Model 60 Smith and Wesson – The ExhaustNotes Blog

Shield Savvy

By Joe Berk

I promised an update on my Smith and Wesson 9mm Shield, and this is it. I’ve put 2,500+ rounds through the Shield (all reloads with different bullets and powders). Until I recently took my Shield to good buddy TJ, I was growing increasingly dissatisfied with the pistol’s frequent failures to extract, and I wasn’t alone. If you Google “failure to extract” and “Smith and Wesson Shield” you’ll find a lot of people are having this issue. My problem is in the rearview mirror, though, and my Shield is 100% reliable now. That’s because of TJ. I’ll get to that in a minute.

That target above? It’s 50 rounds at 30 feet through my Shield, shooting offhand. If you’re a reloader, here are the load specifics:

- - Jim Gardner 125 grain powder coated roundnose bullets (Jim sized these to 0.356 inch, which is his standard bullet).
  - Cartridge overall length 1.145 inches.
  - 5.4 grains of Accurate No. 5 propellant.
  - Lee factory taper crimp (light crimp; see below).
  - Ammo loaded on Lee Classic 4-Turret press.
  - Mixed brass.

Ordinarily, I tailor a load to the handgun, and I thought I would be able to do that relatively easily with the Shield. I found that not to be the case. The Shield seemed accurate enough with nearly every load I tried, but nearly all had reliability issues. On the low end, the lighter loads didn’t have enough energy to cycle the action (a common enough problem on compact semi-autos). Light, mid range, and hot loads all gave the Shield extraction issues. The Shield experienced a failure to extract about every other magazine. It was very frustrating. I scoured the Internet forums for this issue and the opinions were all over the map. Here’s a smattering of the drivel I found:

- - Don’t use Winchester ammo because the rims are smaller (I measured them; that was baloney).
  - Don’t use cast bullets because they hang up (I knew that was baloney).
  - Don’t shoot aluminum ammo (which I never do, anyway).
  - Don’t shoot 115-grain bullets.
  - Don’t shoot 125-grain bullets.
  - Don’t shoot 147-grain bullets.
  - Clean your gun after every round (seriously?).
  - Don’t limp wrist your gun (again, seriously?).
  - Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t do this other thing…
  - Do this, do that, do this other thing…

It was all written by people who apparently love the sound of their keyboards clacking. None of it was useful information. I felt stupid for wasting my time reading it.

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What I found was that the extraction problem occurred more with powder coated bullets than either plated or jacketed bullets. Other than that, there wasn’t a lot of correlation between any of the load variables I could play with and the gun’s failure to extract propensity. Then, during one range visit when I had a failure to extract, I fell back on my failure analysis background. I put the loaded gun down on the bench (being careful to keep it pointed downrange) and took a photo with my iPhone.

A cartridge case caught during extraction on the mouth of the case immediately below it.

Wow. How about that? It was apparent that the case being extracted was hanging up on the case mouth of the round still in the magazine, and it was a strong enough obstacle to pull the extractor off the rim. This brought up a lot of questions in my mind centered on the crimp and the bullet. The Gardner bullets have a slight ramped step just north of the crimp. And when I crimp a bullet for a semi-auto, I put a slight taper crimp on it with the Lee taper crimp die. I want enough of a crimp to remove the case mouth flare (part of the reloading process to assure the bullet will enter the case mouth without shaving lead or copper), and enough to assure the cartridge will chamber easily. Maybe I didn’t have enough crimp, I thought, and that was causing the case being extracted to hang up.

One of my reloaded 9mm rounds with a taper crimp and a Gardner powder-coated bullet.

I examined my ammo and I thought it looked good (actually, I thought it looked great; like most reloaders, I enjoy looking at my finished ammo). But, to make sure, I loaded another box with as much taper crimp as I could get out of the Lee die. Lee is right when they say their taper crimp die makes it impossible to deform a case: I put a very pronounced crimp on all the cartridges in the next box of ammo. But that wasn’t the answer, and it created a new problem. With a semi-auto like the 9mm or the .45 Auto, the cartridge headspaces on the case mouth. When I used a more pronounced crimp, I started getting misfires. The rounds were going too far into the chamber, and the firing pin wasn’t igniting the primers reliably. Nope, more crimp wasn’t the answer.

At this point, I was getting a little frustrated. All these problems aside, I wanted to like my Shield. I wanted to use it as my concealed carry weapon, so I needed the thing to be reliable. Faced with this issue, I knew it was time for what works every time: A visit to TJ’s Custom Gunworks.

