I thought that I would share this personal experience with a Model 19 blowing up at the Rio Salado Rifle range in Mesa Az in 1997 or 1998.
I was sitting with my friend shooting on the rifle line. I was shooting my 17 Ackley Hornet at the 100 yd line and my friend was having trouble getting his scope on his Rem 700 30/06 adjusted for a 100 yd zero. I asked him to let me sit down at his bench and try to bore sight the rifle. We both stood up from a sitting position at the bench. Just as I stood up and steped behind the shooting bench, my friend grabbed his chest and said in a shaky voice, "it came from that away" pointing down the rifle line to the right. He had a horrible look of pain in his face. I asked him if I could remove his hand from his shirt and see, and as I did, I saw a 2"-3" gaping hole in his chest right above the Sternum. I had a clean hankerchief in my back pocket, I got him to lay down on the concrete, and asked one of the range masters to keep pressure on the hankerchief as I went down the shooting line to get the head range master to declare a cease fire and look for other injured shooters.
About 20 benches to the right of our shooting bench, I see a young man hobbling off crying and sobbing. I grab him and lay him down on the ground and ask him if I can examine his wound, as he was bleeding profusely from the crotch. As I pulled down his pants, I could see his penus was almost severed by shrapnel. I told him to grab hold of his dick and hold tightly as he was by now screaming in agony.
As I stood up to look for further victims, I saw a woman sobbing as she hobbled away from the shooting benches, she said, "my husband, my husband" pointing to a man still sitting up right at the bench, she was ok, just in shock.
The man at the bench, looked as if he had been frozen in time, still gripping the pistol sitting on the pistol rest. He had blood coming from his face and forehead in mupliple places along with shrapnel wounds in his arms and hands. He was motionless and never spoke or made a sound. With another range officer, we laid him down on the concrete and opened his shirt, there was no wounds on his chest, but he was going into shock.
Two surgeons were on the scene and they took over the wounded. I went to the bench along with the head range master and looked at his pistol that had blown up. The entire top half of the cylinder, sights, crane an ejector assembly missing, and top strap were blown off, obviously had been blown to pieces. The pistol was a Model 19 Smith, in what looked like exellent conditon(what was left of it).
Police closed down the rifle range immediatley, and confiscated the gun and ammo. Ammuniton was later found to not be at fault, no over loads on the reloader's part. Instead, the Model 19 was designed to shoot 38 specials in practice, then limited duty 357 use.
My friend made a full recovery in about a year, cylinder had penetrated the chest at the heart, but all the velocity was gone from breaking the sternum. I do not know about the other two vicitms recovery, but heard that the guy that was shooting the Model 19 had quit shooting and had sold all his guns.
If my friend had had trouble sighting in his 30/06, that piece of cylinder would have hit me in the side of the head. If I had not stood up when I did, I would not have been here today. We were 82 feet away from the pistol that blew up.
It is common knowledge with Smith that Model 19's are known to blow up, not intended to be used with hot 357 mag ammo all the time...38's for practice...357's for duty use....
Since the original post was on the Model 19 vs the GP100, you would be hard pressed to blow up a GP100. I have the 686 and the GP100. I replaced the original hammer spring in the GP with a light spring available from Brownell's and also replaced the sights with a beade front sight and a V notch rear, you can really get a fine hold on a target. With the upgraded trigger spring(trigger is fantastic in single and double action) and the sights, groups acheivable from this pistol have been supurb. I have shot untold thousands of HOT load with max loads of 18.0g of H110 and 17.8g of IMR 4227 with the 125g Sierra's in this pistol on jack rabbits, 8 coyotes, and two javelina...one hell of an accurate pistol. Groups with the 125's are where the bullets touch at 25 yards, and almost as good with the 158g load with IMR 4756.
The 686 has never been as accurate as this particular SS GP100 in 6", but the trigger is a tad better on the smith since I had a guy at the custom shop work it over before they moved to Az. Shooting this particular 6" GP100, It is pretty easy to hit 12" tall 4"x6" pieces of wood at 100 yards as they stand up like bowling pins shooting from a rested position with the IMR 4227 load with the sierra 125's above.
If you own a Model 19, Smith will verify what I spoke of above, as my friend tried to sue S&W over the gun blowing up to no avail.
Last edited by keith; 09/02/12.
