Barrel Constriction ? ?

[hylander]

So I'm buying a New Vaquero .45 Colt.
I know I will be having the Throats reamed.
However, what if it has barrel constriction which seems to be common.
Fire Lapping the only solution ? Does it really work.


By the way does the Constriction issue seem more prevalent in the SS or Blued models ?

[Frank46]

I have heard that taylor throating will clean up the barrel constriction due to the bbl being really tourqed onto the frame. What it is as far as I can see is like the freebore in a rifle barrel. Supposedly cleans up the throat and gives better alignment for the bullet. I have no experience with taylor throating though. Frank

[nicholst55]

Member DougGuy offers a Taylor Throating service as an alternative to fire lapping. If you have a thread choke or constriction that is greater than .001-.002", you're probably better off having the Taylor Throating done than you are fire lapping. If Doug doesn't weigh in on this thread, send him a PM and ask him about it. He's very knowledgeable on the subject.

[DougGuy]

Thank you sir..With a clean bore, take the cylinder out and put a piece of white paper across the back of the frame and shine a bright light at it. Look down the bore and at the part of the bore where the barrel meets the front of the frame, look to see if you see a hazy distortion like a ring that distorts the light reflecting off the bore. If you can see this hazy ring, it's got choke, the choke will visibly distort the bore and you can see it with the naked eye if you know what to look for, but this is what it looks like.

Another way to check is take a cleaning jag and patch it pretty tight in the bore, observe how much effort it takes to push the jag and keep it moving. When it gets to the part of the barrel that meets the front of the frame, if it gets tight or harder to push, this is the choke you are feeling. If it gets only a little bit noticeable, the choke is real small, easy to firelap out. If the jag stops, and is really hard to push the rest of the way, the choke is pretty bad. If you have to nearly destroy the cleaning rod, it is severe and should be sent back to Ruger because there is no way you will firelap that much out without taking a good chance on ruining the rest of the barrel. If it is stainless, it's 3x to 6x harder to lap out a choke, and could ruin the barrel by the time you get it lapped.

If you can't see the ring I am talking about, and your cleaning jag goes down the bore steadily and evenly, there is NO choke! What you feel with that cleaning rod, is -exactly- what the boolit will "feel" when it is fired. Any rippling or roughness in the bore, will affect the boolit in the same fashion as your cleaning rod. The smoother and steadier that rod travels, the better shooter that barrel will be.

I do have a Taylor throating reamer, I had to use it on my own Vaquero as it was really badly choked and I did not want to send it back to Ruger since it had just come back from Ruger. They clocked the barrel really hard to get the windage to come in.

For a really choked barrel, and Ruger won't fix it or the owner doesn't want to send it in, Taylor throating works wonders. Even barrels that aren't choked can pick up a modest 75f/s gain in velocity, and they group as well or better than one that isn't Taylor throated.

A note on the New Vaqueros and New Model Flattop Blackhawks that I have had in my hands, they have so far been the finest fitting and nicest barrels that I have seen. The several that have come through here for forcing cone and throat reaming have had ZERO choke, I was very impressed. They have also started roll marking the barrels on the bottom, and without impressing the letters into the barrel so hard that it raised a series of ridges inside the bore, behind the lines of text in the roll marked warning on the outside of the barrel.

[contender1]

Just like I explained over on the Ruger forum, shoot the gun & inspect it before you decide you need to "modify" it. Read DougGuy's post above real close, especially the last part.

[Tar Heel]

Ditto on DougGuy post.

[hylander]

Just like I explained over on the Ruger forum, shoot the gun & inspect it before you decide you need to "modify" it. Read DougGuy's post above real close, especially the last part.

I am going to do a close inspection today, I will shoot it first then see what it needs.

[hylander]

DougGuy:
I did as you suggested, Checked with a light, no hazy ring.
Also ran a tight patch though the bore few times, I felt no restriction.
The forcing cone looks smooth, no machining marks and the barrel looks clocked correct.
Also the Cylinder gap on all chambers is less than .006
I know the throats will need to be opened up, not worried about that, I will send it to you.
Going to purchase this one tomorrow

[DougGuy]

Going to purchase this one tomorrow

Very cool! Source you up a Wolff 30oz trigger return spring, Brownell's has them. This spring, cylinder throats reamed, and the forcing cone correct (whether a smith does it or Ruger got it right this time is fine!) is ALL the accurizing one of these guns will need. The rest is up to the shooter and his skill at the loading bench.

