Really dirty how about a 1000 of thunderbolts !!!! Please continue this is good informative reading for us novices
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Review: Smith & Wesson SW22 Victory Target Gun
- Thread starter toobaroque
- Start date
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- Tags
- s&w smith & wesson victory
Looks like you had a much tougher time than I did getting it field stripped. I was able to use the supplied wrench to break mine free. You definitely need to use some elbow grease taking it off and putting it back on though.
Mine loosened back up after about 100 rounds or so, and I had to tighten it up. About 200 rounds later still seems tight though, so that was probably me being too gentle with it when I put it together.
That Derlin buffer bothered me a bit, but that is tough stuff, especially in compression like it would be here. I'll probably order a couple of spares, but I wouldn't be surprised if the original last 20 years.
How was it getting the barrel off? Again, mine was pretty easy, just back-off the set screw and pull. Sounds like your's was built by a gorilla though.
My barrel came off as I expected. It was plenty tight, but nothing like the take-down screw. That was actually foolish it was so tight. My take-down screw is actually almost stripped, but S&W is going to send me a new one.
When I put mine back together, I tightened it to what my machinist recommended for that size/thread (12 ft/lb or 144 in/lb). I'll see how long it holds before I have to tighten it up. I asked S&W what the torque should be and they said, "we can't give out technical design information to the consumer." What BS! Oh well.
Glad they are sending the part. When mine broke free I was really afraid that the 'crack' I heard had been metal snapping or the head stripping out. Turned out to be fine but not what you want to hear when you take down a gun the first time.
Since this is how they recomend field stripping the gun, they need to get the torque information out to both the assemblers and the customers. That's complete BS about them not telling you what it should be. Hopefully they aren't saying that because they don't know.
I put another 200 rounds through and the upper receiver is still tight. I should put a torque wrench on it and see what it's at, since that seems to be a good working number. Not too loose to cause problems, and not too tight to break down with the supplied wrench.
I'll give Thunderbolts a try next time out. I don't think I'll get 1,000 of them shot, but I'll easily be able to shoot a couple hundred for sure. I'll report the results unless someone else beats me to it.
Thanks for the interest!
I made it to the range again today to shoot the Victory, along with some others. My guns don't actually like to travel alone because, you know... it's a dangerous world out there and it's always best to travel in a group. At least that's what I always taught my kids so I guess it would hold true for other things as well.
Well, I set out to shoot as many Thunderbolts as I could so I brought along a couple of bricks that I bought recently at Academy Sports. I know I'm not going to get all of them shot, but I wanted to make sure I shot enough to get a feel as to whether the gun would shoot them without any problems. As it turned out, after about 150 or so rounds, I decided enough was enough. I did not have a single failure of any sort with the Thunderbolts. They shot and otherwise chambered and fed just fine. I concluded my test with 20 rounds free hand, 50' distance. I had a couple of flyers because some guy next to me was shooting a heavy revolver and I wasn't prepared for the jolt that comes from shooting indoors next to that kind of gun. At any rate, I can't complain about the accuracy too much.
I hope this test is good enough to give you confidence in the Thunderbolts through this gun. I wouldn't think twice about using them, and the best part is they are relatively clean compared to the Golden Bullets. I'll post some pics of my subsequent tear-down after this range session so you can see more details of the innerds of this fine weapon.
Until then... safe shooting!
... and I'm EXTREMELY jealous of the day that @Gadgetsrfun and @hamburglar3 had today. I HATE you both!
I'll continue my review by adding some close-up pictures of some of the internals of this fine Smith & Wesson target pistol. The more I shoot it, the more I love it. Something in the back of my mind is actually starting to tell me that I just might need another one... you know, so this one doesn't get lonely. After all, how many Ruger Mark I's and II's and III's is enough? The answer to that is simple... All of them!
I broke the gun down and found some interesting things inside that both impress me and concern me just a little bit. First of all is the firing pin. If you shoot much competition, you know you'll eventually break a firing pin no matter what gun you have, so I wanted to be sure and look at that very closely. Ease of installation is one of the biggest factors, which includes accessibility in the field. This gun actually beats the Rugers in that regard.
The picture above shows the bolt spring and firing pin "module" that is snapped into the bolt. If you notice, the bolt spring is off to the side, which acts as a retention device for the firing pin module. The downside of this module is that it's plastic. I can see this thing getting either dinged up or otherwise deteriorated from lots of shooting. The upside is shown in the below picture; it's as easy as a snap to pop it out and pop in a new one, assuming that Smith makes them available as an assembly and are affordable. There's about $.20 worth of material here so I have to believe a whole assembly wouldn't cost more than maybe $10-$15. My guess is that somebody will make these things aftermarket if in fact this gun takes off.
I broke the gun down and found some interesting things inside that both impress me and concern me just a little bit. First of all is the firing pin. If you shoot much competition, you know you'll eventually break a firing pin no matter what gun you have, so I wanted to be sure and look at that very closely. Ease of installation is one of the biggest factors, which includes accessibility in the field. This gun actually beats the Rugers in that regard.
The picture above shows the bolt spring and firing pin "module" that is snapped into the bolt. If you notice, the bolt spring is off to the side, which acts as a retention device for the firing pin module. The downside of this module is that it's plastic. I can see this thing getting either dinged up or otherwise deteriorated from lots of shooting. The upside is shown in the below picture; it's as easy as a snap to pop it out and pop in a new one, assuming that Smith makes them available as an assembly and are affordable. There's about $.20 worth of material here so I have to believe a whole assembly wouldn't cost more than maybe $10-$15. My guess is that somebody will make these things aftermarket if in fact this gun takes off.
