Question - barrel size of S&W SD9 VE

[bangerjim]

I have the above gun and have never really had any luck with it. Commercial JWords chamber and shoot and cycle just fine but are all over the map at 30+ ft. That's OK....if I happen to be defending myself against.............a BARN!

I cannot even get any of my cast loads to chamber correctly. Always a small gap at top of receiver where the cart does not go all the way in.

Thought is was my loading technique so I have tried various load lengths/crimp/no crimp/ etc. Nothing works.

Slugged the barrel and it is ~0.346????????? What the.....?

My CB's drop at 0.356 sized. Looks like my boolits are getting stuck at the mouth of the barrel!

I have noticed when I shoot Hot Melt Glue slugs (same Lee 6banger mold...I only have one mold for 9mm) out of this particular gun, there are significant rifling grooves in the recovered rounds! Cannot recover any Jwords to check them, as I shot at an indoor range.

Any suggestions would be most welcome!

In the meantime, I will keep my eye out for any marauding barns around the place!

bangerjim

[bhn22]

I had a Sigma that was the same way. The SD Series S&W were simply prettier Sigmas of course. I didn't have much luck with it, perhaps 5-6 inches at 25 yards from a rest. I simply gave up on it and traded. I hope S&Ws improvements would have made them better. We always suspected it was an inconsistent lockup issue, but could never prove it.

[MtGun44]

If you can't get it to close, deeper seating and tigher taper crimping is the only
way. Look for marks on the boolit ahead of the case where the rifling hits it.
Seat deeper until these go away, then start with TC adjustment, adding more
until it seats all the way. Remove the bbl from the gun to do this testing.
Round should drop freely in all the way, if not it is almost always the boolit
is hitting the rifling and/or the TC is not tight enough.
Also, good accy is usually found at .357 or .358 diameter, not .356.

I guarantee that the groove diam is NOT .346. Is it 5 groove rifling? If so,
it is difficult to measure, so don't sweat it. Just try .357 and .358. Strongly
recommend the Lee 356 120 TC - it has minimal full diam portion ahead of the
case.

Read the sticky on "setting up a new 9mm for boolits"

Bill

[bruce drake]

Your Sigma will improve its groups greatly with a trigger job as well. Those things have a lawyer-proof trigger with 3!! springs in it.

Bruce

[catman81056]

I have the same gun. I've made a few upgrades, Apex spring kit, Truglo Tritium sights, Wolf full length guide rod/recoil spring kit. I added a rubber bumper to the trigger guard just behind the trigger to act as a staging point. Later today I hope to get out and try some reloads, Lee 125gr RN, Lee 124gr TC, both lubed with the 45/45/10 alox/paste wax recipe. I'm using 3.5 gr Bullseye in both loads, I've shot a few of the 124TC's at a measured 15yds and was impressed with the results. I could probably do better as it was in the low 20's with a 15-20MPH wind, didn't take long before the hands were alittle numb. I'll try to post some pics if all turns out well.

[Thin Man]

I am trying to send a friend's Sigma back to S&W for repair - for the second time. He bought it new about a year ago and immediately found it would lock up tight as a bank vault during a string of fire, and only when a fresh round was being chambered into the barrel. This happened once in 4 or 5 rounds for frequency from when he bought it until now. No difference with changing the brand of ammo, factory or handload, it did this repeatedly. He got the store he bought it from to send it back, pistol was returned with a laundry list of the parts they replaced. He went out shooting and found that nothing had changed the way the pistol behaved, it still locked up when going (rather, trying to go) into battery. I gave it a test fire and duplicated his jams. Field stripped the pistol and gave the chamber and bore a thorough cleaning. Next a pointed the barrel (out of the slide) toward the ground and dropped a dummy round into the chamber. It fell free and stopped with the rim, extractor groove and a significant portion of the web area still outside the chamber! I pushed against the back of the dummy round with my thumb and it would not go any farther into the chamber. What my friend has is a pistol with a short chamber! With the variance of brass length in both new and reloaded ammo, most rounds will chamber and fire. Some will not. When a longer case gets into the chamber the striker will release when the trigger is pulled. Usually the round does not fire in his pistol, and the slide is the dickens to retract. Those that do fire show an off-set striker indention on the primer, not true center. S&W gave me the usual spin about having to submit my call for consideration on whether they will accept this pistol for re-examination, and I still haven't heard anything from them. Poor timing for me to call just before a holiday is on the calendar. I'll call them again next week, asking them for the call tag. Gee whiz, guys, I have already diagnosed the error in this pistol your techs missed when they had it several months ago. Hope they can find it now after I tell them where to look.
Thin Man