACP cylinders when my gun shipped...why not just use a cylinder for a 1917?

 

[hkcavalier]

I took the TL to a friend yesterday, he's more of a machinist than a gunsmith, but we tried various things. He had some .45ACP 200gr semiwadcutters that dropped in and seated deep vs. the ball-ogive snap caps and regular 230gr loaded ammo that sat too high for the cylinder to close. So we thought it was a bullet shape problem...then we shoved fired and resized cases in, and they too wouldn't seat all the way in. Those SWCs on moons slid in just fine, but regular 230gr remained a no-go. Since there wasn't a simple fix, and he lacked a .45ACP reamer in any case, we decided to pause everything right there.

.45AR makes it tough to close the cylinder, but are usable and, as explained previously, after the first shot the remaining 5 seat better and the gun can be shot normally in DA. But on the first shot, you're fighting a lot of friction and it's really only 'cockable' in SA.

Maybe someone with deeper knowledge of the .45ACP can chime in --- were cases thinner back around WWI? Or am I just overthinking this and need to either rent a reamer or find a longtime gunsmith?

 

[Hondo44]

Dimensionally, I don't really understand why a .455 is cut so deep if the case is only about 19mm long. What's pictured is more what I'd expect from a .45 Colt gun.

Here's why: You are referring to the .455 Mk II cartridge. Recognize that it was preceded by the .455 Mk I which is a longer cartridge! In my experience S&W reamed their .455 chambers long enough for the 455 Mk I cartridge so both could be fired. (But those chambers are no where near long enough for 45 Colt.)

 

[Hondo44]

I took the TL to a friend yesterday, he's more of a machinist than a gunsmith, but we tried various things. He had some .45ACP 200gr semiwadcutters that dropped in and seated deep vs. the ball-ogive snap caps and regular 230gr loaded ammo that sat too high for the cylinder to close. So we thought it was a bullet shape problem...then we shoved fired and resized cases in, and they too wouldn't seat all the way in. Those SWCs on moons slid in just fine, but regular 230gr remained a no-go. Since there wasn't a simple fix, and he lacked a .45ACP reamer in any case, we decided to pause everything right there.

.45AR makes it tough to close the cylinder, but are usable and, as explained previously, after the first shot the remaining 5 seat better and the gun can be shot normally in DA. But on the first shot, you're fighting a lot of friction and it's really only 'cockable' in SA.

Maybe someone with deeper knowledge of the .45ACP can chime in --- were cases thinner back around WWI? Or am I just overthinking this and need to either rent a reamer or find a longtime gunsmith?

No, the 45 ACP cases were not thinner. What you describe tells me that your problem is not a chamber length problem, it's a chamber mouth DIAMETER PROBLEM. The 45 ACP cases are at least .004" smaller in diameter than .455. So a .455 chambered cylinder doesn't get reamed to .45 ACP/AR, only the headspace needs to be enlarged as yours is. As Lee said it may be as simple as the chamber mouth edges being burred over from facing off the rear cylinder face.

When you fire the first shot, all six cartridge case heads are slammed against the recoil shield which overcomes the resistance at the chamber mouth (burring or whatever) and seats them in the chambers.

The first thing I'd do is use a magnifying glass and good light to inspect the chamber mouths. And inspect your fired cases for rub marks or scratches where the chamber mouth touches the cases.
Have your machinist friend measure the chamber mouth and throat diameters with an inside micrometer. If burring is the problem it can be fixed by simply honing them to chamfer/remove burrs/sharp edges at the chamber mouth. Use a bore mop or cleaning brush wrapped with 2000 grit paper turned by hand or with a power drill on slow speed.

 

[Hondo44]

I am very skeptical that will work well. It might, but I doubt it will be 100% misfire free.
The only American revolver that has ever headspaced on the cartridge mouth that I am aware of is the 45 ACP guns starting with the 1917. They have the only chambers I have ever seen in a revolver with a SQUARE shoulder. All other revolvers have a tapered or "sloping" shoulder that does not offer much support to the case mouth. To top it off, the 455 shoulders slope more than any other caliber I have ever seen.

I have done it a bunch, and still do. Moonclips are annoying and time consuming, and back in the day nobody made a tool that I was aware of.

I too know of no other cylinder chamber shoulders that are square cut like the 45 ACP (although revolvers chambered for other rimless cartridges like 10mm and .30 carbine must be).

However the 455 sloping shoulder crimp is not a deal breaker. The 455 MK I has been successfully fired in 455 cylinders shaved for 45 ACP/AR. Perhaps owing in part to the longer firing pins of early hand ejectors. Will it work every time with dependable ignition in every gun? Perhaps not. Not enough of those guns modified that way available for me to test. I can’t and won’t say It always works, only those I have had experience with did. So no guarantees.

Maybe other members with 455 British Svc Revolvers so modified, can try it and share their results?