Not very cast friendly-My M-69 is.

[rintinglen]

167640Well, I was overjoyed to see the return of the S&W L-frame 44"s. The K/L frame seems to have been designed just to fit my hand and I was a bit sorry to miss the boat when S&W was making the 696/396 etc back in the early 21st century. When the 69 came out, I was hoping that they would finally make the list here in Commiefornia so I could actually buy one.Well, that day came to pass. Handling the revolver in my local gun shop revealed it to be a fine example of the modern S&W, reasonably smooth, built a little different from the 586/686's I was familiar with, but comfortably the same in my hand. Not wanting to miss the boat again, I plunged into my pocket and forthwithly paid for my soon-to-be newest acquisition. It has the Lawyer's key hole, while unsightly, it appears not to affect how the gun functions one Iota, and doesn't bother me much.

What does bother me is that it extracts more lead from a boolit than a dozen lead miners in whole shift at Deer Run.

I read that the barrel grooves are cut with some form EDM(called EDC in one article I read). The grooves and lands appear to be of equal width, and there are five of each. The barrel appears to be nice and smooth and measures a hair over .429. My initial testing, done with Winchester White Box factory jacketed, in case there was a problem that would necessitate a trip back to Springfield, revealed no flaws. Accuracy was not all that and a bag of chips, but I was not bearing down striving for the smallest possible group and the ammo was the cheapest off the shelf stuff I could find. Recoil was uncomfortable. The factory grips that feel so nice in the hand do not do much for full mag loads, I will be looking for a replacement set that is a little wider.

However, the snake in paradise raised its ugly head on our next trip out. I tried out 40 44 Specials, loaded with 429-667 430 boolits over 6.9 grains of Unique. A glance down the bore left me aghast. I have seen other bores heavily leaded, but nothing like this. I measured the boolits remaining unloaded in the tray when I got home and found 5 of them to average .4303.
I will be scouring the bore and contemplating fire lapping it to see if we can get past this unfortunate tendency. I need to check the chamber throats as well.

[376Steyr]

Checking the cylinder throats first would be a good idea. I have a new spare 696 cylinder squirreled away, and my pin gauges show it has .427 throats.

You didn't mention what bullet alloy you used. I had horrible leading problems with my .44 Special until I stopped using straight clip on wheel weights (which I also then sized to too small a diameter) and switched to a softer alloy.

[Outpost75]

Your experience parallels mine with EDM barrels. We tried this experimentally at Ruger back in the 1980s and quickly rejected it.

I was almost pondering how nice an S&W 69 might be, thanks for dispelling that foolish notion.

My rebuilt M1917 which John Taylor rebarreled and recylindered to .45 Colt will do the job for me.

167648

[Mytmousemalibu]

I recently got a new 3", 686 Plus which I do really love, however I have discovered a few problems too. After I installed a HiViz fiber optic front sight, which is taller and narrower than the original red ramp, I noticed it had some cant to it. I discovered the barrel was over tightened into the frame, under closer examination, you can see differences from side to side which is telling of the barrel not in right. I also found accuracy to be nothing stellar at all and mine too likes to line the last couple inches of barrel with lead which is a problem for me as I intended to feed it mostly cast. I discovered why when I slugged the bore... It has a significant amount of thread choke/thread restriction right where the barrel meets the frame, up to the forcing cone. And lastly, the muzzle crown looks like it was done by a drunken 3yr old. I still love the gun but I am disappointed in the workmanship that this gun left the door with. It's going to take a trip back to S&W for correcting. This 686 might not be the pinnacle of S&W revolvers but for $800, I expect the damn thing to be right. We'll see how this turns out. I have a feeling it's going to have to visit Doug or another resident revo expert.

Oh and there is a guy that makes some really nice plugs for the hole left when you gut the stupid key lock out of it. Ill install mine after it returns.

[W.R.Buchanan]

I bought a 696 no dash a couple of years ago. It had only a few rounds ran thru it and the barrel was badly leaded and I came to the conclusion that the guy didn't know cast boolits at all. it took me about 15 minutes to clean all the lead out of that barrel which looked like a mirror on the inside. :veryconfu

I tried some 190 gr SWC's that I hoped would shoot right but they were a foot high at 25 yards so I loaded up some 429421's with 6 gr of W231 and bango, the gun shot directly to the sights and no leading whatsoever. So that's the load that works and no reason to look further.

I didn't Chrony them but it should be running around 700-750fps from a 3" barrel.

My boolits are sized .431 and made of strait WW My Throats are .430.

The gun is a joy to shoot and doesn't beat you. I figure anything that gets hit by one of those boolits will stay hit,,, so hotrod velocities are not necessary.

It works pretty well for IDPA as well, and is something different. Those paper targets don't know the difference between 700 fps and 1200 fps so this is what I'm doing.

Your M69 should work pretty much the same way, but the light gun seems like it wouldn't be as much fun with Magnums.

I'd play with the boolit size first and slow things down even if you choose to use Magnum cases it doesn't mean that you have to load them with magnum charges. Skeeter loads or ones in the vicinity would be a good place to start.

