gray wolf
02-22-2013, 08:30 PM
New super red hawk,
Some folks have been following my little adventure with my Super black hawk hunter 44 Mag, and all the problems I had with it leading in the cylinders and a tad in the barrel,
I should also mention that I also encountered some mechanical failures. The hunter went back and forth to Ruger at least three times and while the mechanical issues were
readily fixed, ( remove and replace parts ) I was told repeatedly the leading was my doing. I had a long post going on and on about the terrible lead ring in the cylinders
at the point the taper began, just before the actual throat. ( hope I said that right )
We all went on about all the possible things that might cause this type of leading, and what I might try in order to stop it. Well nothing worked, the leading would not go away., and was a tedious time consuming task to remove it.
The bullet was a Lyman 429421 240 grain SWC, a very popular 44 mag bullet of the Keith design. My loads varied from a soft shooting very, very, accurate load of 6 grains of tite group, 10 grains being the max load, to 8.5 and 9.3 of unique, and 10 grains of long shot. I will say the hunter shot all these loads very well with good accuracy. But the cylinder leading was just to much to deal with. Story short, Ruger sent me a new hunter pistol, this one was put together so bad it went back the next day. They decided to send me a new super red hawk as a replacement pistol
( some of the story left out, to many details to cover it all.)
The Super red hawk got to my camp about two weeks ago, I was promised it would be perfect and after inspecting it I was satisfied that Ruger had kept it’s promise, new pistol was put together very well, the trigger group fit into the frame so well you could hardly see the seems at the metal interfaces, fit and finish gets a 100% The cylinder gap measured .0045 I though this to be not to bad, as the hunter was .006
The forcing cone was free of tool marks and well finished with a soft lead into the rifling.
The barrel was mirror smooth and looked polished. I gave it 50 strokes with a tight patch and a little J B bore paste followed by a few strokes with J B bore bright. I’m very impressed with the barrel. The cylinder lock up is very tight and end shake looks to be about .001 ( not to shabby )
The double action trigger pull is a little heavy but acceptable, A lighter hammer spring may be needed but it’s really not to bad. The trigger is light and had a slight crunch and a little creep.
The hammer side to side movement was more than I like and had the typical rubbing against the frame on the left side.
So far I am happy with the pistol, other than a few rounds popped off in the back yard I have not shot the pistol thus far to any extant. It has the rubber grip with the jell pack insert, Hogue I believe and they feel and fit well in my hand.
The one big difference I noticed is the cylinder, it is cut way different than the hunter cylinder
In that the chambers are not cut as long and the 421429 SWC bullet is now able to engage the beginning of the cylinder throats and the .100 front band can snug up to the throat. I found this encouraging in that this little difference just might eliminate the cylinder lead ring.
I polished up the sides of the hammer and shimmed the left side, I cut the end off a .010 feeler gage and the end off a .003 piece, trimmed them to a circle and the factory hole in the feeler gage
Fit perfect on the hammer retaining pin. This eliminated the hammer rubbing. I had to add .002 to the right side also. The hammer is now centered in the frame.
I also lightly polish the hammer hook area, this did not help the trigger creep and crunchy feel.
I found the right feeler gage that matched the height of the hammer hook, I replace it with one that was .003 less and trimmed a piece to fit under the hammer hook, this allowed me to carefully stone .003 from the hammer hook and reduced it slightly. Trigger creep is from the sear riding along the hammer hook. The more the travel the more the creep.
At this point the trigger pull was to my liking and a tiny bit of stoning on the sear removed the crunchiness. The trigger was done and the hammer was done, both to my satisfaction.
I don’t think I need to mess with a new hammer or trigger spring. I will know better when I shoot the pistol off a sand bag.
It was killing me not shooting the new pistol, so today while still cold here in Maine the Sun was shining and I couldn’t stand it any longer. I packed up my kit took some rounds loaded with the soft shooting tite group load mentioned above and the hotter 10 grain long shot loads. About a 100 rounds in all. The bullet was the same WW lead mix #429421 The rounds were left over from the hunter pistol and the same rounds that leaded the hunter cylinder so badly. I drove the 10 miles to the club range down the snowy logging road, the range entrance had a 4 foot burm of plowed snow in front of it. I gathered up what I needed and like the old Goat I am, I climbed over the snow and went through the gate at the range entrance. I walked in about 100 feet and the whole range had a beautiful blanket of undisturbed, fluffy white snow over it. I stood in the sunlight and had this wonderful feeling of freedom, My pistol was clean, the snow was clean and I felt clean.
I had one load in the left pocket of my field jacket and the other load in the other pocket.
My smokes and a small screw driver to adjust the sights.
At first it seemed my only target would be this endless blanket of beautiful white snow.
BUT Ah ! 10 to 15 yard away were these little leftover dead stems of what had been weeds.
I loaded the first cylinder with the soft tite group load, took aim at the junction of snow and weed and put 6 rounds into a Golf ball circle while shooting from a standing position. The gun shot perfect, I never had to use the screw driver, the sights were just fine. The hotter long shot load shot just as good, just a tad lower, I expected it to. All in all I shot 70 rounds, single and double action. Men I was a lone and felt so free, and so dam good.
I climbed back over the snow burm, packed up and drove to home, I made one stop to get Julie some ice cream, she likes ice cream.
I cleaned the pistol with a brush dipped in some solvent, a few patches and that was it.
NO leading in the cylinders, and none in the barrel ( joy, joy ) I attribute the no leading, to a slight difference in the way the cylinder is bored in the chamber area and how the end of the chamber meets the taper at the beginning of the throats. This pistol is a shooter, and I am looking forward to many rounds of lead free shooting enjoyment.
The throats are .4317 and the bullets were sized .432
Sorry for the long report, I get carried away don’t cha know.
