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Old July 12, 2000, 07:54 AM   #1
Clark
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The first gun was in 1965. I fell down and got dirt in the barrel of my 12 ga. When I next fired it, the last 6 inches of the barrel peeled like a banana.

The second was 2 months ago. I have more than 10 and less than 100 guns, some of which I will never have time to shoot. So I put a 38 Special in a vice with 357 mag trimmed brass and 357 H110 loads. I got behind something while wearing a motorcycle helemet and pulled the string to the trigger. The gun came flying past my hidding place. When I picked up the gun [followed the string] it was OK but the primer was flattened. I sent pictures to Hodgdon. They said primers are not a good indicator, watch for sticky brass.

To make a long story short: I tried Bullseye, but when I worked up loads from Speer 11 with Blue Dot, I started wrecking guns. I switched to Iver Johnsom 38 S&W break top pistols as I got them for only $40 at gun shows. They were OK with 9mm loads, but with 38 super with Blue Dot, the latch mechanism sretches.

I know another guy who pulls a string too. He uses a video camera. The replay helps find the parts [he does 50 bmg, 20mm and pop can launchers. He builds the guns himself]

Don't try this at home.

[This message has been edited by Clark (edited July 12, 2000).]
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Old July 12, 2000, 08:02 AM   #2
tonyz
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ever try a potato gun?

------------------
Match grade Bullets at Kmart prices

http://www.xmission.com/~chad/egs/co...hard_cast.html

also for gun accessorys.
http://gungoodies.com

[This message has been edited by tonyz (edited July 12, 2000).]
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Old July 12, 2000, 08:53 AM   #3
KilgorII
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Why would you hurt a perfectly good gun? your last name isn't Schumer is it?
 
Old July 12, 2000, 12:23 PM   #4
Robert the41MagFan
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Have you ever thought of another hobbie?

Robert

[This message has been edited by Robert the41MagFan (edited July 12, 2000).]
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Old July 12, 2000, 12:55 PM   #5
po boy
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>clark
sorry to here about your condition, have the doctors been able to tell you what causes this fear of guns and drive to destroy.most weapon owners like to shoot by holding them and not locking them in vices and pulling the trigger with a string.they are well made today and quite safe when used with proper ammo and safe firearms handling,you might send off for the EDDIE EAGLE handbook this may help,once again I,m sorry for your condition and may a cure be found soon,preying for you by for now.. Originally posted by Clark:
The first gun was in 1965. I fell down and got dirt in the barrel of my 12 ga. When I next fired it, the last 6 inches of the barrel peeled like a banana.

The second was 2 months ago. I have more than 10 and less than 100 guns, some of which I will never have time to shoot. So I put a 38 Special in a vice with 357 mag trimmed brass and 357 H110 loads. I got behind something while wearing a motorcycle helemet and pulled the string to the trigger. The gun came flying past my hidding place. When I picked up the gun [followed the string] it was OK but the primer was flattened. I sent pictures to Hodgdon. They said primers are not a good indicator, watch for sticky brass.

To make a long story short: I tried Bullseye, but when I worked up loads from Speer 11 with Blue Dot, I started wrecking guns. I switched to Iver Johnsom 38 S&W break top pistols as I got them for only $40 at gun shows. They were OK with 9mm loads, but with 38 super with Blue Dot, the latch mechanism sretches.

I know another guy who pulls a string too. He uses a video camera. The replay helps find the parts [he does 50 bmg, 20mm and pop can launchers. He builds the guns himself]

Don't try this at home.

[This message has been edited by Clark (edited July 12, 2000).]
[/quote]

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Old July 12, 2000, 01:19 PM   #6
zot
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what the hell does overloading ammo and blowing guns up on purpose have to do with reloading?????????why not take one of your
guns chambered in .38 and put as much Winchester 231 ya can force into the case
and seat a 200 gr. bullet, put a heavy roll
crimp, then fire it!!!
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Old July 12, 2000, 01:26 PM   #7
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I can't believe we're having this conversation, no one would ever do such things would they? You don't plan on messing with nuclear fusion do you?
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Old July 12, 2000, 02:04 PM   #8
tonyz
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Don't mention nuclear fusion!

------------------
Match grade Bullets at Kmart prices
http://www.xmission.com/~chad/egs/co...hard_cast.html

also for gun accessorys.
http://gungoodies.com

[This message has been edited by tonyz (edited July 12, 2000).]
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Old July 12, 2000, 03:51 PM   #9
Mike Irwin
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Clark,

Have you ever considered another hobby NOT related to the shooting sports?

