How long does a S&W 629 last? Let's find out! 13K+ now
- Thread starter dirtybarry
- Start date
There seems to be a lot of gunnutters who have lost faith with S&W model 29's ability to throw Elmer Keith's loads, but its all anecdotal. Where has objectivity gone? (Down range with the rest of our funds?).
No question the OP's gun (1 of how many 10's of thousands made) suffered a "KABOOM" but we don't know why. On a quest for vindication the OP has initiated some pseudo-scientific testing (my hat sir, has been removed for your efforts), but speaking as an owner of one of these fine firearms, let's leave the speculation for the media rags. Your "my buddy told me..." stories are impacting the value of my property! Stop it!
If you're going to be making statements of "Known", or "factory recognized" problems with the N frame barreled in .44 Rem Mag revolvers, please back them up with evidence. Not circumstantial speculation and or hearsay rumor and conjecture.
There seem to be too many of these problems with Smiths. I was talking to one of staff at the gun range I use and they have had 2 686's blow there barrels out of the frame. Now these gun get used very heavily but they only ever use factory loads. They do not have a lot of these so two is more than a freak occurrence. Personally it is not the fact that a gun failed, every manufacturer has these, that bothers me it is Smith's response that I find disturbing.
The barrels on 2 range 686's (L frames) blew the barrels out the frames huh? Ok.
Several of us have stated that S&W have gone above and beyond when it comes to standing behind their product. This is real world first person evidence of S&W warranty. Is this what you find disturbing?
With the exception of the OP who admits to loading hot and has no way of ascertaining that his failure was not his fault we have been listening to tonnes of "I heard that..." "evidence" here when it comes to S&W failures.
Well go with what you know then.
Near max but never beyond. If S&W guns aren't made to withstand that kind of heavy use then why doesn't somebody say something about that somewhere? Be it S&W themselves or in the reloading manuals.
I think it's because S&W doesn't want to admit that this series of gun was never intended to be used hard and they were intended to be mostly display pieces.
But this thread isn't about why and what happened to my broken 29-10. Whether one is of the opinion that I exceeded the limits intentionally or accidentally or that the gun was defective is immaterial.
This is about a brand new S&W 629 and how long it is going to last. I wasn't able to get out on the weekend due to other commitments but it looks like I'll be able to put another 200 rounds through it tonight.
I'll post up the specs of those loads afterwards.
Like some others on here I am very interested in this Dirtybarry.
While some may say that this is unscientific I would have to disagree. This is real world testing of this firearm as most of us would never fire large volumes of factory ammo out of anything but a .22 gun.
Reloading is safe, fun and practical and listing the loads gives us more information than factory loadings that many of us have seen fail to reach advertised velocities by a margin that won't account for different barrels.
It has been long speculated that today's reloading manuals are more conservative on powder charges then has been reported in the past. Some of this is due to changes in powder composition and some due to more accurate pressure measurements. Other reasons may be to lawyer proof their loads.
If DB's loads are within reasonable guidelines then it will be similar to what many of us use. Why give a crap about what S&W did or said at this point let the man do his thing. I mostly shoot bottom end .44 mags loaded with Herco out of my model 29-10 but it is interesting to read about your experience.
It would be nice however if on the first page or in a separate post you could keep a running tally of the loads and volumes you shoot on a given date to keep all that information together. By looking at the powder and charge it is easy to see if a double charge is first of all even possible if there was an early failure, and second we can compare the loads to one's we regularly use ourselves.
Jody
While some may say that this is unscientific I would have to disagree. This is real world testing of this firearm as most of us would never fire large volumes of factory ammo out of anything but a .22 gun.
Reloading is safe, fun and practical and listing the loads gives us more information than factory loadings that many of us have seen fail to reach advertised velocities by a margin that won't account for different barrels.
It has been long speculated that today's reloading manuals are more conservative on powder charges then has been reported in the past. Some of this is due to changes in powder composition and some due to more accurate pressure measurements. Other reasons may be to lawyer proof their loads.
If DB's loads are within reasonable guidelines then it will be similar to what many of us use. Why give a crap about what S&W did or said at this point let the man do his thing. I mostly shoot bottom end .44 mags loaded with Herco out of my model 29-10 but it is interesting to read about your experience.
It would be nice however if on the first page or in a separate post you could keep a running tally of the loads and volumes you shoot on a given date to keep all that information together. By looking at the powder and charge it is easy to see if a double charge is first of all even possible if there was an early failure, and second we can compare the loads to one's we regularly use ourselves.
Jody
Excellent idea about the round count. I'll do that when I post up tonight's results.
As far as a double charge, it might be possible with HP-38 or Autocomp but I never did fire too many of those as even starting loads with HP-38 made for sticky extraction and Autocomp was kinda "meh".
I decided to keep both of them for 9mm and they work well for that.
With IMR4227 and H-110, a single load pretty much fills the case. With the lot of IMR4227 that I have, 23.6gr is a very compressed load and any more simply won't allow a bullet to be seated properly.
The H-110 is a little denser, but I doubt that it would be physically possible to overcharge by even 10%
The barrels on 2 range 686's (L frames) blew the barrels out the frames huh? Ok.
The barrel fractures at the point where it connects with the frame and basically falls of. The end of the barrel is threaded and the best I can figure the thread acts as a stress raiser making the barrel weaker at this point. Ruger also had some trouble with this back in the early 80's. They finally determined it was caused by the lubricant they applied to the barrel thread causing corrosion. Ruger redesigned their guns and the problem stopped.
I've reloaded somewhere around 60,000 rounds of 9mm, 35,000 rounds of 38 Special, 10,000 rounds of 45 ACP, 1,000 rounds of 303 Brit. I've loaded 4 (total) squib loads - that's very good performance for a reloader, but here's the problem with what you are saying - you, and only you are asserting that your loads are safe. I'd have bet money that the 4 squibs I loaded were regular rounds and would work perfectly, odds are clearly in my favour, way more than 99% of the rounds I've loaded are perfect. There's no way you can know that what happened wasn't a bad load. PS, why can't you hit anything?
This is exactly what the OP fails to realize that the problem could have been him and not S&W
Graydog
You're living in the past, this is about how long a 629 lasts, not how or why my 29-10 failed. There's other threads on that.
But for what it's worth, the only powders that I've used that could even come close to a double charge were only used for 100 rounds each and they were all fired off about 3000 rounds earlier.
The published maximum load of the batch of IMR4227 that I'm using now won't physically allow a bullet to be seated properly.
I don't know what to make about the poor shooting part. The groups were pretty tight, just not going where I thought I was aiming.
Probably some flinching involved too as I was doing fine with the 9mm while the cannon was cooling a bit. At one point it got hot enough that I scorched my fingers on the top of the barrel.
Is that a factor for durability? Guess we'll find out.
bahahahahahahaahah, stop. It hurts.
Not quite sure why you find this so funny but hey. Personally I don't find anything funny about a catastrophic gun failure but each to their own I guess. I may have misspoke a little, the thread I am talking about is where the barrel screws into the frame.
I'll put you in the "your reloaded ammo = your problem" category then.
By the by, that horse is still dead.However, if you or anyone else anywhere ever comes across another case of forcing cone failure on a Smith&Wesson 29-10, please share that information.
In the meantime, this thread is about how long this particular 629 is going to last with me beating on it like it's a Siamese cat.
...I hate Siamese cats.
