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View Full Version : 45 Colt Vaquero Chamber Mouths



sundog
05-13-2005, 10:20 AM
Okay, I know this has been bantered around quite a bit. Well, I have one now that came to me NIB, 10-12 years old, and the chambers mouths appear to be undersize and all over the place. What's the best procedure to ream these out to a uniform size (size yet to be determined)? I've shot it already with Ly 454190s and Lee 454255 and no leading, but not very good groups either, but shows some promise. The BD45 sized .451 wouldn't even hit an 8x10 at 15 yds! Nice handgun, but needs a little work. I tried pushing a jacketed .451 thru, and it only went on one of the six. From the front end it would enter the mouth to varying depths. Sure looks to me like it needs a little 'trueing up'. sundog

felix
05-13-2005, 11:39 AM
Sundog, smooth down the barrel getting all restrictions out. After smooth, measure the barrel. Now, get a reamer, a real one, and make the cylinder holes equal to or 0.0005 over. The reamer should be one made for the purpose and the exact size needed. Folks on the board should have one that fits to a Tee. If not we need to order one for rent. ... felix

sundog
05-13-2005, 02:10 PM
Brownells has a reamer that'll clean'em out to .4525, but it's $70! I was kinda hopin' someone here on the board might have a 'loaner' that would round trip travel at my expense and vacation here a day or two - hint, hint.... sundog

Scrounger
05-13-2005, 03:47 PM
Sundog,
Check out this link:

http://www.cylindersmith.com/

sundog
05-13-2005, 04:44 PM
Scrounger, 'good show, ole bean!'. That feller lives just about on top of where I grew up. sundog

StarMetal
05-13-2005, 04:59 PM
NEW YAWK!!!!!! GET A ROPE!!!!!!!!! hahhahahahahahaha

Just kidding Sundog

Joe

Ballistics in Scotland
05-14-2005, 02:39 AM
Unless someone with more knowledge of the Vacquero's failings than I do knows different, have you established whether the centres of those chambers are all WHERE they ought to be, i.e. in line with the bore axis when the cylinder is locked? If they are, it isn't a difficult job to enlarge the small chambers to groove diameter or very slightly over. I think it is a good idea to use the proper, piloted reamer, but if you can get a decimal sized (unpiloted) chucking reamer, you could probably do a good job from the rear by using a piece of case as a guide. Chucking reamers mustn't be used unguided, for they don't have the tapered lead of hand reamers, and the latter only come in 32nds, half-millimetres etc.

If the cylinders are irregularly positioned, though, anything you can do is liable to be expensive and unsatisfactory. Buying a new cylinder, without that long timelag that stops you returning it if unsatisfactory, might be the best option. But before you do anything, have you tried using really soft bullets? They can help a lot in this situation.

sundog
05-14-2005, 07:22 AM
Joe, I premember that. It was one of the Pace picante sauce commercials. Quite funny. That area I grew up is about 75 miles east of NYC and in the 50s and 60s quite a pleasant small town, rural, and coastal atmosphere. Lots of farms. Still okay I suppose, but just WAY too built up and crowded for me. If it was like is was 50 years ago, it would worth returning to.

Looks like several options have popped up for fixing the cylinder mouths, and it'll get done one or t'other. This first, see how it shoots and then be concerned about alignment as BiS suggested. I have a Bisley Vaqero in 44 mag that slightly leads the throat at five o'clock. I've always believed it was a timing or alignment issue, but it shoots well enough and leading is minimal enough it's not worth throwing money at. This problem with thr 45 Colt cylinder mouths is. Thanks all for the help. sundog

