Ti/Scandium j frames

[Chukar60]

Usually with Smiths any issue gets blown way out of proportion. Case in point? K frame 357’s and their forcing cones. The frequency of that happening is very small and mostly what you hear is 2nd or 3rd hand accounts.
I would bet the same holds true for the lightweight J frames.
I would find a way to shoot one before I dropped any cash on one. Lots of people swear they can shoot them just fine and very accurately. My observations at the range tell me most people do not shoot them well enough to bet their life on it.
So to prevent the backlash, I have seen some who shot them quite well, if you are one of these people you have my undying admiration.

 

[gnystrom]

I have owned a 340pd since they came out. A few rounds of .357 but mostly handloads and thousands of them. Carry ammo is Speer Short Barrel Gold Dots.
No problems with the gun at all. As the owner of a couple 642's, I can tell the difference in carry weight and opt for the 340 every time.
I am 77, an experienced shooter, and the recoil does not bother me at all. I love this little gun and carry it daily on morning walks.

 

[waffles]

Are you sure that wasn't just the yoke getting slightly sprung out of alignment?

Yep. Cylinder retention lug was wrecked.

 

[John Patrick]

I have two J Frame light weights. A 638 and a 317. + P in the 638 is plenty of recoil. I’ve shot a 340PD with full house 357. A cylinder full was enough.

I have three L Frame Scandium 357s, all relatively new to me. I opened two today, a 19oz 386PD and a 19oz 386 Mountain Lite. I’m sure I was the first to open the Mountain Lite. Though pushing 30 years it was spotless and dry as a bone inside. The PD was also spotless despite its age, though it had still liquid lube inside.

Moral of the story? I don’t think most AirWeights or AirLites get shot a lot.

 

[7shooter]

I have one of the early Ti jframes ( # 99 ) which I alternate with a Ruger LCR. So far so good.

 

[smoothshooter]

Shoot reasonable loads in your lightweight gun and you will be fine. No +P. No hot handloads. Standard pressure .38 loads that are HP, SWC, or full wadcutter; all are very capable.
Remember, you are not going to be going up against armed bank robbers, or trying to apprehend armed suspects.
Also, if you can afford the amount of standard pressure ammo it might take to crack that frame, you can afford to buy a replacement gun if you had to.

You would not expect your chainsaw, lawnmower, or car to last indefinitely. Why is a gun any different?

A lot more people have talked about cracked handgun frames than have ever actually seen one.

 

[smoothshooter]

Why do you feel you need a gun that weighs as much as a tic tac?

Yes, the lighter the material, the less durable it is.

A steel J-frame is pretty light!

The lighter guns don’t pull my pants down so much when I walk.

 

[M29since14]

…Don't deny yourself a fine firearm over a possibility of a crack. They can all crack if not cared for or fed properly.

That’s my thinking. If you want an Airweight or an Airlite and worry about a cracked frame, just buy a new one so you can legitimately say you are the original owner, for warranty purposes. (That may or may not really be necessary, as Ladder13’s post seems to indicate. My experience was the same.)

 

[steelslaver]

i have scandium Js and an aluminum J, an aluminum alloy K and 2 Scandium alloy Ns. No Problems so far and if one of the frame lugs goes bad, I'll just mill it off and install a steel one.

I really like my J 32H&R 6 rounds that are about the same as a 38 and it it so light you forget it is there.

 

[jjmIII_Ruger]

I really like my J 32H&R 6 rounds that are about the same as a 38 and it it so light you forget it is there.

Model 432PD?

 

[rockquarry]

I've had no experience with titanium or scandium frames. Perhaps they're more durable than the regular alloy frames. Some years ago, I had an alloy-framed Model 38 crack at the usual place under the barrel threads. I bought the gun used but it appeared to be new. I never fired +P ammo in it. S&W replaced it.

Later, the same thing happened on what appeared to be a well-used but sound Colt Agent, another alloy-framed gun. I didn't know the history of this revolver, but I never fired +P ammo in it. This model had the unshrouded ejector rod. It cracked in the same place as the S&W.

I shoot my guns regularly and won't buy another alloy-framed revolver of any kind. Granted, they are lighter, but the weight-saving difference over a steel-framed revolver is hardly noticeable if you compare the two guns when loaded, something seldom mentioned.

 

[steelslaver]

Model 432PD?

Mine is a 431PD. Installed a plug.

