Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 357 Maximum & Bradshaw/Martin Bullet

So why do you think Ruger puller them from the market and refused to send any back that were sent if for service?

As I recall, it wasn't just top strap cutting. There was also a problem with forcing cone erosion.

Idaho1945,
Dick, I sent you a PM.

That is funny.

I have fired considerably more than 2,000 rounds through a couple different .44 Magnum Rugers, and I did not "cook the barrel/forcing cone of either.

I know this one is definitely past that.





Reference S&W's, same deal, I have a couple that have seen considerably more than 2,000 rounds, and while they have some very minor cutting it gets to a certain point and pretty much stops. Basically it is a non issue. It gets made into a huge thing by people who do far more reading and arm chair pontificating than they ever do actually getting out and shooting. I would venture to guess most will never shoot 200 rounds through their .44 mags in their entire lives.

I can tell you for a fact that a tall plastic Folgers can will hold 550 rounds of 240 grain .44 magnums rounds, which were emptied in a relatively short period of time. Shooting revolvers long range burns up a lot of ammo.



These are targets going out to (if I recall, its been a couple years) 500 or so yards.









This old 29-2 has seen multiple thousands of rounds over the last 25+ years and is completely serviceable. The forcing cone is not cooked and the top strap while there is very minor cut, it is simply cosmetic and is of no consequence whatsoever. The fact is that I could shoot thousands more and it will be fine. I plan to in fact.

Odds are it will need a minor tune up to clean up a little cylinder play long before anything else, as is typical with S&Ws that have been shot a lot.






Getting out and shooting thousands of rounds and getting real, first hand information and experience will always trump reading and theory.

Bristoe,

Dan Wesson issued two barrels with their 357 Maximums/357 SuperMags. I had one, it never necessitated barrel #2, despite as much H110, LilGun, 1680 and Rl 7 crammed in the cases. Barrel #2 got sold unfettered with the gun.

The gun was bought used and 3k rounds were sent down its tube while it was here for about ten years or so.
It collected one deer and was a good time on the 200 yard plate; boring at 100.
It never fired a bullet under 180 grains and never saw a jacketed round in the same time frame.

This is just a guess, but Ruger's warranty hasn't and still doesn't apply to handloaded ammunition; that's not to say they haven't covered such, but belligerent reloaders not heeding advice regarding the cartridge and gun probably had more to do with the ceasing of the arm than anything. Let's face it, the silhouette revolvers of the era weren't sent back because they were knocked out of commission with Remington fodder....

Sticking a jacket from obturation (especially with light soft cores and rough cones) is a reality most experienced reloaders are aware of and choose to avoid. That doesn't include all reloaders. I'm sure some still try to run 200gr. 45 Colt Silvertips in their Casulls as fast as they can.

FWIW that Bradshaw bullet seated deep inside the case probably cut down on the gas cutting and erosion; the case being a heat sink while the top pressure and temperature is inside the case instead of at the forcing cone/cylinder gap.

I know from talking to David Bradshaw that when Bill Ruger was still alive & Bradshaw was doing most of the testing for the new 357 Maximum that Bill had him do all kinds of tests, including rapid fire testing where the barrels would get very hot, just to see how much wear & tear the barrels could take. David punished the barrels pretty hard & it took a great deal of shooting to create noticeable wear on the forcing cone & also the wear on the top strap would start & then cease right away, it really wasn't a factor unless you shot very light weight bullets with ball powders.
In other words you had to set out to abuse the gun on purpose to actually make it happen. Shooting normal weight bullets, the wear was minimal. Again David Bradshaw was a many times world champion & him & Bill Jr did almost all of the testing on the Maximum. Bill Sr. pulled all of the guns out of production because he didn't want to have any controversy over what a few uninformed writers had put out there, end of story.
On another note when I was shooting USPSA for several years & had shot my way to #1 in the nation in "A" class revolver I shot 54,000 that year through a S&W 610 which is a 10mm revolver. I cast every single one of those bullets & they all made major power factor. Not as hot as a 357 Maximum or a 44 magnum but it was also a lot more rounds! The following year I shot 34,000 through the same gun & I was shooting all over the western US. I was also shooting in winter leagues in Arizona & twice I won the Rocky Mountain Regional Championship in ICORE at FT. Collins, Colorado, all using the same gun. In Arizona I was shooting 2 matches a week with the same S&W 610, all major power factor loads.
At this point the gun had to have at least 125,000 rounds down the barrel & it was still winning matches at the highest level, I hardly ever cleaned it except for the cylinder, it didn't need it. How much wear & tear does a gun get when it's approaching at least 125,000 minimum? My gun was fine!

Dick

And that right there is why Idaho1945 is the Boss!


The phrase "know your audience" comes to mind once again..

Then your experience is different than those who chose Model 29s to compete in IHMSA.

There's a reason why you quit seeing Model 29s being used for IHMSA competition although early on they were popular for the revolver class.

I note from a previous post of yours that you advise keeping .44 magnum loads for the S&W Model 29 moderate. That undoubtedly explains why yours has held up in the manner that you claim.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...tthread/Board/26/main/919195/type/thread

Shoot a couple thousand of Elmer's loads through it (250 grain hardcast SWC, 22 grains 2400) it and get back with me.

