Not very cast friendly-My M-69 is.

[rintinglen]

A .430 bullet will not pass through the throat of any chamber. Three appear to be identical at approx .429, one is just a tad bigger and one is noticeably smaller.

Hey Doug, I think I have some work for you.

[DougGuy]

A .430 bullet will not pass through the throat of any chamber.

I see they shipped your revolver fitted with a 6 port sizing die... I got just the thing for it!

[rintinglen]

Here's a before photo of the cylinder with .430 (Measured with my old Starrett Micrometer) Hornady JHPs sticking out. I'll be sending the cylinder off to Doug Guy Tomorrow and will update when I get it back. Note the crimp groove is still above the deepest point of penetration. All though not clear from the photo, these particular bullets are actually riding on the cone of the nose just before full body diameter is reached. I'm guessing the throats are .429, give or take a smidge.

[kir_kenix]

I've been wringing out a M69 quite a bit lately (actually just a few minutes ago I put some rounds down range). I haven't experienced any leading to date, and I've been firing a mixed bag of ammo loaded for other .44's of various weights, sized .430-.431, boolit designs, and velocities.

Yeah, a box of full bore .44 Mags is going to get uncomfortable at some point, but I'm not sure that is what s&w was really going for with this pistol. Most of my shooting has been in the .44spl+ range or lower end magnum range and I have found it surprising comfortable to shoot.

I hope that opening up the cylinder throats solves the problem for you. A shame to send this one up the river on account of leading. It is a major pain to not be able to share ammo between guns, and I have been frustrated by the phenomena in the past. Good luck and let us know how it goes after some reaming.

[rintinglen]

Well, I got the cylinder back last Friday and kudos to Doug Guy. He measured the chamber throats at .4285. The barrel measured .429 as near as I can measure it. Throats smaller than boolit = not good in my experience. Sunday I got a chance to sneak off to the range. My lead plating service was still in effect, though not quite as badly as before. It only took me a little over an hour to clean the bore this time, and I didn't even have to resort to pouring Mercury into the barrel.
Accuracy was pretty good for the first 3 or 4 cylinders but then I started getting flyers. I'll try some Skeeter load 429-421's in it next time and see if that helps.

[Shuz]

rintinglen--If Doug Guy punched your throats out to .430 or so, try 7g of Trail Boss with your 429421's sized .430 to .431 and I bet your leading disappears, unless there is an "issue" with your bbl.

[DougGuy]

What lube and hardness are you using? Those throats are .4315" ~ .4318" so if you size .431" and they sit on a shelf and grow some as they age harden, they will still drop into the chambers.

Try some 50/50+2% mix and Felix lube or even SPG and see if the leading doesn't go completely away.

BTW, please don't "shoot" the leading out using j-words, take it out with Chore Boy on a brush.

[rintinglen]

These boolits run .431 and work just fine in 4 other 44's. By the by, the cylinder throats are perfect now. Thanks, Doug. I was going to post an after picture showing the bullets bases in the throats, but I was in such a hurry to try it out, that didn't happen.

I suspect the barrel, being cut by EDM, is too grabby. It is cutting ribbons of lead extending half way up the barrel from the forcing cone. There does not seem to be any noticeable tightness anywhere along the way. The dreaded thread crush is not present. I will polish the bore some more and see if that helps. It is better, but still not good. Your advice on not flattening and smearing lead fouling by trying to shoot it out is well taken. I do not do that, ever. I saw a picture of a barrel that was actually ruptured due to excessive leading and a magnum jacketed round. Pretty much cured me of ever trying that.

Brian Pearce in his article on the S&W 69 mentioned that he had less leading with a flat based commercial Keith boolit than with a beveled base like the 429-667. I'll load up a few, and some 429-244's as well and see what that does.

This alloy is just range lead with a mite of tin added, but it has worked well in my otherguns. I have run 100 grain LBT boolits in a .327 at nigh on 1600 fps with no ill effects. The lube is Ben's Liquid Lube, which has worked very well for me at "special" velocities.

See, I had hopes of this gun being the 696 that I never had. It has thus far fallen short of my dreams.

[DougGuy]

I suspect the barrel, being cut by EDM, is too grabby. It is cutting ribbons of lead extending half way up the barrel from the forcing cone. There does not seem to be any noticeable tightness anywhere along the way. The dreaded thread crush is not present. I will polish the bore some more and see if that helps. It is better, but still not good.