 

[WC145]

I've had my 360J since 2008. When I bought it I sent it to Mark Hartshorne for some work and to have the cylinder rechambered for 9mm, I also had him fit a titanium .38spl cylinder to it later. I've shot .38spl +P, 9mm +P+, .38 Super, 9mm Largo, and a cylinder of 9x23 Winchester through it. No cracks or damage of any sort and it still gets carried and shot regularly. I'm sold on the strength of the scandium framed guns.

 

[BB57]

The addition of Scandium to an aluminum alloy like 7010 aluminum alloy will result in an alloy with a higher tensile yield stress, higher fatigue strength values and a higher resistance against microcrack growth, due to the presence of a very fine subgrain structure.

However the same aluminum scandium alloy will exhibit a lower resistance against larger crack growth once a crack gets started.

In short, the scandium addition refines the grain structure and increases strength, but results in poor fatigue crack growth resistance.

——

What the S&W engineers have done is:

- added scandium to increase yield strength so that a scandium frame revolver will tolerate higher pressure loads (than an aluminum alloy without scandium) without an immediate permanent deformation of the frame;

- accepted a shorter fatigue life; and

- placed a bet that the lightweight revolvers are uncomfortable enough to shoot that the total round count will remain small enough that the limited fatigue life won’t come into play very often;

- placed a bet that the number of magnum rounds fired in the scandium alloy revolvers will be very low, due to the very unpleasant nature of shooting them with magnum loads; and finally

- are betting that the number of people who buy them and then shoot them enough to cause the frame to crack will be small enough that they don’t lose a significant percentage of the profits by having to replace the expected small number of cracked revolvers.

——-

All aluminum alloys, with or without scandium, experience metal fatigue that occurs in every load cycle. Greater stress in a single cycle means a greater fatigue and a greater reduction in remaining fatigue life.

In other words, the average fatigue life of a 360 PD might hypothetically be be 5000 rounds of .38 Special, 3000 rounds of .38+P, or just 500 rounds of .357 Magnum.

They will all eventually crack, it’s just a matter of total round count and what percentage of those rounds are higher pressure rounds.

——-


In contrast, steel has:
- an elastic limit (under which it will return to its former shape;
- a plastic limit (above with it will permanently deform); and
- a fatigue limit below which it does not have any fatigue life.

The fatigue limit in a steel alloy is found between the elastic and plastic limits. If the structure is over engineered enough, the normal stresses it encounters in service will never exceed the fatigue limit and it will effectively last indefinitely. It’s rust or wear that eventually claims those structures not fatigue.

If the structure is designed with less of an engineering reserve, the fatigue life may be exceeded and each load cycle will start eating into the fatigue life and it’s service life will be limited by fatigue cycles.

In other words, the N frame, L frame and K frame .357 Magnum revolvers probably do not have a fatigue life for their frames, while the steel J Magnum frame Model 60 probably does when fired with full power .357 Magnum loads.

However, a steel J frame Model 36 (or a Model 60 that doesn’t shoot many .357 Magnum loads) probably does not have a fatigue life. If it does have a fatigue life with .38 Special it’s probably north of 100,000 rounds.


——-


I’ll add a caveat to elastic expansion. In the real world elastic expansion isn’t perfect when the loads start to approach the elastic limit. For example when you fire .357 Magnum loads in a J magnum frame revolver you will probably see the frame temporarily expand some small a amount, let’s say hypothetically it temporarily expands 0.0001”. It then snaps back to its original dimensions - almost. Let’s say hypothetically that it snaps back 99% and that there is 1% permanent expansion, or in this case .000001” That means over the course of 1000 rounds you may see a growth in frame length of .001”.

With the lower pressure of .38+P loads there is less expansion and the loads are farther from the elastic so it snaps back more, let’s say hypothetically it snaps back 99.5% and that there is 0.5% permanent expansion, or in this case .0000005”. That means over the course of 1000 rounds you may see a growth in frame length of .0005”.

With .38 Special the peak loads may be no where near the elastic limit and it snaps back essentially 100% with no measurable growth in frame length over 1000 rounds.

The take away here is that entirely separate from frame cracking, heavier loads will cause a revolver to loosen up over time, and the heavier the loads the looser it will get in any given number of rounds - unless the revolver has been greatly over engineered.

For a shooter planning on shooting lots of .357 Magnum a steel frame is a lot better than a scandium frame, a K or L frame is better than a J Magnum frame, and an N frame is better than a K or L frame.

