Peening is a Red Line Thingy
Here comes a response that's sure to get someone's Irish up, but it must be said.
The SR series of Rugers, like all Rugers are, first, last, and always, made of the toughest metal in the industry, and will not only meet, but typically exceed SAAMI and military standards. With but a few exceptions they note, all their guns are made to shoot any ammo. Nobody is more astute than Ruger when it comes to metallurgy, and it's likely that nobody makes more gun parts for competitive guns under contract than Ruger's Pine Tree Castings division. If the manual states that you may fire whatever industry standard ammo is made in the world for that gun, you may safely feel free to carry on to your hearts content and shoot such as might come your way in the way of industry approved factory or mil spec ammo. But now comes Exhibit A, with photos, and testimony from Ruger owners of peening. Ah, yes, peening.
"Where did that come from!"
Now I'll deliver the bomb: Having said all that, any military or police armorer is aware
that he is an armorer for one very silly reason... Guns can take just so much abuse before they show their age.
Back shortly before I became an armorer in the early 70s, cops fired a box of 158 grain Lubaloy maybe (emphasis on the
maybe) once a year. It was only after I began training officers with higher pressure ammo that wheels started to come off the tomato cart, and a need was shown to have a logistical support for repair. After consulting with S&W, who was besieged with the same issue from all compass points, I was sent for two weeks at Springfield (and Ruger, Remington, etc.,) to learn how to fix problems the Chiefs had never budgeted for in previous decades. A simple factoid reared up. Shooting lots of ammo is to a gun what driving lots of miles is to a car. One car can go 300,000 miles and be far better off than the same model next door that has less than 60,000. It's not the use; it's the
ABuse.
But that does not imply that such guns are weak or lacking in any way. It matters not how many rounds are fired, provided pressures are reasonable. I'll say that again. It matters not how many rounds are fired in a pistol, provided pressures are reasonable. It is typically the case that the amplitude dial is turned up just a bit further than is necessary for the task. If you have a department or military armorer at your beck and call, it's one thing. If you're shooting your own hardware, sans a support liaison, a different approach is perhaps a very worthy consideration. After all, if you're not a tax funded arm of government in a fashionable uniform, you've got to save your money to give it to the tax funded arm of government so he can have it for his fashionable uniform.
The classic example is the Model 29 S&W .44 Magnum. Smith introduced the gun having no clue that Clint Eastwood would hit the silver screen with Dirty Harry advertising the "
most powerful handgun in the world, punk". Before the sequel came out, Model 29's were being stuffed with a steady diet of Remington 240 grain jacketed factory loads and shot with copious quantities of such fodder, and Smith & Wesson suddenly had to answer thousands of complaints about how their guns were suffering chronic cylinder endshake, bent center pins, closed cylinder gaps, and rattling grips. Their guns didn't blow up, but were corresponding to the kick in the ribs they were being subjected to, and were hollering; "
someone please have mercy!" Mercy was not given, and countless of those fine guns ended up as loose as old pail handles. Someone at Sales and R&D at S&W figured wrongly that the guns would be treated to .44 Specials for target shooting, and the full-house loads kept for an occasional shot at deer. All they had done, after all, was to lengthen the old .44 Special chamber and give extra attention to metallurgy to satisfy a few die hard Elmer Keith fans, but had no clue that guys would use them to show off their studliness to swooning gals giggling behind the barn and at the local clubs. I don't imagine too many gals fell over fainting, but there surely was a stampede of hysterical Model 29 owners who were suddenly writing impassioned letters to Skeeter Skelton, looking for answers to why their wheelgun wasn't winning Oscars. There was nothing wrong with the gun, per se. It just wasn't made for a market that thought that every shot had to be "
the most powerful handgun in the world, punk". It was made to be the most powerful, but not to be fed such a steady diet as was unmercifully cycled through them.
Just because a gun
can be fed NATO or +P+ specification ammunition, certainly doesn't imply that it won't get older sooner. Failure to invoke this simple fact won't delay the aging process.
On the same score, used gun racks are full of extremely loose over-under shotguns that were fed steady diets of high velocity sporting clays loads over a period of just four or five years. The rules permitted it, and the guns were made to shoot it, so their owners enthusiastically pumped the handles of their MECs with top-end Lyman loads, and thought their guns would last forever. Your car passes extreme acceleration and braking tests, but you wouldn't launch your car like a missile and stop it with 75 feet of rubber every time and expect it to last any longer than a race car lasts on the Indy 500.
What am I saying? Simply, upon examining the photos, my educated assessment is that something on the order of high octane fuel has been at work, often, and repeatedly. You
can do this, and it
can be fixed, but the simpler solution is to refer to a rule that is called in legal terms, the "
prudent man" approach.
It's not how many rounds that a gun has fired; it's what kind of rounds. I'm a former professional Police Instructor, and remain an avid competitive and recreational shooter. Nobody puts more lead downrange than people like me. But, my guns are as mechanically perfect as the day they were new. And no gun that I shoot is shot more frequently than my 9mm SR9c. Same with my buddy. Thousands of shots, and as they say in Brooklyn... poifect. Not a wrinkle. Metallurgy is not a variable at Ruger. They use the same recipes from one gun to another. My gun is the same metal as your gun, as the next, and so forth. Neither is mass production an issue. Guns are either headspaced, or they're not. No gun gets two inches further down the line that doesn't pass headspace tests according to relevant ammunition specs.
Don't get me wrong.
I don't load powder puff loads by any stretch of the imagination. But the difference between lashing out at your gun or kissing it can be measured in half to one grain of powder, or saving the Power Pistol and Accurate #7 for hunting expeditions, and bulking up powder in the target shooting spectrum.
