group size to bullet fit

[magnumuser]

I have not slugged my 629's barrel. Not sure on how to, and i am not so sure i want to risk getting things stuck in the barrel.

Anyhoos, I am using matts bullets 240 grain swc. crimping in the supplied crimping groove.

Using bullseye, red dot, green dot, 2400, I am getting roughly the same average of 4-4.5" groups. Imagine a 4x4" square and all the shots are staying inside it. Sure some powders and lower loads have pushed the group up to a maximum of 6", but been the same average of 4-4.5 between the powders ive tried. The main difference is some loads are more then able to drop the whole group down 4-6 inches in point of impact.

However using Fiochi 240 sjhp moving at a box speed of 1330, 12 rounds went into a 3.5" max group, and many were in small clusters.

Is this a sign my barrel prefers

Jacketed bullets

or

SPEED?

[45DUDE]

My JM Marlin likes a Winchester Silvertip. I try to match the 100y groups with lead but haven't gotten there yet. I sold my 29-2 with .433 throats and bought a SRH and it kicks a lot less. My shooting buddy has a Freedom arms 44 with .430 throats and makes me look bad.His gun will shoot any combo of boolits and powder. I can shoot his at 50y's iron sights better than mine with a scope. W296 -2400-and 4227 and Unique seem to be the better powders for 44 mag for us. I removed the gas check from a Lee 310 and it does good @ 50y's but haven't tried 100y yet. What distance are your groups?

[Bird]

629 at 25yds, 3'' to 3.5'' 12 shot groups, that's with bad eyesight. Bear creek bullets 205 rnfp, .430'' over 9.7g Unique, or 13g Unique for a hand stinger.

[TurnipEaterDown]

Group sizes described are not really a clear indication of either possible factor that you had offered.

While different guns do sometimes shoot different loads better than others, there is no reason outside of defects that would make an average decent 44 revolver shoot worse than 2.5" groups at 50 yds provided proper bullet sizing and loading. That said - even some factory loads shoot abysmally in some guns.

The most obvious clues to improper cast bullet sizing is lead deposits in the cylinder throat and/or barrel. If you see any of this w/ cast, start correcting that and group size should dramatically improve.

If you're not getting "good groups" with either jacketed or cast, and would like to, then it is probably best to start investigating what is leading to such spread in the groups.

There is no mention of what type of shooting position was used (rested, standing offhand, supported, etc.), nor what is meant by "bad eyesight".
If your groups are worse than you want, and you are shooting offhand, then rest the gun to see if it is your shooting technique or the gun & load.
If the correction in lenses you are using does not allow you to see a crisp sight picture w/ open sights, begin there -- glasses can be prescribed to give focal distance at the front sight, and versus a "normal" prescription for single vision or bi-focal/progressive lenses, this can help a LOT with eyestrain and consistency let alone the basics of proper sight alignment.

Start with the big things and progress to the small -- no point in chasing detail if you don't have the gross factors out of the way.

[gunther]

Use a micrometer to measure your bullet diameter. If it's less than 0.430, that may be a large part of the problem. Bevel base bullets are asking for leading. Been there, done that.
This is less of a barrel problem than a cylinder throat problem. If your bullets fall through the throats with little resistance, you need bigger bullets. A snug push-through fit is what you are looking for. 629-4's were the first S&W's to get the cylinder throats down to .429-430.Earlier ones were generally more like .431-.432. Or larger. A.431 bullet flat based bullet solved my leading problem.

[magnumuser]

mines a current production 629 classic. got this year from Buds.

I do get leading with it, hence i swapped to jacketed for a while, but the barrel soaks up copper just as bad. I tried a box of factory cowboy ammo that was speced at 820 fps, same groups happened with it. Very dirty.

The lewis rod and my jb bore paste are new friends. Just need a good means for cleaning that cylinder face, took too long soaking it at regular intervals to clean the top strap and around the little barrel stub inside the cylnder window.

[Bass Ackward]

Make sure your gun is unloaded and clean. Take a white light and shine it down the bore so that you can look at it and rotate through your chambers. Look closely for any misalignment. If it’s not you, then that’s likely the problem.

[TurnipEaterDown]

Bore Tech carbon remover and eliminator are great cleaning fluids - the eliminator has brought strips of lead out of a gun that I purposefully pushed too fast to see just where velocity would give me leading in that gun w/ the bullet I used as sized and lubed for lower (normal) speeds.
The carbon remover on a cloth has taken very old combustion staining off cylinder faces (rings around the throats) quite quickly for me.

New gun - metal fouling - may just need to be shot a lot to slick it up.
I don't really have anything w/ a new bore anymore -- closest is one of my 416s w/ about 650 rounds through it now.

Will say that some guns I have which gather copper really don't gather lead - I don't think the two are necessarily related.
Good fit, good lube, and I seem to have no problems at sane speeds.

Fire lapping also helped one of my revolvers 25 years ago.
I get the willys when first doing it, but it has worked out well. I'd just be conservative w/ it and clean well after the lapping.

[magnumuser]

did the push through test, the matts bullets are labelled as being .430. they do not slip through from either end of the cylinder. And visually they seem to have the same amount of lead tip sticking out of each chamber.

Now i just got to figure out the slugging.

[Hickok]

My S&W 629 had extremely tight cylinder throats of .428". It didn't work well with cast boolits.

Sent it to Doug (Member here) to hone out the cylinders and it shoots cast great!