 

[Baltimoreed11754]

I wore the clearcoat finish off my 342 scandium airlite years ago, had it painted Marine Corp red and am wearing that off. The only issue I have is that it has developed a loose barrel, has a slight wiggle. Nothing cracked that I can see. Shoots ok. I use Hornady’s Critical Defense.

 

[M29since14]

BB57, thanks for your interesting post. The bottom line (your last paragraph) really boils down to common sense, doesn’t it? The bicycle industry has been dealing with similar issues, viz., steel vs. aluminum alloys vs. carbon fiber. I’ve been away from bicycles for awhile so I have no idea what the industry presently considers state of the art. My last bike was full carbon, frame and fork, and it was a notably comfortable bike to ride, considering it’s weight and compared to similar aluminum-alloy models.

In any case, the real deciding factors in selection are how much you intend to use the weapon with full-power ammunition, what it is worth to you to be able to use the more powerful cartridge, and what the weight-savings is worth to you.

A long time ago, I believe when the Model 37’s durability was a hot topic, Elmer Keith wrote a bit about that topic that I thought was interesting. He said he had obtained a figure (2500 rounds) that the revolver could be expected to fire before it required major service. (Remember that back then there was no .38 Special +P.) Keith was sent a brand new M37 and he took it to his trusted gunsmith, I think it was Georg Hoenig, and had the gun measured and all the dimensions recorded. After firing in excess of 2500 rounds, many of them his famous .38-44 handloads, he had the gun re-measured. No significant damage was found, no parts needed to be replaced, and the gun needed only minor adjustment to bring it back to original specifications.

I have no idea what S&W considers is the service life of the plain aluminum-alloy .38s, like a 442, for example, and the 340PD, but I would sure like to know. I doubt seriously that if they ever did tell us, and they won’t, it wouldn’t change my mind. For the sake of my hands, I’m not planning to shoot 2500 full-charge .357 Magnums from my 340PD.

 

[Marshal Tom]

Mine had the same problem that Waffles had. It was a scandium Ti in .38. I carried it for many years but didn't shoot it all that much. One day while cleaning it, the cylinder backed off past the lug and all the way back to the grip. I sent it in and was eventually told that it could not be repaired. As I recall, they had gone to the longer magnum frame by then. They sent me an M&P 340 as a replacement at my request. I still have it.

 

[Paul105]

BB57 - Excellent post.

"What the S&W engineers have done is:

- added scandium to increase yield strength so that a scandium frame revolver will tolerate higher pressure loads (than an aluminum alloy without scandium) without an immediate permanent deformation of the frame;

- accepted a shorter fatigue life; and

- placed a bet that the lightweight revolvers are uncomfortable enough to shoot that the total round count will remain small enough that the limited fatigue life won’t come into play very often;

- placed a bet that the number of magnum rounds fired in the scandium alloy revolvers will be very low, due to the very unpleasant nature of shooting them with magnum loads; and finally

- are betting that the number of people who buy them and then shoot them enough to cause the frame to crack will be small enough that they don’t lose a significant percentage of the profits by having to replace the expected small number of cracked revolvers."



Above is BB57 -- below are some of my personal observations.

1. The 340/360 J Frames with Magnum Ammo are the most painful handguns I've ever shot and I have Freedom Arms .475 Linebaughs and 500 JRH. The 360 is still used as an inclement weather rain jacket pocket gun.

2. I've had three M329s (still have two). They provided the optimum power to weight ratio for my purposes. They were my all day every day carry guns for the better part of a decade.

3. I shot approximately 9,000 rounds of lower end (240/265gr at 1,150 fps) .44 Mags thru them. The first one self destructed at around 900 rnds. It was replaced by S&W. I bought a backup and continued shooting both. They went back to S&W six or eight times for various repair/replace (never a crack other than #1.) One went 2700 rnds before it had to be replaced due to gas cutting of the top strap that compromised the frame.

These revolvers definitely have a place. And I for one wouldn't be without the ones I have (have had).

FWIW,

Paul

 

[smoothshooter]

Posted on other threads but my early 642 (non plus P & not abused with hot loads) had cracked frame discovered last fall. Crack in yolk cut out under frame. I have no idea how long it was cracked. Discovered after reading a thread about it on this forum. Sent back last fall and they replaced with a no lock 442 at my request vs the stainless 642.

I think the word you are looking for is “ yoke “.

 

[balin]

I have scandium revolvers from .357 to .44 magnum. No issues and great for carrying. The only issue at most is dealing with the recoil.