Was shooting my new 3" Taurus 856 when it locked up, cylinder wouldn't turn. I was shooting lee standard wadcutters with 3.2 gr of Win 231, so not a hot load or anything. At first I thought it was a squib load (no powder) but I loaded these on my L-N-L progressive with a RCBS lock out die, so that was unlikely. Using a cleaning rod, I could drop it all the way down to the bottom of the case. From the side looking at the cylinder gap you could definitely see some thing bridging the gap that looked brass colored, not lead color. Looking down the barrel with a good light You can see the primer hole in the bottom of the case and the shinny rim of the case mouth just beyond the end of the rifling. So apparenty the case sepparated and the front half pushed through the throat and into the forcing cone.
The brass is some mixed headstamp wadcutter brass that was last shot and re-primed by my dad in the 70's. They all look to be in good shape so figured it was already primed so why not load and shoot them.
Has been at the gunsmith for almost 2 months waiting for him to "get around to it". He said he has a jag that is the just the right size to fit snug to the lands so it can get a hold of the mouth and push it back into the cylinder. Supposedly shout have it this weekend.
It was only my second time out with the little revolver and I have only put about 60-70 rounds thruogh it, I was just starting to get the hang of shooting it when it locked up. When talking with the gunsmith he said it doesn't happen very often but they used to see it occasionally back when Bullseye and PPC shooting were still popular and the 38 brass got reloaded VERY many times.
Anyone else ever had this happen?