Update on the old H&R
I was shooting the H&R with some test loads and it locked up on me. I could not move the hammer forward or backward. Taking the gun apart I found the spring on the cylinder hand had broken and gotten into the lockworks.
While messing with it I overstressed the mainspring and then end broke off.
So I ordered a new mainspring and cylinder hand. The mainspring arrived yesterday and I installed it and it works fine. I fired the gun just to see how the spring was working. Without a cylinder hand I simply cocked the hammer, carefully rolled the cylinder around until it was against the cylinder stop and then pulled the trigger. It worked fine.
Jimmy P had sent me a cylinder hand that had a broken spring (I think it must be common with these guns) and I decided to see if I could re-spring it. Using an old Colt SAA hand spring that was broken, I finally got it put together. Now all I need to do is shorten it to the correct length.
Since I have a new hand coming, this will give me a backup. Always a good thing to have with old beat up cheap guns.
Home repaired cylinder hand
New hammer spring
Power Levels .38 S&W H&R "Lazarus"
All fired into a 2x4 from about 16"
95 gr. cast RN .361" 2.7 gr. Bullseye .435" to base of the bullet.
.375 pure lead round ball 3.0 gr. Bullseye .485 to base of bullet
124 gr. cast 9mm bullet 2.5 gr. Bullseye .537" to base of bullet
2x4
Interesting....
Lazy here...what's the weight of the .375 round ball?
I keep.....
blocks and chunks and rounds of stovewood length boles propped in the utility crawlspace between the domicile proper and the cellar where the raycave is located for bullet testing and refreshing carry ammo without having to travel to the range. I fire squarely and directly down into rings/grain.
Some loads surprise me. Recently, a cylinderful of "softball" 185 gr. fmj .45 at just under 800 fps. handily wrecked and split a chunk so that I could pull it apart by hand and see the bullet tracks. A very sedate italian .32 long 98 gr. fmj that did not previously perceptibly move the block at all bore 1.5" deeper than the .45s that wrecked it.
Somewhere around 75/80 gr. (nm)
.
THE "OLD".38 S&W
Diamond Dot's bed headboard sixgun is a S & W M & P .38/200 from WWII.