TJ examined the Shield. He observed that the magazine positions the first cartridge in the magazine unusually high in the gun, and that was probably aggravating the failures to extract. But there’s not really anything you can do about that. It’s the gun’s design. It is what it is.

The Shield’s magazine sits relatively high.

A loaded round waiting to chamber when the Shield’s slide returns to battery.

TJ then took a look at the extractor. It was pretty dirty with combustion residue, but he felt it should work. TJ, honest as always, told me he could polish the ramp and the chamber (they come from the factory pretty rough), but he didn’t know if that would fix the failures to extract. I asked TJ to proceed.

A photo from TJ showing how dirty my extractor was. Even though it was funky (shame on me), TJ felt it would not have caused the extractor to slip off the case rim.

Here are a couple of photos of the chamber and the ramp as they come from the Smith and Wesson factory. The Shield always fed and chambered reliably; it was only the extraction that was an issue. TJ explained that if the chamber is rough, it can hang on to the fired case as it is being extracted. I’ve experienced that on other guns. The Shield’s chamber and its ramp looked about like I’d expect them to look on a mass-produced pistol, which is to say not very good. I asked TJ to work his magic on both the ramp and the chamber.

The Shield’s feed ramp and chamber as delivered from the factory. Rough, but not ready.

Another view of the factory Shield feed ramp. It looks like it might have been cut by hand with a dull chisel.

TJ did his usual excellent job, and here’s what things look like now.

What a good ramp looks like. Slick. Smooth. Shiny.

TJ told me he also put a slight undercut on the extractor to allow it to get a better grasp on the case rim.

The Shield’s extractor, as seen from the bottom. This is the piece that pulls the fired case out of the chamber. TJ undercut the area indicated by the arrow to give the extractor a better grip on the case.

I picked up my Shield a few days later and went to the range that afternoon. The Shield is now what it is supposed to be. You saw the target at the top of this blog. I fired 50 rounds without a single failure to extract and eject. The gun just feels a lot smoother and slicker now. My Gardner bullet and Accurate No. 5 load is perfect. And the recut extractor drops the cartridges in one nice small pile on the floor behind me. Wow. I’m impressed. Then, just to make sure (and because I was having so much fun) I fired another box of 50 rounds (again, with ammo loaded on the Lee Classic Turret press using the load at the top of this page).

Another target, another 50 rounds. Reliable as death and taxes, and accurate. Now, the Shield is as it should have been from the factory (thanks to TJ).

The Lee Classic Turret press does a magnificent job, and now, so does my Smith and Wesson Shield. It’s the way the pistol should have come from the factory.

It’s bothersome that most of my recent gun purchases have required additional work to get them to perform the way they should. In my former life as an aerospace manufacturing guy, I used to manage organizations with machine shops. I know it would cost a little more for the gun companies to do the kind of things TJ did to my Shield (and several other guns, for that matter). I wish the gun companies would do that; they ought to just hire TJ as a consultant (he knows what they need to do). The bottom line here? If you have a Smith and Wesson Shield and you want it to be what it is supposed to be, get in touch with TJ.

There are a lot of things I like about the Shield. Accuracy and illuminated sights are at the top of the list. You can get a feel for its accuracy from the targets shown here. None of this was bench rested; it was all shooting offhand on an indoor range with banging and clanging and brass flying all around me.

I found that after firing a a box of ammo, gunshot residue tends to occlude the sides, front, and rear of the front sight, and that causes the red to glow a lot less. But that’s a minor point. The Shield’s high visibility sights are great.

Holstered, the S&W Shield is about the same size as the Rock Island Compact 1911.

Another Shield-to-Compact-1911 comparison: The holstered Shield on top of the holstered 1911. Length and height are about the same.

The Shield is narrower than the 1911, and much lighter. It should be easier to carry concealed.

I bought a Bianchi leather holster for the Shield. It’s similar to the Bianchi I use with my Compact 1911. When I put the Shield in its holster I was surprised: It’s really not any smaller than my Compact 1911. It’s a bit narrower, but by the time both guns are holstered, the overall width is about the same. Where the Shield has a clear advantage, though, is weight. And even though the Shield with its polymer frame is much lighter than the Compact 1911, the recoil is quite a bit less than the .45. Now that the Shield has been made more reliable by TJ, it will make a good concealed carry gun. Incidentally, TJ worked his magic on my 1911, too. It’s one of the most reliable handguns I’ve ever owned.

Ten rounds from the Compact 1911, ten from the Model 60, and ten from the Shield. All are in the 10 ring, 28 of the 30 are in the X-ring.

