Revolver Side Blast

[HKVP9]

Hey Guys, I was at the range today and next to me was an older gentleman shooting what looked like an old 6'' Prelock Smith, (which was very nice btw, the bluing on it was fantastic..) Anyways, he starts shooting and all of a sudden it felt like some particles from the revolver's sideblast hit the side of my face. I thought no big deal, I get hit with spent casings and shiit all the time so I just kept on shooting. The man takes another shot and some more particles blast out from the side of his revolver and hit the side of my head, I'm starting to think this ain't normal cause this time it felt like it could've cut me and if it got into my eye it would've been bad.

I look to my right and I see the guy touching his face to check if he got hit by something, when he brings his hand back down from his face I saw a bit of blood on his finger tips and it looked like he got a small cut from some shrapnel. I asked him if his revolver is shooting stuff out the sides and he said yeah he felt it too, I asked him if he's shooting reloads or factory ammo thinking that might've been the problem but he said he was using factory ammo and didn't know why that was happening. He packs up his revolver and called it a day.

I'm not too familiar with Revolvers but I've shot next to people using them and recently acquired my first one. I've never had something like this happen before. Was there something wrong with his Revolver or am I just an idiot and this is normal with revolvers?

[G-forceJunkie]

Revolvers do blow crap out the sides, but youget one with excessive gap and a miss timed cylinder, a whole lot more crap gets spat out.

[LiveSideways]

It's not timed right and shaving rounds. No shame in saying 'Hey man, something's wrong and you're peppering me with lead' while on the range.

[sealocan]

It's very possible the timing was out on that revolver.

The cylinders were lined up enough to be hit by the firing pin but as they entered the barrels forcing cone area lead (or possibly the jacket if he was using jacketed ammo) was being shaved off and ejected. I think that's what you guys were getting hit with.

[CinnamonBear723]

I agree that the timing is off causing the "shrapnel"

[westsideslim]

My SP-101 was spitting at me so I sent it to Ruger and they sent me a new one. They said it was not able to be fixed.

[MosinVirus]

Timing is off.

As described above.

[JTROKS]

I hate it when that happens. My worst experience was a Llama revolver. That thing was painful to shoot.

[wpage]

My buds ruger 6 is doing that. blast his finger.

[onelonehorseman]

My buds ruger 6 is doing that. blast his finger.

He should probably contact Ruger about that; see about sending it in to be checked.

[bmk20398]

Once I had blasting from gap,
it was caused by built up copper on one groove around forcing cone.
reamed a little and it’s OK now, timing was perfect.

[someoneeasy]

My buds ruger 6 is doing that. blast his finger.

Just curious, how is he gripping the gun? If the timing is off, doesn't the shrapnel fly 90 degrees out? How are his fingers getting blasted?

[MyOdessa]

Just curious, how is he gripping the gun? If the timing is off, doesn't the shrapnel fly 90 degrees out? How are his fingers getting blasted?

It doesn't blast out at 90 degrees, depends on how bad out of time it is and how bad forcing cone is. In 2016 I bought brand new S&W 63, that was spewing debris at my hands when I was shooting it. I send it back to S&W and they replaced cylinder and re-cut forcing cone to fix it.

[someoneeasy]

It doesn't blast out at 90 degrees, depends on how bad out of time it is and how bad forcing cone is. In 2016 I bought brand new S&W 63, that was spewing debris at my hands when I was shooting it. I send it back to S&W and they replaced cylinder and re-cut forcing cone to fix it.

Makes sense, thanks.

[FlyingShooter]

Hickok 45 does a pretty good youtube video on revolver side blast. I think it’s under ‘how to shoot a revolver’, and luckily it’s not one of the long winded videos.