[hylander]

DougGuy:
Is the brownells 11 degree kit good.
I'm thinking I could do that myself.
I also have other guns I could use it on

[DougGuy]

I use a Neway carbide cutter on a Dave Manson pilot. The Brownell's kit is hardened steel, it would work on a lot of barrels I am sure but the first chrome lined 1911 barrel you stick it in would be the end of it right then and there.

What part number for the kit you are looking at?

[hylander]

I use a Neway carbide cutter on a Dave Manson pilot. The Brownell's kit is hardened steel, it would work on a lot of barrels I am sure but the first chrome lined 1911 barrel you stick it in would be the end of it right then and there.

What part number for the kit you are looking at?

http://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-to...?sku=080479451

[DougGuy]

Oh DOH! LOL my bad.. I saw 11 degree and I'm thinking crown but you are talking about the forcing cone cutter kit. Yeah this is the basic kit, what you need, per caliber, is a pilot which goes down the bore and sits right in front of the cutter so it stays concentric with the bore, and it will sorta do that but the drawback is that if the pilot isn't really snug, you might as well not even have one at all because the cutter is going to pick up a cut wherever it starts to cut, and will want to follow that cut so if it is a little bit off b/c the pilot is .001" or .002" smaller than the bore it has to center in, all bets are off as far as how centered the new cut will be and this IS important.

For most of the Ruger .38 and .357 barrels they will be 5° and you need the same 5° cutter to clean them up. The only time you can use an 11° on these is if they are cut really shallow already which generally is not the case. When I get them in here and they are 5° and the cut is well into the bore, I just use the same angle cutter and clean them up and not worry about changing the angle.

The .44 and .45 caliber barrels I use the 11° cutter, but the brass lap they want you to use to lap the cut with is about worthless as a lap, the first thing it will do is imbed abrasive into the brass, then it starts to cutting rings in the new forcing cone that you just recut (because the old one had rings in it). Go figure.. I cut a little piece of 000 scotchbrite and poke a hole in it, thread it on the rod, then thread the brass lap on there, push it into the bore and let the lap hold the scotchbrite evenly into the new forcing cone and turn it a few turns by hand and it polishes all it needs to be just that quick.

When you get this kit GO SLOW with it, take the tooling out OFTEN, clean up the area and look really good with a good light so you can see what it is doing. You can hose one of these in a jiffy by cutting too much. You want the new cut to to to the top of the lands IF it will do so and not make the OD of the cut any bigger at the fire ring. DO NOT cut into this fire ring at the barrel cylinder gap! Use a little Tap Magic on all the cutting operations.

On your NMV if you decide to do it, look real good first, because Ruger might have done a proper forcing cone that is free of tool marks and is all the gun will need when it left the factory. Also... It may not be on 11° it may be less! In this case, it will have cut pretty far down into the lands, and you won't be able to cut to the tops of the lands with your 11° cutter unless you run the risk of cutting into the fire ring. If it looks good, and it is fairly long, I would leave it. If it is short and rather abrupt, with tool marks visible, by all means recut it. If it is longer on one side, it isn't centered and needs to be recut -correctly- in the center. Takes a VERY snug pilot to correct this, the brass pilot that comes in the kit might be too loose in the bore and you gotta get a pilot from Manson that will work. PITA but if you want perfection, this is what you gotta do.

This one was short and full of tool marks, and the gun spit out the barrel cylinder gap enough that you didn't want to be sitting beside whoever was shooting it. I cut this one you can see the cut reaches the tops of the lands, it don't spit nary a bit anymore, this is how I like to do them:

[oldfart1956]

Gotta say Doug that is one of the purtiest forcing cone jobs I've ever seen. I might have to schedule up some vacation time this summer and take a drive down to Raleigh. Three Rugers and 3 1911's might be making that trip. Beautiful work. Audie...the Oldfart..

[DougGuy]

Bring um on Audie! Been a few from here come by and spend the day out in the shop, leave with throats and forcing cones done right!

I'm gone down south sometime in mid June, me and the gf are going to the Gulf Coast, don't know if we will start in Texas and go east or start in Florida and go west. We will see!