Randy

[frank505]

My model 69 is a marvelous revolver. Changed the front sight to a .300 tall green fiber from Dawson. Fire lapped ten rounds which smoothed the EDM barrel. It is very accurate and hasn't been polluted with a jacketed bullet. The last one hundred winchester primers loaded with six and a half of trail boss are about shot up so that's a thousand rounds since back surgery eight weeks ago. Plus several hundred of #503s at 1200 and five hundred louse with 9.5 of power pistol. Don't have any idea what I shot before surgery but it was fair amount. To me out the perfect Smith and Wesson

[W.R.Buchanan]

The main thing about the 69's is the increase in size of the barrel thread and spigot around the forcing cone. It is still an L Frame.

The 696's had a tendency to split the spigot, if the forcing cone was leaded and you ran a hot jacketed load thru it. This was cured with the M69, which is also a .44 Magnum instead of just a .44 Special. Apparently the frames were more than strong enough for Magnum Loads so all they did was beef up the area around the barrel thread and increase the size of the spigot, thus the Model 69.

This is one of S&W's best guns IMHO!

Still it is a light gun and shooting .44 Magnum Loads will probably get old pretty fast. The S&W Frame tends to punish the web of your hand when heavier loads are used, whereas the Ruger Bisley Frame spreads the Recoil out over a larger surface area directed more at the meat of your hand than just the web. Thus if you wanted to shoot heavier .44 Special Loads with say 300 gr boolits the Ruger would be the way to go. BUT,,, it is a heavier gun and if you're going to carry it everyday it would get old faster than the M69 or 696 so the trade off is there.

But I would say fit he gun to what you want to do most as opposed to buying something that will do everything, but not do anything all that well.

I tend to buy Machines and Guns that are best suited to the majority of things I want to do. As opposed to buying something that will do "Everything I could possibly want to do," but would generally be much bigger and thus not as well suited to do the majority of things.

An example would be having a 9" Hardinge Lathe that will do 99% of the jobs I do, as opposed to a 18" Engine Lathe that could do "Everything" I would ever need to do but wouldn't be as easy to run as the smaller lathe for the vast majority of work to be done. In that case you would either farm out the big stuff or find someone who would let you use their big machine for those infrequent times when you needed it.

Similarly, you wouldn't buy a 1 ton Pick Up Truck for a Daily Driver unless you needed it to carry big loads frequently. A nice comfortable Passenger Car or SUV would do the vast majority of jobs you need from a daily driven vehicle, and be much nicer to drive. If you sometimes needed the big truck you could go rent one for the day... or if you could afford it you could have both! Which is what many of us have chosen to do with both vehicles and guns.

I got mine specifically to have a D/A .44 Special Revolver as I already had S/A Ruger Black Hawk Bisley and had hundreds of left over .44 Special Cases from my M29 back in the day to use up. (1978!) I am warped that way and have bought several expensive guns just so I could shoot up ammo, or components I had accumulated. I bought a $2000 .410 Shotgun just so I could use up an 8 lb jug of H110 powder, so I've definitely got a problem!

I really don't feel that alone here? :holysheep

Randy

[frank505]

The X frame grips take the pain out of shooting heavy loads in the 69. Cylinder length is unfortunately to short on for the H&G326 but the 503 fits perfectly. For me it is the perfect size for an everyday carry gun.

[rintinglen]

Checking the cylinder throats first would be a good idea. I have a new spare 696 cylinder squirreled away, and my pin gauges show it has .427 throats.

You didn't mention what bullet alloy you used. I had horrible leading problems with my .44 Special until I stopped using straight clip on wheel weights (which I also then sized to too small a diameter) and switched to a softer alloy.

.427!! Yikes! That would certainly explain the leading issue should that be the case. I hope to maybe get a chance this next week end to check things out, but I am still cleaning lead out of the bore. It is surprising how much there is in there.

I ended up pouring the bore full of mercury to get the lead out--I had been brushing and swabbing to little avail for 5 days before I gave in and broke out the Hg.

[Zim]

I have a Virginian Dragoon that I leaded. Lewis lead remover worked, but not easy.

Looking real hard at the M69, but tripped over a couple other toys that won. For the moment. Will continue the search.

[shoot-n-lead]

Copper Chore Boy...makes even TERRIBLE leading, a breeze.

I have a New Vaquero that drove me crazy with leading until I finally got it sorted out...it will only tolerate 8bhn...the Chore Boy was worth it's weight in gold until I figured the gun out.

[Shuz]

rintinglen--I suggest you try 7g of Trail Boss behind your 429667 @.430 and see if it leads.
In my experience, in the .44 mag, Trail Boss is the best powder to use, if leading has been an issue.

[rintinglen]

If it won't shoot the powders I have, it will be someone else's problem. I have more powder now than is legal, and that load is a standard of mine that works very well to outstanding in my 3 other 44 specials and my S&W 29. an Initial experiment with a jacketed bullet seems to indicate that the throats are narrow, but I won't know for sure until I have a chance to do some slugging and measuring.