As to NATO ammo that is so popular, you have to remember one subtle fact. It's made for expendable guns, and is quite destructive if used over an extended period of time. Ever notice how ejected brass goes into sub-orbit and comes down with mashed mouths and barely readable head stamps? There's some serious pressure being expended, quite apart from your civilian variety., and it's not the most efficient use of power, because it's not generally getting more than another 75 to 100 fps above SAAMI loads. That's the nature of internal pressure at the top end. Large increases in pressure yield very modest increases in velocity. But, that's not an issue with military folks. They want that 75 fps, and that's that. If it were only another 25 fps, they'd take it, because their priorities are not ours.
The General Staff at NATO are
not in the least interested in "longevity" of anything they issue. When a gun (fighter jet, bomber, tank, aircraft carrier, soldier, sailor) is put in service, it is called upon to be used as an expendable item. Everything they issue is backed by the full value of your tax Dollar and a logistical command to keep things running and replaced when it's burned out. I imagine a comical conversation between a gun manufacturer and some Ordnance General officer that goes like this...
(General) "
Hey good buddy, what sort of pressure can that there ACME pistol of yers handle if we were to buy some? Uh-huh, you say about 96,000 c.u.p. in the test cabinet before it goes pop? Uh-huh."
(ACME)
"Yes, Sir, but they will lock up and start failing long before that."
(General)
"Well, I don't want any to lock up, but give me 500,000 at the start failing pressure level.
I've got good Armorers in the field and we'll keep your contract going for spare parts! Yee hah! We'll be nailing them insurgents for sure!"
My first advice is to go to Staples and get an EASY button. Lay off the bargain NATO ammo in the O.D. can. And, whatever you do, don't alter springs; especially recoil springs, unless you know
exactly what you are doing. An over-driven recoil spring can absolutely wreck a gun. Whatever springs are placed into a gun by Ruger is precisely the correct spring. If you find yourself needing a stiffer one, a thought should jump into your head... "This ammo is stiffer than the factory designed it for." Act accordingly. Nothing has cracked and destroyed more 1911s than the slamming that results from being kicked around by a high intensity recoil spring. The factory 16 pounder wasn't arrived at by some dream JMB had, but so often, people stick springs in guns because they heard that they should if their ejecting brass is landing in the parking lot.
No no no, NO.
The landing in the parking lot thingy is related to the peening thingy. And the eardrum thingy.
That same spring culture has spread to SR9s and other guns, too. Lots of aftermarket springs out there that have been ruining lots of guns.
Whenever I see numbers like a 1,000 or even 5,000 rounds associated with a gun that's worn, I immediately know one thing. The ammo is hot, or some issue related to slide timing is way off. The reason is compelling. First of all, one round or a million is
no reason for wearing a gun out or peening anything. A quality gun cannot wear out from shooting. But excessive pressures or poor slide cycling from bad ammo or springs can and most certainly will put some hurt on it, just as sure as hitting it with a hammer over and over. As Sarah Palin might say,
It's a red line thingy. Nobody reading this would even consider running his truck 100 miles with the tach straddling the red line, but many wouldn't even blink at asking their favorite gun to do just that.
I am quite certain that as soon as I hit the Submit Reply button, I'll hear rebuttals from those who absolutely shoot nothing but ammo that wouldn't go through an old set of underwear. All anecdotal claims to the contrary, 'tis not the sub-underwear-penetrating loads that wreak havoc on anyone's guns. My SR9c has far more ammo through it than any claims I've seen on this blog, and there's not a hint of any more wear than some scuffing of the matte finish on the barrel chamber. And every one of the shots has been top drawer 9mm, and although I've fired at least 1,000 headstamped NATO in it, I intentionally keep the throttle back for most of my shooting, below NATO or +P+.
And then, there's a vast unknown when it comes to home brewed ammo, and most guns that suffer peening can trace their lineage back to ammo that has no pedigree of any kind, and be well beyond any published data, for nothing more than a change of brass or primers. Most of my ammo is home brewed, but I keep the lid on and never expect my guns to stand up to a constant admix of red-lined recipes.
As to the correct approach to fixing the gun, you should never take a file to metal that supports the breech. There's a cardinal rule that I learned way back in 1974 at Smith & Wesson: Once filed away, it's gone. Astutely learned Armorers
peen metal back where it came from, before whipping out their trusty pillar file, and then they file with deft and cautioned strokes, calling on angels to guide them. Having said that;
you're not trained to do such work, and whatever you do is subject to a very nebulous adventure where you may find yourself suddenly in
The Twilight Zone. Moreover, the Customer Service people at Ruger will do whatever it takes to restore the gun to newness of life, and it'll be done correctly. If there's an issue with regard to defective product, you'll be doing your fellow shooters a very gracious service to let Ruger set their knowledgeable consultants at work to study the problem so that all might benefit. If you spread newspapers on your kitchen table and do it yourself, you've helped nobody except yourself... provided that you can.
In short, I would recommend absolutely no solution outside of Ruger's CS. I know it may sound like heresy to many, but repairing guns is not the same as repairing a rocking chair. Guns are made from blueprints that specify measurements expressed in thousandths, and you don't have access to such privy information. If a hundred people on this site have "successfully repaired" their SRs by filing or ignoring an obvious sign of stress, that's 100 too many. Until Ruger CS goes out of service for good, there's absolutely no reason to discuss alternative measures.
But, there is reason to get an EASY button and back off on the obvious signs of stress.