There was a thread here about a S&W .357 that was giving the owner FITS. It had EDM rifled barrel. He posted pics of it and it looked like the grooves had diamond/arrow shaped "speed bumps" in them right ahead of the forcing cone, weirdest thing ever, couldn't decide if that was leading or the way S&W machined it. I think he ended up sending the gun back to them and they fixed it but man it was terrible looking from the photos. I found a bunch more photos of the same thing on the web, a lot of different people were complaining about the same thing and pointing out this funny looking artifact in their barrel. It was machined into the grooves, it wasn't leading.

See, I had hopes of this gun being the 696 that I never had. It has thus far fallen short of my dreams.

That's unfortunate. I think you hit on something with your comment about the EDM rifling and how it cuts ribbons of lead. Too bad I don't have a .44 caliber Taylor throating reamer, just today I was speaking to one of the guys at Clymer and asked them if they happened to have one, but they haven't been made in a long time.

[W.R.Buchanan]

I think just shooting a bunch of Jacketed Bullets thru that gun might smooth the barrel out significantly. In the article that Brian Pearce did in Handloader Mag on this gun he talked about the EDM'd barrels being rough and needing a serious break ins before being accurate with Cast Boolits. This makes sense as copper is definitely more abrasive than lead. If after 2-300 jacketed bullets the barrel still wasn't smoothed out then Fire Lapping would be my next thing to try.

It is odd that S&W thought EDM'ing the rifling in barrels was a good idea. EDM always leaves a granular finish which isn't even remotely close to good enough for barrels IMHO. There are EDM processes that that will leave a polished finish however they are not cheap or even close to cheap. Seems like in lue of using this process that they would at least Lap the barrels prior to assembling.

If you saw the barrel on my 696 you'd be very jealous. It literally looks like it was polished and Chrome Plated!

In the first pic the things that appear to be roughness are actually the bar codes and lettering on the stick on tag I was using as a light reflector. You could easily read them in the reflection off the lands and grooves. The pics aren't really showing how polished this barrel actually is.

When I got it, it was badly leaded and took me about 15 minutes to clean out with a bore brush and solvent. These pics are after running about 50 rounds of H&G 503 sized .431 thru it and no cleaning afterwards.

Randy

[frank505]

I fire lapped my model 69 with only ten rounds. It is very smooth now and I havn't cleaned the barrel in thousand of rounds.

[rintinglen]

Rub it W.R., rub it in. It is your fault I bought this thing. All those pics of your 696 aroused the longing, the desire.
I'm blaming you.
I should have kept looking for a 696. Or a winning lottery ticket.

[W.R.Buchanan]

I first became aware of these guns about 2 years ago when a guy on this forum showed one, I immediately said I had to have one! These guns are what a Charter Arms Bulldog would like to be when it grows up, and I'd always been fond of them. The 696's were also purported to be "Hen's Teeth," and virtually unobtainable, and especially in California.

I found this one in 15 minutes!

However it was listed for sale in Bullhead City AZ, and after talking to the DOJ in CA (This gun is no longer on the list as they don't make them any more.) I found the only way I could buy one is by a Private Party Transfer from a CA resident. I called the guy in BHC and told him the story, and he told me he actually lived in Huntington Beach? and worked in Santa Monica! So we agreed to meet at a gun shop on the south end of Oxnard the next day.

I gave him $950 for that gun which is a 696 No Dash, or 1st Gen made in 1997,,,Meaning it has the firing pin on the hammer and no key lock. -1 has the frame mounted pin and -2 has the lock. I didn't even argue the price as the gun had less than 50 rounds thru it because he'd leaded the barrel so badly he was afraid to shoot more. Worked for me. As shown the barrel is like a mirror, literally!

Ten days later I had the gun. Total elapsed time after becoming aware that the gun existed,,,, 13 days! So much for Hens Teeth.

Took 15 minutes to clean the lead out of the barrel, and the gun is a joy to shoot.

My point here,,, other than rubbing it in a little more,,, is that sometimes you just have to "Make it Happen!"

I want you to make this gun shoot right and I know you can. With the resources available on this site you should be able to do just about anything. Yes you can!

Randy