[44MAG#1]

"I suggest you try 7g of Trail Boss behind your 429667 @.430 and see if it leads.
In my experience, in the .44 mag, Trail Boss is the best powder to use, if leading has been an issue."

Why would anyone buy a 44 Mag and settle for a load of Traiboss in it.
While I use Resuced loads sometimes I would rate a load like that as totally unacceptable regardless how well it shoots accuracy wise.

[9.3X62AL]

"I suggest you try 7g of Trail Boss behind your 429667 @.430 and see if it leads.
In my experience, in the .44 mag, Trail Boss is the best powder to use, if leading has been an issue."

Why would anyone buy a 44 Mag and settle for a load of Traiboss in it.
While I use Resuced loads sometimes I would rate a load like that as totally unacceptable regardless how well it shoots accuracy wise.

90% of my 44 Magnum revolver shooting gets done with a duplicator of "Skeeter's Load", a "44 Special +P" of sorts that gives ~950 FPS to a 240 grain bullet, often Lyman's #429421. The late Skeeter Skelton used 7.5 grains of Hercules (now Alliant) Unique powder to achieve this velocity in 44 Special platforms of sufficient strength to absorb such loads--Colt SAA and New Service, S&W N-frames, and like/similar sideiron. In 44 Magnum cases, I load 8.5 grains of Unique or 9.5 grains of Herco for 950 FPS in my 4" M-29 variant and almost 1000 FPS in a Redhawk x 5.5". These are all-day loads from the standpoint of recoil and muzzle bark, but will still humanely harvest deer to any distance I have any business engaging them while hunting. Getting hammered by gratuitous recoil in the interest of downrange power has gotten REAL OLD for me; at some point, the time comes to holster the hogleg and pick up a rifle.

[44MAG#1]

90% of my 44 Magnum revolver shooting gets done with a duplicator of "Skeeter's Load", a "44 Special +P" of sorts that gives ~950 FPS to a 240 grain bullet, often Lyman's #429421. The late Skeeter Skelton used 7.5 grains of Hercules (now Alliant) Unique powder to achieve this velocity in 44 Special platforms of sufficient strength to absorb such loads--Colt SAA and New Service, S&W N-frames, and like/similar sideiron. In 44 Magnum cases, I load 8.5 grains of Unique or 9.5 grains of Herco for 950 FPS in my 4" M-29 variant and almost 1000 FPS in a Redhawk x 5.5". These are all-day loads from the standpoint of recoil and muzzle bark, but will still humanely harvest deer to any distance I have any business engaging them while hunting. Getting hammered by gratuitous recoil in the interest of downrange power has gotten REAL OLD for me; at some point, the time comes to holster the hogleg and pick up a rifle.

Notice I said I use Reduced loads at times. I enjoy them. I even plan on shooting a 22 LR handgun tomorrow, which is unusual for me.
But to have to use a Trailboss load all the time to avoid leading to me is ridiculous anyway you decipher it.
I have a FTBH in 44 Special to shoot but I still don't shoot Trailboss loads in it.
More power to anyone that wants too. I can understand someone that has injuries doing it and am not talking about that. I may have to one day.
BUT!!!

[rintinglen]

I can tell you why you want to shoot reduced loads in the M-69. It hurts with the stock grips! Not immediately crippling, but 50 rounds of factory jhps will let you know that you have been abused. Not as bad as a wooden stocked 45-70 contender, but not fun either. I am waiting on a set of Pachmayrs to see if that makes things a little better, and will check the throating Saturday or Sunday.

[44MAG#1]

"I can tell you why you want to shoot reduced loads in the M-69. It hurts with the stock grips! Not immediately crippling, but 50 rounds of factory jhps will let you know that you have been abused. Not as bad as a wooden stocked 45-70 contender, but not fun either. I am waiting on a set of Pachmayrs to see if that makes things a little better, and will check the throating Saturday or Sunday."

I don't know if you are addressing that statement to me but, if you have read my statements carefully, I am not saying anything about reduced loads as I use them occasionally.
But, there are reduced loads and "reduced" loads that are nothing but cream puff loads.
I am talking cream puff loads.
Come on you know good and well what I am talking about.

[9.3X62AL]

I see load reductions and leading prevention as discrete issues, only tangentially related--if at all. Screwy dimensions between platform and bullet are at the root of most leading issues, and a change of pressure/velocity has little effect alone other than to slow or hasten leading build-up. SIZE MATTERS--dimensions are King, metallurgy is Privy Seal, and in handguns lube is the 4th-born son that spends treasure on drink and debauchery.

[DougGuy]

Take some boolits and push them through the cylinder throats. IF they will fit! You fellas that have a .430" boolit that won't go through the throats will always have some degree of difficulty trying to avoid leading. They work SO much better when the throats are .4315" and boolits sized to .431" I generally reserve the .4325" reamer for Ruger cylinders.

[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]

168780
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! :veryconfu

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. :mrgreen: Yes you can!

Randy