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The Model 60, Betty, and Getting Hammered

That’s a Model 60 Smith and Wesson snubbie you see in the big photo above, and Betty and Boris you see in the photo below. You’ve read about the Model 60 before here on the ExhaustNotes blog. One thing about the Model 60 I wasn’t excited about is that it had a tendency to misfire occasionally when firing double action (it always fired single action, but when shooting double action, I would get one or two misfires in every box of ammo).

I know I was supposed to shoot Boris (the zombie), but Betty is the real troublemaker here and it was easier to get a better sight picture on her. Sorry about that, Betty. Sometimes it’s fun to mix it up a bit and shoot zombie targets.

When shooting double action, the hammer fall is a little less than it is when firing single action, and that little bit of energy loss makes a dfference in ignition reliability. I tried replacing the hammer spring on the Model 60 (thinking the spring had fatigued like it did on my Rock Island Compact), but I still had the double action misfiring problem. Hmmm. It was time for a bit of online research.

The Model 60’s hammer spring. Removing it requires the same high-tech tool I used to disassemble the Rock Island Armory Compact 1911. You don’t have to remove the sideplate on a Model 60 to remove and replace the hammer spring.

I’ve read that there are differences in primer manufacturers that can make a difference in ignition sensitivity, with CCI primers being the hardest to light and Federal being the easiest. These days, it’s a stroke of good fortune to find any kind of primers. I have CCI primers (with components, halitosis is better than no breath at all). I had tried Winchester primers in the Model 60 in the past and they had the same propensity to occasionally double action misfire.

.38 Special wadcutter ammo loaded on my Star. Those are 148 grain Xtreme wadcutter bullets in the foreground. They’re called wadcutters because they punch a clean hole in the target. These particular bullets are orientation insensitive; you can load them in the cartridge case facing up or facing down (they are the same on both ends).

My research tumbled me onto something I kind of already knew but more or less forgot: Primer seating makes a difference. It’s typically not an issue for most guns, but on those with little hammers (like the Model 60 snubnose), it matters more. From what I read, you can’t just seat your primers to a consistent depth and call it good. There’s variability in the primer height and there’s variability in the primer hole depth. There’s also variability induced by the carbon residue from the last shot if you’re reloading fired cases. The conventional wisdom is that you need to have the primer anvil in firm contact with the bottom of the primer cavity, maybe even with a little bit of crush on the primer cup material. A little bit of primer crush affects primer output less (i.e., it’s better, or so I’ve read), than not having the primer fully seated. If a primer is not fully seated, the first strike may or may not light the primer. If the primer is not seated, a lot of the hammer’s energy is consumed finishing the primer seating operation. After the primer gets seated the rest of the way by the firing pin, the hammer may not have enough energy left to ignite the primer. It all makes sense to me.

Primers need to be fully seated, which usually means the primer face should be 0.005 to 0.006 inch below flush.

The more I thought about the above, the more I convinced myself the Model 60’s occasional misfires were a primer seating issue. The reason I think that’s what I had going on is because when I had a misfire, the cartridge that misfired always fired on the second strike. That’s consistent with the primer-not-fully-seated hypothesis. If it was just a matter of insufficient firing pin energy, the primer wouldn’t fire on the second strike, either. The issue is more pronounced on a little snubby like the Model 60 because it has such a tiny hammer and hammer spring. There’s not a lot of energy there like there is on a Colt Python or a Ruger Blackhawk (those handguns have much bigger hammers and hammer springs).

I loaded a box of 38 Special ammo on my Star reloader (I love that machine) and examined the primer seating depth. They were below flush with the rear of the cartridge, but not by much. I can fix that, I knew. The Star has an adjustment for primer seating depth, as explained in the photos below.

Lowering the primer seating adjustment shaft is accomplished by loosening a locknut and turning the shaft in a bit more.

The Star’s primer seating shaft. It operates a lever on the press downstroke that pushes the primer up to seat it in the cartridge case. Adjust the shaft down, and the gizmo seating the primer pushes it into the cartridge case deeper.

After adjusting the Star to seat the primers deeper, I loaded another box of .38 Special wadcutter ammo. You can guess where this story is going. I double action fired a box of ammo I loaded before I made the adjustment, and I had two misfires. That’s about how the Model 60 has always performed. Then I shot the second 50 cartridges using ammo that I reloaded after making the primer seating depth adjustment, and every round fired. There were zero misfires. My Model 60 double action misfire issue was primer seating. What do you know. Live and learn.

All this is interesting, but I usually don’t shoot wadcutter ammo loaded on the Star in the Model 60. My Star reloader is configured to load the classic .38 Special target load: 2.7 grains of Bullseye and a 148 grain wadcutter bullet. The powder weight is not adjustable without buying a new powder throw bar for the Star, and I don’t want to do that. The Star will remain dedicated to .38 Special wadcutter ammo.