StarMetal
05-14-2005, 10:06 AM
Sundog

Yeah I know what you mean. That just popped into my head, from that Pace commercial as you noted. Guess I've been hanging around Carpetman too long. I grew up just about the same way as you, 30 miles south of Pitts in an almost rural little town. It too has changed much as you noted your town has. When we moved to Tulsa I lost using that "youse guys" and "yuens" (yuens is pronoucned like the Ewings on the old Dallas show that was on TV). The Okies cured me of that right away first week at work. I comes into the control room at the refinery and says "What yuens doing?" They all looked at me strange and said "The Ewings are in Dallas!" I got it right away and stopped using it. Bunch of good ole boy, those Okies are. I'll never forget the day working there when a friend from Arkansas was running the control room. His name was Bob Cagle. Well this fellow comes into the control room by the name of Bob Locke and he was an Okie native. He walks up to Cagle and says "Yall got a ranch?" What he meant or was saying was a "wrench" but with that Okie draw it sounded exactly like "ranch". Well Cagle is a charactor to start with, and Locke even a bigger charactor. Cagle says " Well......I have about an acre or two, but wouldn't exactly call it a ranch" All of us in the control room fell to the floor we were laughing so hard. It was about the one and only time anyone pulled one over on Locke. Locke himself was laughing pretty hard too. So some of that Okie humor still exists in me.

Joe

carpetman
05-14-2005, 12:46 PM
New York??? They cant make salsa.

sundog
05-14-2005, 06:56 PM
Well, back from the mil bolt match, mowed awhile on the tractor, dialed into work for 'my turn' at the end of day controls, and now, just checking in. Came in fourth in the match. Wind beat everyone up purdy good.

Exercising one of my options on the 45 Colt thing, so as it progresses I will report progress.

Joe, my folks moved here years ago and between us we had some acreage and raised a few head. Came time to get some to auction ($$$) and the ole boy what came with the bull wagon pulled up in my Mom's yard, knocked on the BACK door and asked here,"datchorkindownyonder." (Oklahomese for - does someone from your family live next door, but pronounced all as one word). After several minutes of newyawkese vs. oklahomese, and some nonunderstanderstanding on both sides I show up on the tractor (been down mowing) and have some speaks with the feller - after all it was me he had been lookin' fer. Mom goes back in the house. Me and Dad, and the ole boy with the bull wagon commence to loadin'em up and in the process one s$$$$ all over him -- and me - pretty well covers everthang, doncha know. Well, we get all done and my Mom shows up behind the barn and asks if we need to get cleaned up, and he says, "No M'am, I gotta get back, but if the garden hose is close I'll washeroffalilfirst." He and I go over to the cattle spigot and hose each'n'other down good, and he hops in the truck and is gone. Mom says, "you are not coming in the house." Well, I hops back on the tractor and goes and finishes mowing.

My Dad is laughing like a banchee, and Mom says, "I didn't understand ANYTHING that nice young man said. Do you suppose he is from around here?" Yeah, he was, he lived in Coffeyville, KS -- good ole boy, too. Come to find out later, when he first showed up he was pointing to my house across the pasture wanting to know how to get aholt of me. I explained, but I think Mom may not have ever caught on. I think my Dad is still laughing (RIP)!!!!

All I know is that when the check from the auction came in my half barely covered the bath I had to take. Life is made of great memories, and that was sure one of them! Gotta love these people!

Now, if I can get that 45 working.... sundog

StarMetal
05-14-2005, 07:17 PM
My Dad worked for American Window Glass. They had a big factory in my home town. Well they decided to move to Okmokee, Ok for cheaper labor and agreed to move all those who wanted to go and keep their jobs. Well you know how it was back in those days, you were born, raised, educated, married, worked, and died in that same town. What I'm saying is all this was right before I was born. I come dang close to being a native Okie.

Another story about Okie's and me at work at the oil refinery. They just loved teasing me cause I wasn't from around there. They start in with this Civil War stuff. I think they take the Confederate side. So I ups and said "Yall ( I was leanring their language by then) know when Ok became a state?" Silence, not a word. I goes geez dontcha yall know when your state became a state. Well darn, well it was 1909 so the Civil War was long gone over by then, how yall say you're Rebels? They got a good laugh outta that. Great bunch of boys to party with for sure.

Joe