Model 19 cylinder - recessed or not & why?

[scottyinAZ]

I have not done much shooting with 6 shot non moon cliped guns but im curious as to what poeple think about recessed cylinders for loading and unloading. is there an advantage or disadvantage to having the recessed cylinder?

thank you

Scott

[56hawk]

I have a few revolvers with recessed cylinders. Generally I think it's a bad idea. When you start doing a lot of shooting gunk can build up in the recesses making it harder to load. You also can't look from the side and see if the gun is loaded, or index the cylinder to shoot a single round.

[Toolguy]

The recessed chambers are a leftover from when everything was rimfire more than a century ago. It sort of helped contain the blast if there was a blowout of the rim. Now all it does is collect dirt and crud and cause problems unless cleaned out often. If you notice, .22 rimfire is still made that way.

You can turn the cylinder down to remove the counterbored part, but leave a rim around the edge unless you want to replace the frame lug that retains the cylinder when it's open.

[M1911]

I have one K-frame with recessed cylinders. I find it a bit harder to reload than my other K-frames, but I'm not sure quite why.

[johnmac]

The recessed cylinders were a feature on magnum caliber guns (e.g, the model 19 (.357 Mag), the 29 (44. mag) ), but never on the standard pressure caliber guns (38 special, 45 ACP, 44 SPL) that supposedly protected the shooter in case of brass failure with high pressure magnum loads. This feature was phased out as a cost saving measure 30+ years ago. I've not found a real downside or upside to speed loading a recessed 19 vs. a non recessed K frame.