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Old July 12, 2000, 05:38 PM   #10
faiello5
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Why
 
Old July 12, 2000, 08:25 PM   #11
Clark
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Why?
Because it is interesting to me.
I certainly have learned a thing or two.
I started out calculating the sheer, tension, and compression on the steel. I tried to predict how and why a gun would fail, and then I went to verify it.

I was certainly wrong about the break tops:
Pressure has no effect on the latch. That was hard to get through my thick head. The only tension on the latch is from bullet friction and recoil on the mass of barrel.

And I though the failure mechanism would be the latch pin in double sheer. It was the eye of the latch elongated. I had to learn about radial force. It goes from the center of the latch pin outward to the latch. All those forces then sum in the direction of the stretch.
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Old July 12, 2000, 08:33 PM   #12
faiello5
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Interesting as to how it failed. Any plans on trying it with a semi-auto?
 
Old July 12, 2000, 08:58 PM   #13
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Clark;

If you need some help in shooting some of those guns, I think I can find the time to help you out! Especially if it's on permanent loan!

I can't understand blowing up perfectly good guns... ... especially when I could use a CCW.

If I had an extra $40 to buy a gun with, my wife would argue that we need to buy food. Hoover DAM, that's frustrating! Sheesh...
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Old July 12, 2000, 09:29 PM   #14
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I believe there should be more of this type of "torture testing" by arsenals/individuals on all types of guns.
An AK rifle in 7.62X39mm was tested here in '97 before being "buy-backed" and melded down . The barrel was filled with dirt standing in a in a potted plant tub and the round fired by a remote control string. It had to be repeated 3 times before any real damage was caused(a blocked chamber).
Wow...that is rugged !! Best assault rifle in the world for this type of abuse!Bet the SKS could do it too.
Worry not, gentle readers...the angry owner still got his $$compo irrespective of condition, as it was a S/A and of cause banned out of hand by OZ feds after Port Arthur massacre.

Some firearms get a bad name by reputation only...like all Jap Arisaka rifles and later 38Spl Squires Bingham (PI)revolvers and older Bentley(ditto) shotguns...all these have beaten the market leaders in terminal destruction testing - but 'Remchester' was not pleased !

Be careful - have fun !!

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Never knock another's different shooting interest or discipine...REMEMBER we are all but leaves on the same tree of freedom.
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Old July 12, 2000, 11:35 PM   #15
Clark
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There is intelegent life here!

An interesting thing about wearing out aluminum framed 38 specials is that everybody talks about +P and if they can handle it.

357 mag is +++++++P [that is 7 pluses]
You can shoot that all day [if your hand doesn't wear out]. The interseting thing is if you go 20% past the top of 357 mag there is a failure mechanism to all those guns, but it is not pressure related. It is recoil dammage. Those willowy timing parts bend. The frame that holds them is stouter and undammaged.

That is very different from what happened to Linebaugh. He was getting cylinder explosions.
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Old July 13, 2000, 10:28 AM   #16
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Clark,

Hey pal . . . Ya oughtta mention that you're an engineer and that your dad is a gun designer. When you're not blowing guns apart, you're crunching numbers and analyzing pressure data.

We've been exchanging email on 38 Spc loads in a K-Frame Smith & Wesson with the identical frame as the .357 K-Frame. So the focus in a "magnum pressure" 38 Spc load is directed toward web specs.

What have we learned? That you can load an aluminum Colt "J-Frame" 38 Spc WAY past the .357 Magnum charge data without getting sticky cases. That when you load it WAY WAY past .357 mag data the frame stretches. That this is recoil damage and not barrel/chamber/cylinder failure. That the 38 Spc case is sufficiently strong to manage .357 magnum pressures . . .

AND FINALLY, that the margins in reloading are sufficient that your gun is not going to blow apart because you changed over from a Federal primer to a CCI Magnum primer.

When SAAMI tells me a 44 magnum is rated at 40,000 cup. I want to know at what sort of cup the typical 44 mag comes up with a catastropchic failure.

Too bad this sort of data is not available online. But of course we're all too stupid to be entrusted with such information. Silhouette shooters are working loads past the "max" data all the time. But we're all whistling in the dark with one foot in Hell unless we know where the failure margin is located. Ya can't know that margin until the gun blows apart.
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Old July 13, 2000, 04:11 PM   #17
KilgorII
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Interesting. Any chance you could post your data or would that open you up to legal problems?
 
