Magazine spring

[Yogi]

Still having issues with the .357 92 feeding .357's. It gobbles up all the .38's and about half of the .357's even though they mike out in specs. I'm thinking cut 2 coils off the mag spring and try that. Love shootin that little gun, at 25 and 50 yards, with my 80 year old eyes, it shoots 2" to 3" from a sand bag.

[Nashville Stage]

Cuting your magazine spring is unlikely to fix the issue. If there was a problem with the spring, it would affect the .38's as well.

Lever actions can jam up at several places in their cycle. Where are your rounds having issues? Using ammo that you know causes problems, cycle the action slowly and see at what point the problems crop up. That will help narrow down the possible cause.

[Yogi]

Problem is just inserting the shells into the mag tube. Hangs up then mostly, under considerable force, slide in. I have loaded shotgun mags for years in competition so this is perplexing. Think I will completely disassemble it and check.

[Nashville Stage]

You've mentioned in previous posts that you like to reload with wadcutter style bullets. I'm guessing that the bullet's square profile, combined with the 357's longer length is what's causing the problem.

There are two places where the cartridge has to travel around a bend and fit into a tight space. The first is going past the loading gate and into the magazine tube, the second is while closing the lever as the cartridge is pushed off the lifter and into the chamber.

Even if a cartridge is within the overall length spec, the extra material in the square shape of the wadcutter bullet could very well be what's jamming things up. Feed one of the rounds that is having a hard time all the way through the system but eject it without firing it. Inspect the bullet carefully and I'll bet that part of the forward edge will be deformed from where it was crushed against the inside wall of the magazine tube or the chamber.

Try using bullets with a rounded profile and make your cartridges to the same length as before. I'll bet they feed in easier. Or if you really want to make wadcutter bullets work, try seating the bullets quite a bit further into the case thus shortening the overall length substantially. Experiment with different overall lengths and find the point where the cartridges start to jam up. Then make your future cartridges just under that length.

[jstanfield103]

As Nashville stated, cutting the magazine tube spring probably will not cure the loading issue. They use the same magazine tube spring in all lengths of barrels so cutting it if shorter than a 24" barrel will let loading easier, it will not stop the catching while loading into the gate.

Flat nose bullet could be one problem and another is a sharp edge where the magazine tube meats up with the receiver on the opposite side of the loading gate. Like said check your bullet after loading it then unloading that round that sticks. I bet Nashville is correct and you will see a bad scrape on that side of the bullet. If you have the know how take it apart and smooth that sharp edge down and feeding will improve. That is my guess anyway.

[Yogi]

I'm going to follow that advise, do some smoothing out the mag tube, makes perfect sense.

[Yogi]

Took it apart, problem is obvious, I smoothed and polished everything, we shall see. Thank you all.

[oldfogey]

I had a little trouble loading my 357 Trapper too. Part of the problem was the overly strong loading gate spring and the sharp edge on the inside of the loading port....fixed that. Trimmed the mag spring and installed Smith stainless mag follower....still having to fiddle with the cartridges a bit to get them in the magtube. I tried 158 gr cast swc and 158 gr rnfp cast and both still hung up at times trying to load them. The best bullet I found was the 158 gr XTPHP. They pretty much went right in. All these bullets fed well from the mag to the chamber. I got to looking at the XTP profile and ordered some 140 gr TC cast bullets from Missouri Bullet and they arrived yesterday. I made up a couple dummies(357 cases, no powder or primer. and the TC bullet crimped in the crimp groove). The TC rounds went right in and fed from tube to chamber slicker than snot. Looks like the TC bullet is the solution given that I don't really want to pull that mag tube. My plan is to have a everyday target and shooting load with the TC bullet in 357 cases with 5.5 grains of Unique.....we'll see.

[dlidster]

I've been using the Missouri Bullet Company TC bullets for several years. Never a hitch feeding; very accurate.