S&W 3" 625-3 .45 ACP Cylinder Binding

[Postman10mm]

Gratuitous picture:


After successfully removing a bur on the barrel of my 625, I took the gun to the range and discovered it to be every bit as accurate as my 5" 625s.

With Berry's 200 grain SWC over 5.0 HP-38, it was holding an easy inch at 15 yards. The rear sight required 5 clicks to zero and will likely be replaced with a taller rear blade as I prefer to zero with the sight bottomed out.

Anyway, given the .0045 B/C gap, I was keeping an eye out for cylinder binding and and encountered it, but not where expected.

About 50 rounds into the session, I found the rounds needed a firm push to seat, several times, I had to withdraw and re-seat the moon clipped rounds to find a round/chamber combination which allowed them to seat to the point where the cylinder could be closed.

Even then, I experienced minor binding when cycling through 3 loaded cylinders.

For the most part, I shoot jacketed/platted through stainless barrels and lead through carbon steel barrels. I use these reloads in most of my stainless barreled 1911s and N frames, and an identical load with 200 grain LSWC in the carbon steel barreled guns. Even on long range sessions shooting lead, I've never encountered this level of difficulty seating moon clipped rounds or cylinder binding.

When clean, everything functions as it should.

Any thoughts?

 

[GCF]

I noticed the same thing w/ my 625-8. Solved the problem by backing the Dillon 550 sizing die off the shell plate about 1/2 turn (+/-) or so.

The Dillon die sizes the .45acp brass a bit smaller then actually required for good bullet retension, & as such, I would sometimes note a bit of bulge on 1 side of the loaded brass. Kind of a Coke bottle effect, but usually not centered - which seemed to be the root of the problem. One or two bulged rounds, would pull the clip off center a bit - just enough to bind in a dirty cylinder...

A bit of clarification:

The slightly "one side bulged" rounds would all self center in the cylinders fine - w/ out clips. When clipped however, they would often bind, & produce the same type of cylinder drag you describe.

Not sizing the brass down quite as far, seems to promote evenly centered seating - & has eliminated the clipped round binding issue..., at least in my case. Sounds wierd, but it worked for me. Also, they chamber fine this way, in factory & match 1911's.

 

[ikor]

My guess would be trash under the star along with...maybe...minimum dimensions there, which I have seen on K frames in the past but never an N frame yet. (seen a whole shipment of M65's sent back because of it) It still could be your bbl / cyl gap if, as the gun heats up, some expansion takes place. My M25-5 will do this but a shim will resolve it soon.

 

[nonamehaveI]

I had a similar issue, turned out a couple of my moon clips were slightly bent, I would check those first.

Sent from this thimgy using tapawhatzit

 

[BlueOvalBandit]

When I had this problem I traced it back one time to a bullet not seating straight and leading to a slight bulge which caused the whole moonclip to hang up on loading. Got the whole thing on video during a classifier including smacking the ejector rod hard enough to pierce my palm. Try chamber checking your ammo without the moonclip, it was obvious something was amiss when I did, it only took 1 goofed round. A bent moonclip can also do it.

 

[scooter123]

I would suggest that you try a couple of boxes of factory fresh ammo. It's possible that your casings are just slightly bulged from use and with 6 rounds at a time a tiny bulge can add up to requiring more force than expected. If you shoot a bit of fresh factory ammo and the problem goes away you'll know that you need to size your casings a bit smaller. In addition you'll gain a few more fresh casings to work with.

BTW, my B/C gap checks nearly identical to your's. In my case it is a draggy 0.004 on the right and a loose 0.005 on the left. After 100 rounds downrange the carbon fouling will increase the DA trigger pull from 8.5 lbs. to 9.0 lbs. Yeah, I actually checked. However, the reason I checked is because I had a few misfires with the Remington UMC and decided to dial in 1/2 more lbs. of tension into the mainspring. After making my adjustment the DA trigger was 1/2 lbs. heavier than expected so I then cleaned the face of the cylinder and the DA trigger pull dropped to exactly the weight I was targeting. Bottomline, IMO you won't have issues with the cylinder dragging enough to feel it until you get well beyond 100 rounds downrange.

 

[DeafSmith]

About 50 rounds into the session, I found the rounds needed a firm push to seat, several times, I had to withdraw and re-seat the moon clipped rounds to find a round/chamber combination which allowed them to seat to the point where the cylinder could be closed.

This sounds like a) unburnt powder under the extractor or b) since I think the rounds head space in the S&Ws are on the MOUTH of the case then some of the cases are overlong.

Clean the cylinder very well with a scrub brush and then check the cartrige case lengths, especialy if you use more than one brand of case.

In fact, sort the brass by make and try just one make of brass.

Oh, and make sure your primers are seated flush if you reload.

 

[one eye joe]

DAAAAMN, POSTMAN, that's a pretty 625 ! ! !

 

[arc2x4]

Check it for endshake.