22 hv vs sv

First topic message reminder :

Anyone have any experience using hi velocity ammo as opposed to standard velocity as far as doing any damage to the frame on their gun. Read and hear some do not advocate the hi velocity in the Victor or similar pistols. Some however say no problem. Just curious. Everyone has an opinion. Most of the stuff(imported) available now is hv. SV little harder to come by.

Ok, people who shoot high standards have been told since I was a kid, not to shoot high velocity ammo. That's over 40 years and the reasoning was the frame damage. 

I won't do it and it seems to me that trading a small savings is not a good reason to risk a gun. 

They've had breaking labs for a long time.

Using HV ammo and/or lack of spring maintenance WILL eventually break the HS frame at the right rear of the magwell across the rail into the slide stop cutout.  I have not broken one in shooting them since 1970 with only SV.  But I have seen maybe 2 dozen others that are broken.  All in the same place.  And some both sides.  The left side breaks second.

That's the original 102-107 models. 

The Houston models I do not know.

I had a Giles HS that cracked 3 times. Welds never worked so I put a Houston frame on it and sold it, wish I had not.

Everybody told me it was stressed frames from the last factory they were in. I never used anything but SV in it.

I have a Marvel w/ a steel slide which won't cycle w/ any of their sprgs. Have been using the Fed 1200 fps AutoMatch. Am I headed for trouble?

Ron Habegger

Your marvel is a different story, Ron.  Call me at 608-445-6816 and lets talk it over.

Ron, I've noticed Fed blue box (hv and sv), as well as automatch, gives a lot of trouble to a lot of people in a lot of different pistols. I'd try something else. I hear Gold Medal is better, but I haven't bothered.

I'm only vaguely familiar with metallurgy (but WAY more than enough to skewer all of the "conrrolled demolition" 9/11 "truther" delusionists). BUT I've broken enough stuff, fixed enough stuff, broken enough stuff while trying to fix it, looked at enough busted stuff, and read enough many times over the years to understand that there is a very credible argument for a final answer which is some variation of most if not all of the above.

A lot of this involves trade-offs. One can sort of get away with going a bit too sharp on a fillet, or eliminating it altogether (still IMO a bit stoopid) with the right  increase in cross-section, materials/tempering, or both.  But you just can't do all three in the same direction of weaker, weaker, weaker.

Still seems like a little cheap trick to dissipate that last bit of energy over about 1/8-inch of springiness instead of just metal-to-metal slamming would be simple and reliable and pretty much a final solution.  I'm too lazy to do a patent search to see what the "prior art" is.

Wobbley's onto something here. How hard is it to use a mill bit or broach or whatever that doesn't leave a sharp inside corner  Not sure it would do all that's needed on the H-s, but it might cut the frequency in half...

My mentor/coach in the 1970s shot with Joe Benner.  Benner worked with HS somewhere along the line.  Coach did smoothe the HS frames critical spots I believe based on his experience with Benner.  I do the same today.

GrumpyOldMan wrote:Jerry:

THANKS for posting how they fail, which of course tells us what to look for.

It would seem that the S&W slide crack is a much easier fix than the H-S frame letting go. My mental gears are turning and every crazy idea to "product improvement program" upgrade the H-S frame is running into a "can't do THAT" problem. Wonder if just a frame re-design adding .05 inch thickness to the left side would do it???

I'm seeing problems with rotational stress on both failure modes. 

Perhaps introducing a paradoxical solution of less slide mass, changing its distribution around the centerline of deceleration, and maybe even adding mass on the other side (vertically) of the rearward slam-stop line?

On the H-S, one of my first wonderings was about doubling the mass behind that peened-up stop boss where the slide bangs. But that would probably make the rear end look oooogly..or add mass forward...???

Either might respond well to a double spring arrangement where a secondary spring which engages AFTER case ejection to drastically reduce the slam backwards thing...

There's gotta be a way.

The later Tx build HS pistols with the stainless frame are said to be much more sturdy and not as prone to cracking. The stop boss peening is just a case of a way to worn recoil spring, running way to fast ammo. Frankly the hyper vol, and the HV bulk stuff these days is just not what they were made for. You could go into it, and  redesign the pistol, but the fact was it was one of the best of the best of its day. The HS may have slipped out of favor for the upper rank of shooters with the entry of the more modern pistols, but in its day it was top shelf!  Also wile you see people saying "Well they crack all the time" the truth is there were a LOT of these guns on the line from the 60's on up, and you can say safely that each one of those guns fired many thousands of rounds every year for decades!! Also most you see are at least 40 years old..  And really... you don't see that many cracks.. I bet even if you put that number of pistols, shooting that number of rounds, for that number of years.... you will also see the same failure rate.