Federal .38 Spl causing Cylinder Bind?

[Kchen986]

Anyone else have this issue with Federal's .38 SPL loads? I've had cylinder bind with this ammo (white box Federal range/target and 'American Eagle' .38spl).

Both my GP100 and S&W 686+ had cylinder bind when shooting this. Anyone else experience the same? I sent my GP100 back to Ruger who shot 3 other types of ammo and sent it back reporting no issues.

[T2C]

I haven't had any issues with Federal ammunition shot out of my 686 and BG38.

Did you measure the rim thickness of the Federal white box ammunition and compare it to other cartridges? If you post the rim thickness measurement, I can post rim measurements of other cartridges for comparison.

Measure several rim thicknesses and post the range of measurements. I have seen cartridges with inconsistent rim thicknesses cause problems. This happened several years ago, I did not write down the information and cannot remember which brands of revolver ammunition.

[anachronism]

It's likely unburned powder granules building up under the ejector star. It gets there when you eject your empty cases. Try cleaning under the star with a brush and see if the issue goes away.

[19852]

I had this same issue with dirty ammo. Unburned powder bound up the cylinder and crane.

[williejc]

When ejecting empties, you can avoid debris under the extractor star by holding revolver with barrel vertical.

[Jake'sDad]

Haven't had that issue with oh..... maybe 20K rounds of it, shot through 15 or 20 of my guns.