S&W 442 UC Part Two

At least I know they were good trigger presses…since I had 4 light strikes with the gun. One round was Hornady 110 Critical Defense, 1 round of Federal 130 FMJ, and 2 rounds of Lost River 148 Hard Cast poly-coated wadcutter. All 4 rounds detonated the next time they came up in the rotation after clicking through all the empty chambers.

This has also been reported with these guns by others. Now, I have to decide whether I send it back, or just put in a longer firing pin. The strikes are all centered on the primers.

My cold run I felt reasonably good with, considering how unfamiliar the sights are for me. The run immediately after this was when I got the first light strike on the Hornady Critical Defense. I shot another 60 rounds, bringing the round count up to 205 rounds trying different ammo to make sure there was not just a problem with a certain brand.

I switched to my old 642 and ran a 5 rounds in 5 seconds at 10 yards drill to be sure I knew how the sights work. I bought this gun used in 1996 and carried it for over 25 years. It has been a companion on more runs than my knees want to remember, gone to more places it shouldn’t have, and has even been swimming more times than any 1 pair of swim trunks I have owned. It has spent much of its life hanging on a body armor strap or in a cargo pocket while I was on duty. When off duty, it has served around the house, when doing manual labor, and when I cannot hide something larger when going to town (3 times, I think). I retired it for 2 years while I ran the 340 M&P but now it has come back and will retain its place until I get something reliable.

I will be running it with my old stock of Winchester RA38B 130 gr Bonded load. This gun shoots the 130 grain loads dead on. It shoots all the 148-158 loads to the left about 3-4 inches. The lighter stuff goes several inches low.

I do not trust anything new loaded by Winchester. At work we have about 1 round of 9mm in every thousand of Q4172 white box that does not go on the first hit. Some rounds won’t chamber due to the cases being too long and some have the primers backward or crushed. I have seen it with Winchester duty 9mm, as well, though not near to that degree. Still, one is too many. Our Winchester rifle duty ammunition has 2-3 rounds in every class that suffer from bullet setbacks when hitting the M4 feed ramps and we had one recently with no lead inside the bullet jacket.

I say the above to be sure you understand that I do not, at this time, trust any Winchester ammunition for carry that has not been in my hands since before the problems started several years ago. I am sure they will get their act together and Winchester will again be one of the leading ammo companies, just as the others have gone through cycles in the past.

I will update you when I decide what to do with the 442 UC.