329 PD .44 Mag

[abs]

Any one have an airweight 329 PD Smith in .44 mag? I recently aquired one and it's the most painfull damn gun I have ever shot! Something about a 15 oz .44 mag that just is not right. Anyway, my real question is: It will not light off CCI .44 specials (Blazers) or CCI shot shells, any one care to enlighten me?

Thanks,

abs

[Steelshooter3]

CCI primers are pretty hard. If the primers are showing light hits, the first thing would be to check to see if your mainspring screw has loosened up. Possible bad batch of primers?

[Carmoney]

I had a 329. It's gone now. I'm not particularly recoil-sensitive, but I found it to be an unbelievably awful torture device with full-house ammo.

As Steel suggested, make sure your strain screw is tight--I see loose screws sometimes even in brand new factory guns just out of the box for the first time! Good chance this is the problem. A drop of blue loctite is the answer.

Another suggestion (if you must use CCI ammo)--try replacing the firing pin. They're shipping everything with those dang pointy California-drop-test-friendly firing pins these days, and they seem to require a huge amount of mainspring tension to work right. On my customers' guns, the California pins go right into the wastebasket and are replaced with a pin from my supply of older round-tip factory pins. If you can't find one of those, order the Apex Tactical ignition kit.