Petrol & Powder
01-20-2013, 09:45 PM
59090
If you play with alloy frames long enough you'll eventually have a bad day. I recently obtained an un-fired S&W Model 12-3 that was made in the early 1980's. I inspected and cleaned the gun before shooting 18 rounds. The first 6 were wadcutters over 3.0 grs of WW231, no problems. I then switched to 158gr SWC loaded over 4 grains of WW231. Well sometime after the second cylinder full the gun started shooting a shotgun pattern. The frame had cracked just under the barrel; a failure not unheard of in aluminum framed Smith's but one that I've managed to avoid over the course of several decades. My model 12-2 has a pinned barrel and shoots just fine. I suspect that the barrel on the dash 3 was over tightened about 30 years ago in Springfield, MA and I was the lucky one to shoot it first! Now I've got an expensive collection of spare parts for my other Model 12. Wish I had found a "slightly" used one instead of an "untested" one!
If you play with alloy frames long enough you'll eventually have a bad day. I recently obtained an un-fired S&W Model 12-3 that was made in the early 1980's. I inspected and cleaned the gun before shooting 18 rounds. The first 6 were wadcutters over 3.0 grs of WW231, no problems. I then switched to 158gr SWC loaded over 4 grains of WW231. Well sometime after the second cylinder full the gun started shooting a shotgun pattern. The frame had cracked just under the barrel; a failure not unheard of in aluminum framed Smith's but one that I've managed to avoid over the course of several decades. My model 12-2 has a pinned barrel and shoots just fine. I suspect that the barrel on the dash 3 was over tightened about 30 years ago in Springfield, MA and I was the lucky one to shoot it first! Now I've got an expensive collection of spare parts for my other Model 12. Wish I had found a "slightly" used one instead of an "untested" one!