Does Anyone Have Have Some Insight About My Keyhole Issues. New (Old) Gun

[mikeyluke]

Greetings all!
I am considering the purchase of a DW service model 14-2 heavy underlug. 2 1/2" barrel. It came in its original box and the gun has a very solid lockup and is 98%. I shot it on Saturday and used magtech .38 158gr. non-jacketed ammo. Fully 60% of the hits on paper had keyholes. I checked the cylinder gap with the tool and found some play but not much. Thinking it was the non-jacketed ammo, I switched to some .357 jacketed Blazer and while only shooting 6 rounds, I didn't keyhole anything. Some of the guys at work say steer clear, some say no problem. What do you guy's think?? Thanks in advance,

mikey

[SHOOTALL]

I have some magtech in 308 that best can be decribed as a pattern not a group.

[mikeyluke]

Just Wondering if it is a cylinder gap issue, or an ammo issue, or is the gun just a POS.


mikey

[SHOOTALL]

It seems your jacketed bullets shot well ?

[Autorim]

If you can find any, try some good jacketed ammo. I expect it will group well. It is not a cylinder gap issue.

[mikeyluke]

It seems your jacketed bullets shot well ?

Yes, the jacketed .357 shot great! The non-jacketed .38 keyholed. I really like this gun. I can't wait to get it home.  9 more days...9 more days......

mikey

[Mikey]

Mikey - if this is one of the DWs with interchangeable barrels then check the tension on the barrel retaining nut - if it is over or under torqued it may affect the accuracy with particular loads.  Also check the crown on the muzzle for nicks or other damage - there is no reason a DW in 357 should not shoot cast ammo at least as well as jacketed.  If it still burps up on ya with the cast ammo then trade it for a S&W - jmtcw. 

[Graybeard]

In general there are a couple of reasons why a bullet key holes. Either the twist isn't being imparted or isn't being imparted at a fast enough rate.

It might be the lead bullets were not large enough in diameter to catch enough of the rifling to get spinning or perhaps they were moving too slowly to have enough spin imparted to them. That the faster and no doubt standard diameter jacketed bullets shot well would tend to indicate the gun isn't the problem but rather the ammo.

Still more experimentation would be warranted before plunking down your money.

[Castaway]

Could be the bore had excessive leading and, as GB said, that could have affected the bite of the rifling on the bullets.  If that was the case, shooting the jacketed bullets did two things, they swiped some leading out but on the downside, ironed some lead in.  Try a good barrel scrubbing and see if that helps.  I wouldn't give up on lead yet.

[Mohawk]

  Longer bullets at lower velocities have been know to destabilize. From what I understand Corbon stopped making the standard pressure .38 DPX 110grain for this reason and only now produces the +P higher velocity version. The standard version was key-holing out of snubs. Since the bullets were copper the 110gr was longer to compensate for not having equal mass as a lead bullet. Of course this is only one reason of probably many. Might try a 125gr load and it may fix the problem. It would be a shorter bullet. I will add that I have shot many of the standard pressure DPX .38 110grain loads and never had one key-hole BUT they were all fired from 4" barreled guns.

[Savage]

I think Castaway just fingered the problem. Buy or borrow a "Lewis Lead Remover" and run it thru the bore over a sheet of white computer paper. Wouldn't be surprised if you didn't pull out enough lead to pour a sinker or two! With soft or improperly sized/lubed lead bullets the .357 will lead up in a hurry! The gun should shoot lead bullets well.
Savage

[Robert357]

Since these are factory rounds, I am not sure of the cure, except to use different ammo.

Let me tell you about my experience with keyholing and reloaded revolver ammo.  When my revolver reloads keyhole, there are one of two solutions that usually work, more powder or more crimp.  In both cases, what happens is slightly faster bullets.

I think that the ammo you were using, for the barrel (which is where diameter and if it is leaded comes in) was going to slow to properly spin stabilize. 

A 2 to 2/5 inch barrel will probably have the slowest velocity of a given factory load of ammo in a particular caliber.  The same ammo out of a 4 inch barrel might be just fine.

My suggestion is if you like the snub nose revolver and it shoots jacketed ammo fine, buy the gun and just keep trying different ammo until you get what you think is the perfect combination.