Spent some time with my 617 today

[AzShooter]

I was able to spend some time at the range today testing what ammo my 617 likes for Steel Challenge shooting. Reliability was the most important area I was concerned with.

I shot CCI Mini Mags, Blazer, CCI- SV, Eley Match, Federal Premium HV and Wolf MT.

The Mini Mags gave me 3 failures to fire out of 50 rounds. Blazer had only 1 FTF and had excellent groups. SV had 2 FTSs. The Eley Match had good groups and O FTF's.

The stand outs were the Federal Premium HV and the Wolf MT. Definitely on the extremes as far as power was concerned. Neither one had any failures and both shoot great groups. The MT proved to be best.

During all this shooting I didn't have to clean my cylinder once and had no sticky brass. It took 300 rounds of testing totally but at least I found two example of what will be my match ammo.

 

[Cheapshooter]

Just curious. Have you tinkered around with springs in your S&W to lighten the trigger pull. Just seems like a lot more FTF with the MiniMags than normal. Light strikes maybe?

 

[AzShooter]

Lots of tinkering. I have an Apex Hammer and springs in it. The interior has been stoned and lightened. Trigger pull is set to 7 lbs Double Action. I can put the old springs and hammer back in but the trigger pull goes up to 10 lbs and will function with the CCI ammo.

I'd rather have the lightest DA pull I can get and then tune it for the right ammo.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

I'd rather have the lightest DA pull I can get and then tune it for the right ammo.

That logic works fine until you can't find the right ammo.

I can't tell you how many CAS shooters have tuned their pistols to the nth degree, so that they would only ignite Federal primers.

Then we started to have primer shortages.

 

[dgludwig]

Probably a more relevant factor with centerfire trigger pulls than rimfire ones in terms of finding the "right ammo" to ignite.

 

[jsust]

My cylinder does get a little tight after a bunch of rounds through it. Its the only gun i have where i feel like i have to clean after every outing. I do want to note that the trigger on my 617 is not as good as my other sw revolvers which is upsetting. Maybe ill try new springs. I wish i could find a good gunsmith in the cincinnati area.

 

[AzShooter]

I had a great gunsmith here, APEX TAACICAL but they stopped working on revolvers. Fortunately they still sell their hammer for the 617.