For the Model 60, I found that a good accuracy load (and a heavier load better suited for defensive purposes) is 3.5 grains of WW 231 propellant and a 158 grain cast flatpoint (also known as a truncated cone) bullet. That combination shoots to point of aim at 50 feet in the Model 60. I reload that ammo on my single stage RCBS Rockchucker press. For primer seating on the Rockchucker, I use an old Lee priming tool (they called it the AutoPrime II) I’ve had for 40 years (it’s shown in the photo below). Unfortunately, Lee no longer offers this system and they don’t have anything that offers both automatic primer feeding and primer seating on the press upstroke. That’s a pity, because it’s a good approach and allows for much more positive primer seating.

A good primer seating system no longer offered: The Lee auto primer. It is 40 years old and still works well. A mini-ram replaces the shell holder in the Rockchucker ram, and the primer seating operation occurs up north.

Freshly-reloaded .38 Special ammo with ballistics similar to the old FBI load…a 158 grain cast flatpoint bullet and 3.5 grains of WW 231.

A couple of final notes…when doing this kind of testing, I always make sure the revolver is clean and properly lubricated. My preference is BreakFree cleaner and lubricant. It does a stellar job. And if you’re wondering about the grips on the Model 60, they from Altamont. Those grips turn the Model 60 into a more manageable and less punishing handgun. I like them.

You know, one of the things I enjoy with this reloading hobby is just how much there is to learn. I’ve been reloading for about 50 years now, and I’m still learning (and sometimes relearning) new things. When you roll your own, you’re in charge and you can tune a load for better accuracy, better reliability, and lower cost. Reloading is a cool hobby, and it’s as much fun as the shooting itself.

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A Model 60 Load Development Plan

This blog outlines the development plan I’m using for my new-to-me Model 60 Smith and Wesson revolver. You might recall that I bought this revolver not too long ago and I had my good buddy and master pistolsmith TJ (of TJ’s Custom Gunworks) go through the gun, get everything perfect, do the trigger, and add a bit of tasteful polishing.

My custom Smith and Wesson Model 60. Note the polished ejector rod, cylinder, trigger, cylinder release, and hammer, and the smooth rosewood grips.

TJ did a hell of a job, I recently qualified with the Model 60 for my concealed carry permit, and now I want to find the most accurate load for this handgun. To me this means two things: The smallest group size and where the revolver hits with respect to the point of aim. I’m not concerned with velocity. All the velocity in the world doesn’t mean a thing if you can’t hit your target.

When I develop a load, I generally do a bit of research on the Internet to see what others have found to be an accurate load, I see what components I have on hand (bullets and powders), and I consult my reloading manuals. I never take loads off Internet forums as gospel unless I confirm their safety in my load manuals or they come directly from the manufacturer’s websites (there is just so much inaccurate information on the Internet), and I never load at the manual’s max without working up to that level. My approach is to load a few rounds at the minimum level and a few a bit below the max level with each bullet and powder combination to get a quick feel for further load development. Or, I might find a combination in the initial tests that is so good I don’t need to do any further testing.

From left to right: 158-grain cast flatpoint, Hornady 158-grain jacketed hollow point, Hornady 110-grain jacketed hollow point, and Hornady 148-grain swaged wadcutter.

These days, I’m governed by what I have on hand, as the component suppliers are out of nearly everything. For me and this test series, that means four bullets:

- - A 158-grain cast flatpoint bullet from a local caster
  - Hornady’s 158-grain jacketed hollowpoint
  - Hornady’s 110-grain jacketed hollowpoint
  - Hornady’s 148-grain swaged wadcutter

All are shown in the photo above. My powders include Winchester 231, Unique, Bullseye, and Power Pistol (as seen in the featured photo at the top of this blog).

Here’s what the test plan looks like:

I’m going to test at 50 feet and fire two groups of three shots each for each combination. That will keep the total number of rounds fired to a manageable 150 rounds. It’s a quick look at what works and what doesn’t.

You might notice that I’m only going to test one load with the 148-grain wadcutter bullet. That’s because it’s been the known accuracy load for years, and it’s also because it’s what I have my Star progressive reloading press set up to make. Stated differently, I’m not going to change this load because it’s my standard wadcutter load, and the Model 60 will either do okay with it or it won’t. I already know this load shoots significantly to the right of my point of aim in the Model 60, but I’m including it here because I have the ammo and it’s easy to include in this test series.

That’s the plan. I’m reloading the ammo as you read this, and I’ll have it tested most likely next week. Watch the ExNotes blog for results in the near future.

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