Sam
Some folks have been following my little adventure with my Super black hawk hunter 44 Mag, and all the problems I had with it leading in the cylinders and a tad in the barrel,
I should also mention that I also encountered some mechanical failures. The hunter went back and forth to Ruger at least three times and while the mechanical issues were
readily fixed, ( remove and replace parts ) I was told repeatedly the leading was my doing. I had a long post going on and on about the terrible lead ring in the cylinders
at the point the taper began, just before the actual throat. ( hope I said that right )
We all went on about all the possible things that might cause this type of leading, and what I might try in order to stop it. Well nothing worked, the leading would not go away., and was a tedious time consuming task to remove it.
The bullet was a Lyman 429421 240 grain SWC, a very popular 44 mag bullet of the Keith design. My loads varied from a soft shooting very, very, accurate load of 6 grains of tite group, 10 grains being the max load, to 8.5 and 9.3 of unique, and 10 grains of long shot. I will say the hunter shot all these loads very well with good accuracy. But the cylinder leading was just to much to deal with. Story short, Ruger sent me a new hunter pistol, this one was put together so bad it went back the next day. They decided to send me a new super red hawk as a replacement pistol
( some of the story left out, to many details to cover it all.)
The Super red hawk got to my camp about two weeks ago, I was promised it would be perfect and after inspecting it I was satisfied that Ruger had kept it’s promise, new pistol was put together very well, the trigger group fit into the frame so well you could hardly see the seems at the metal interfaces, fit and finish gets a 100% The cylinder gap measured .0045 I though this to be not to bad, as the hunter was .006
The forcing cone was free of tool marks and well finished with a soft lead into the rifling.
The barrel was mirror smooth and looked polished. I gave it 50 strokes with a tight patch and a little J B bore paste followed by a few strokes with J B bore bright. I’m very impressed with the barrel. The cylinder lock up is very tight and end shake looks to be about .001 ( not to shabby )
The double action trigger pull is a little heavy but acceptable, A lighter hammer spring may be needed but it’s really not to bad. The trigger is light and had a slight crunch and a little creep.
The hammer side to side movement was more than I like and had the typical rubbing against the frame on the left side.
So far I am happy with the pistol, other than a few rounds popped off in the back yard I have not shot the pistol thus far to any extant. It has the rubber grip with the jell pack insert, Hogue I believe and they feel and fit well in my hand.
The one big difference I noticed is the cylinder, it is cut way different than the hunter cylinder
In that the chambers are not cut as long and the 421429 SWC bullet is now able to engage the beginning of the cylinder throats and the .100 front band can snug up to the throat. I found this encouraging in that this little difference just might eliminate the cylinder lead ring.
I polished up the sides of the hammer and shimmed the left side, I cut the end off a .010 feeler gage and the end off a .003 piece, trimmed them to a circle and the factory hole in the feeler gage
Fit perfect on the hammer retaining pin. This eliminated the hammer rubbing. I had to add .002 to the right side also. The hammer is now centered in the frame.
I also lightly polish the hammer hook area, this did not help the trigger creep and crunchy feel.
I found the right feeler gage that matched the height of the hammer hook, I replace it with one that was .003 less and trimmed a piece to fit under the hammer hook, this allowed me to carefully stone .003 from the hammer hook and reduced it slightly. Trigger creep is from the sear riding along the hammer hook. The more the travel the more the creep.
At this point the trigger pull was to my liking and a tiny bit of stoning on the sear removed the crunchiness. The trigger was done and the hammer was done, both to my satisfaction.
I don’t think I need to mess with a new hammer or trigger spring. I will know better when I shoot the pistol off a sand bag.
It was killing me not shooting the new pistol, so today while still cold here in Maine the Sun was shining and I couldn’t stand it any longer. I packed up my kit took some rounds loaded with the soft shooting tite group load mentioned above and the hotter 10 grain long shot loads. About a 100 rounds in all. The bullet was the same WW lead mix #429421 The rounds were left over from the hunter pistol and the same rounds that leaded the hunter cylinder so badly. I drove the 10 miles to the club range down the snowy logging road, the range entrance had a 4 foot burm of plowed snow in front of it. I gathered up what I needed and like the old Goat I am, I climbed over the snow and went through the gate at the range entrance. I walked in about 100 feet and the whole range had a beautiful blanket of undisturbed, fluffy white snow over it. I stood in the sunlight and had this wonderful feeling of freedom, My pistol was clean, the snow was clean and I felt clean.
I had one load in the left pocket of my field jacket and the other load in the other pocket.
My smokes and a small screw driver to adjust the sights.
At first it seemed my only target would be this endless blanket of beautiful white snow.
BUT Ah ! 10 to 15 yard away were these little leftover dead stems of what had been weeds.
I loaded the first cylinder with the soft tite group load, took aim at the junction of snow and weed and put 6 rounds into a Golf ball circle while shooting from a standing position. The gun shot perfect, I never had to use the screw driver, the sights were just fine. The hotter long shot load shot just as good, just a tad lower, I expected it to. All in all I shot 70 rounds, single and double action. Men I was a lone and felt so free, and so dam good.
I climbed back over the snow burm, packed up and drove to home, I made one stop to get Julie some ice cream, she likes ice cream.
I cleaned the pistol with a brush dipped in some solvent, a few patches and that was it.
NO leading in the cylinders, and none in the barrel ( joy, joy ) I attribute the no leading, to a slight difference in the way the cylinder is bored in the chamber area and how the end of the chamber meets the taper at the beginning of the throats. This pistol is a shooter, and I am looking forward to many rounds of lead free shooting enjoyment.
The throats are .4317 and the bullets were sized .432
Sorry for the long report, I get carried away don’t cha know.
Sam