Old July 13, 2000, 09:44 PM   #18
Clark
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Joe at real guns has an elegant way of saying that the loads are his personal notes and not starting loads.

I try to remember to say
Don't try this at home.
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Old July 13, 2000, 09:49 PM   #19
Clark
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I may have crunched numbers, but I have usually been wrong about what exactly is going to fail.

I was able to calculate that the gun was not going to to blow the cylinder or break the frame.

I am learning that heavily built guns may not be lasting longer because they are stronger, but because they move less and so send less shock the small parts.
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Old July 14, 2000, 10:49 AM   #20
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As Clark notes elsewhere, some people treat loading manuals like they were sacred text.

Interestingly, Hodgdon in the 1994 manual (#26) list a 158 gr. bullet load in "+P" at a max of 7.3 gr. of HS6. On line it lists this same load as a max of 6.6 -- A slightly heavier charge than a 10% reduction of 7.3 gr. Seems like all the manuals coming out these days show a 10% reduction in loads from the previous edition -- which show a 10% reduction from the next previous and ad infinitum. If you keep reducing the existing load by 10% you'll never reach zero. But where's it going to stop???

I'm running 158 gr. "+P" loads in my S&W Mod. 10 heavy frame, bull bbl "+P" at 8.0 gr. which is the max load for the same bullet in .357 magnum.

Now before ya get all lathered about case capacity . . . The extra length in the .357 case is taken up with a thicker web. Both cases, 38 Spc and .357, have the same nominal capacity. Engineers and gunsmiths assure me that in a fully supported revolver with a "magnum" frame the web in a .38 Spc is more than adequate to manage .357 loads -- especially lead bullet loads which are reductions (about 10%) from the jacketed bullet loads. The SAAMI margin of safety is a a factor of about five (5).

The S&W Mod. 10 "+P" frame is the identical K-Frame of the Smith Mod. 10 in .357 magnum except for the length of the chamber. (Cylinder is the same length and weight.) ALSO, the K-Frame Mod. 10 "+P" is MUCH heavier than my J-Frame S&W Mod. 60 chambered for .357 magnum which lists no "small frame revolver" load restrictions whatever.

Load manuals are like sacred texts. And we're dancing at the Devil's door with one leg in Hell. But then pyrotechnic's are the Devil's domain . . .


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Old July 14, 2000, 02:15 PM   #21
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JackFlash:
Interestingly, Hodgdon in the 1994 manual (#26) list a 158 gr. bullet load in "+P" at a max of 7.3 gr. of HS6. On line it lists this same load as a max of 6.6 -- A slightly heavier charge than a 10% reduction of 7.3 gr. Seems like all the manuals coming out these days show a 10% reduction in loads from the previous edition -- which show a 10% reduction from the next previous and ad infinitum. If you keep reducing the existing load by 10% you'll never reach zero. But where's it going to stop??? [/quote]


It will stop when all the lawyers are dead (as Shakespear I think it was recommended) or gone to jail, and the books are written by shooters again and not company lawyers. If you really want to see change look back at some of the manuals written back in the 60's. Lots of max loads in those manuals were safe in my guns and still are! I don't load them that way anymore because with old age comes a modicum of intelligence (I like to think), and an older shoulder and bad ears, but the facts speak for themselves. If you have some of these old manuals check it out!


------------------
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Old July 14, 2000, 09:15 PM   #22
Clark
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I started reloading out of Speer #12

I started at the starting load and worked my way up.

Now I have lots of manuals from the past 30 years.

Now allot of what I used to do looks like fear and ignorance.
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Old July 14, 2000, 09:59 PM   #23
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Yup, Speer number 11 is dated 1987. This is RECENT history. Southla1 has it right. What I used to watch my grandpa and dad do at the reloading bench (and then at the range!) was truly a gas. Now, much like southla1, I am a kinder, gentler person. But leaving all this aside, I gotta wonder, do you also pull the wings off butterflies?
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Old July 15, 2000, 05:07 PM   #24
Clark
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Load books are all different, but the contrast between Speer #11 and Speer #12 has got to be the greatest!

In Speer #11 start load MEANS start load.
In SPeer #12 max load means start load.
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Old July 16, 2000, 12:25 PM   #25
johnwill
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Apparently, Clark is an HCI plant and he's just trying to rid the world of guns, one gun at a time.

Personally, I think it's a stupid thing to do to those guns...
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