I have [bleep] 23 grains of 2400 with 250 hardcast and even faster loads with H-110/296
You are not speaking from experience

If you would have been to those matches back in the day like I was and had shot the factory loads of the day you would know that the factory loads were loaded from 1450 to 1550 FPS for 250 grain factory loads

Shooting 40 to 80 round matches plus a 800 to one thousand rounds a week for practice took it's toll on a M-29 by creating end shake and tune up were in order just as Mackay_Sagebrush posted

Face it Bristoe,

You are desperately grasping for straws..

Having to search years old posts, and then cherry pick only part of a post in a desperate attempt to save face, reflects poorly and says something about your integrity.


Here is the whole post you selectively only chose to post part of:




Stick with 10 grains of Unique and a 240 grain cast SWC type load or the equivalent and you will be G2G for many thousands of rounds.

This old -2 has had many thousands of rounds, and it still is fine. When it was my only .44 I ran heavy loads through it, but they were maybe 3 to 5% of the rounds fired overall. The N Frames are not nearly as "delicate" as internet and gunshop myth has made them out to be. No, they will not take many thousands of full house 300+ grain loads, but the very vast majority of owners are never going to shoot that many hot loads in their lifetime anyways.



Stick with standard 240 grain loads for 95% of your shooting and use the heavy loads sparingly and you will most likely never have a problem. Even then, correcting some endshake is not too tough, and it is an extremely rare gun that has been shot to the point of being not repairable.


That post is as true today as it was then.

If you shoot thousands of full house 300+ grain loads, it will cause excessive wear.

Stick with standard 240 grain loads for 95% of your shooting and you will be fine. Pretty simple,



This reminds me of someone trying to tell locals all about what it is like to live where the locals live, even though that person trying to tell the locals all about it, has never lived there or even visited.

You are simply out of your depth.

It's not about "depth". It's that you shoot "poot" loads out of your Model 29s so they won't loosen up,..as you described.

Like I said,..put 2000 of Elmer's loads through you Model 29 then get back with me. When only 3% of your loads are full power, you're unqualified to makes judgments on how long a .44 magnum revolver will hold up.

10 grains of Unique is actually not a .44 Magnum load. It's a .44 Special +P. Unique is far too fast burning to construct full power .44 magnum loads.

Read my post I've shot those loads even up to 23 grains in my M-29s. You haven't,

OK Bristoe, tell us how many mod 29's you've shot loose with Elmer's loads ie. "a couple thousand of Elmer's loads....250 grain hardcast SWC, 22 grains 2400."
If ya haven't, then time to quit digging and move on, cuz yer gettin' annoying for no other reason than to be annoying, that's for another forum.

where can one purchase these bullets at?

One. I bought it to shoot IHMSA. The first indication is that they won't cycle double action. The frame stretches enough that the pin that holds the cylinder locking lug gets moved out of position enough that it doesn't drop down soon enough and won't release the cylinder.

I got it functioning again by removing the side plate and reaming the hole in the side plate that the lug pin fits into. Opening up the hole allowed the locking lug to move back enough that it was properly timed again.

In 1977 I put on the first Handgun Silhouette match ever held in Idaho along with Elgin Gates help. We shot the match in a field next to my house along the river & had about 75 shooters. Many of them were shooting S&W 44 magnums using heavy loads. One of them was a shooter named Joe Hollifield & his loads were hot! It was only a half match (20 targets) because that's all I had made at the time. A couple of weeks later we had the first full, sanctioned match at Blackfoot, Idaho with a full 40 rounds & I think there were 99 entries, which at the time was a new national record. Again, there was Joe Hollifield with that model 29 S&W, and he won revolver class.
We shot all summer at 3 different ranges, with some of us traveling out of state to shoot. Later that year we had the first ever state championships at the Blackfoot range & by that time there were several guys that had over 2,000 rounds of heavy loads through their model 29's, you weren't going to take those rams down with a mild load in any revolver, 44 magnum or not.
A shooter from Boise showed up named Ben Wetzel, he owned Idaho Leather & he was entering revolver class with a Ruger SBH 44 magnum. We started visiting & I ask him to wait until Sunday to enter & to come to my range & work out his sight adjustments, he didn't have them past the pigs at 100 meters. So we drove back to my place & shot that Saturday afternoon & got his sights down pretty good, Ben was a good shooter.
We went back on Sunday & Ben entered & I was his spotter, later that day Ben was the first state champion Silhouette shooter in Idaho, he beat Joe Hollifield. The guys shooting S&W model 29's weren't having accuracy problems & many of them had several thousand rounds down the barrel at that time, the problem they were having was, the sights wouldn't track consistently, and it took them quite a while to figure it out. The Ruger 44's were more consistent on the sight adjustment over a long period of time.

Dick

I used feeler guages under my M29 for consustent sight adjustment

A hair under 6 pounds.

Y'all realize of course that the case dimensions of the .357 Maximum equals the dimensions of the late 19th century .35-30 Maynard cartridge. There's a guy, a friend of a friend, who's reported to have stamped his new .357 Maximum rifle barrel ".35-30 Maynard" as an inside joke. There usually isn't much new under the sun.

How can sights that are adjusted by a screw not stay consistent? Are the screw threads getting farther apart or closer together?