Cylinder Throats

[nighthunter]

Not too long ago I sent a Ruger 45 Colt and a 45 ACP cylinders to a member here to open the throats. I'm not sure what he used to do the work but they came back not so good. There were large deep gouges in the throats from his tooling. Cast bullets leaded so bad that I was about ready to send the revolver back to Ruger for new cylinders. Before doing that I purchased a 7/16" expandable lap from a machine shop supply house. I used a very fine grit lapping compound to polish out the throats. It took several hours of hand turning the lap but I eventually got most of the gouges smoothed down. I can now shoot cast bullets without leading. I also think I would have been further ahead to just use the lap in the first place and not sent the cylinders out for the throats. I guess what I'm trying to say is "live and learn".


Nighthunter

[Love Life]

Did the member attempt to make it right?

[Char-Gar]

What is the point of this post? If would seem the idea is to warn folks off from the person who did the work. However such a shotgun approach just makes folks suspicious of everybody who does this kind of work. If you are not willing to go on the line and name the individual, you should delete the post.

[45r]

I fire-lap revolvers starting with the tightest throats until they match the rest.
Once they're the same I shoot all 6 chambers.
Usually after 36 to 72 rounds you get a tapered barrel.
I stop when half the tool marks are gone at the muzzle.
I've seen them go from 3 inch down to 1 at 25 yards.

[Shooter6br]

In my day (I am 59) there was a trust to have work you payed for done right. If fact it was a sacred trust between you and the "craftsman"

I applaud the posting. #1 the gentleman needed to "vent" #2 if he prevented one person from"taking it up the tailpipe" it was worth it. It was not just one persons fault ,it was a collective of people who allowed this kind of "Bubba" type work.....................Just my 2 cents

[Char-Gar]

I have no problem with the OP calling out the one who botched the job. But, he is calling out everybody who does this kind of work and that isn't fair. Name the culprit or shut up!

[M-Tecs]

The first step is to give the smith the chance to make it right. Next step would be to post who did the work.

[44 Special]

Name him or delete the thread.
Without a name everybody is suspect and that's not fair to those that do good work.

[tazman]

Name him or delete the thread.
Without a name everybody is suspect and that's not fair to those that do good work.

I agree.

[DougGuy]

I don't know that I did these or not, I don't see any correspondence in my messages for nighthunter, BUT...

A. If I *did* do these, I will accept full responsibility for my workmanship.

B. HELL of a way to find out about a complaint by reading a post like this.

Now, I would like to ask you what alloy you are shooting, what are you sizing to, and did you check to see how snug the boolits fit in your newly sized throats? Are your cylinders blued or stainless?

Ruger cylinders are cast. They vary widely in hardness, blued cylinders are very inconsistent in the granular structure of the casting, you may get one that cuts smoothly, and the next one has metal that pulls out of the surface really badly and there is no way to predict or prevent this no matter what cutting oil you use or how slow you go. I myself keep doubles of my most used Manson reamers here, so that in the event I send one to be sharpened, I am not dead in the water. If I did these cylinders, I can assure you that tool marks are from the cast metal pulling away from the walls of the throat as it is cut rather than marks from a dull reamer. These reamers stay -very- sharp and there are two at Dave Manson's shop now for resharpening.

You CANNOT hone all the marks out! You will not be able to control how round the finished throat is, as the reamers cut a VERY round hole, and you don't want to "Bubba" the hole out afterwards. I blend the tool marks into a finish that is acceptably smooth and even, and I send cylinders out with throats within .0002" of each other. You cannot maintain roundness or accuracy if you polish out the marks fully. Shooting will smooth them out considerably, lube and powder residue will fill in tiny voids, but none of them that leave here have enough tool marks to cause the kind of leading you describe UNLESS there is an undersized boolit being fired.

I could flood the thread with macro photos of cylinders that I have done, and they all come out looking very consistent, and there isn't enough visible tool marks to comment on, let alone collect lead like a coarse file. In hundreds of cylinders done, I have yet to field a complaint of this nature but hey you cannot please everybody and some people will pick at something until they blow it up into a festering sore JUST to get some attention for their rant, whether it is a legitimate complaint or not.

[Outpost75]

Doug,

When I was at Ruger both SA and DA revolvers were machined from solid bar stock, on a Hitachi-Seki machining center in which full mill-length bars were fed in one end, the end of the bar faced off, center drilled, a journal cut on the outside, and the blank undergoing multiple operations before being cut off and the bar advanced to cut off the next blank. The cylinder blanks are then gang drilled, reamed, chambered and roller burnished on another automated machine. This was in 1987.

On a separate complimentary note, the two Ruger .45 Blackhawk cylinders you did for me are superb, the revolver now shoots like a rifle, and I am delighted with your service and would recommend it highly to anyone here. Affordable, prompt and professional the whole way.

[tazman]

In my day (I am 59) there was a trust to have work you payed for done right. If fact it was a sacred trust between you and the "craftsman"

I applaud the posting. #1 the gentleman needed to "vent" #2 if he prevented one person from"taking it up the tailpipe" it was worth it. It was not just one persons fault ,it was a collective of people who allowed this kind of "Bubba" type work.....................Just my 2 cents

Please explain how this became the fault of more than just the person who did the work. At the moment I don't understand your reasoning.

[DougGuy]

Doug,

When I was at Ruger both SA and DA revolvers were machined from solid bar stock, on a Hitachi-Seki machining center in which full mill-length bars were fed in one end, the end of the bar faced off, center drilled, a journal cut on the outside, and the blank undergoing multiple operations before being cut off and the bar advanced to cut off the next blank. The cylinder blanks are then gang drilled, reamed, chambered and roller burnished on another automated machine. This was in 1987.

On a separate complimentary note, the two Ruger .45 Blackhawk cylinders you did for me are superb, the revolver now shoots like a rifle, and I am delighted with your service and would recommend it highly to anyone here. Affordable, prompt and professional the whole way.

What did the bar stock come from? Was it cast or do you know? I was told by a well reputed gunsmith that they used a casting for this. I know the grain structure in their cylinders can be all over the place. If they were machined from an extruded bar, the grain would be consistent and linear which it isn't.

[Gunor]

+1 for DougGuy - throat on super-hard XDS 45 ACP. Don't know if it is needed, my +1 for his work..tho...

[Char-Gar]

Doug has done great work for many, many people and I would not hesitated to send him a cylinder.

Threads like this really get my goat. Doug has been forced to defend himself against accusations that did not name him. This is grossly unfair and offensive to my sense of justice.

[Outpost75]

What did the bar stock come from? Was it cast or do you know? I was told by a well reputed gunsmith that they used a casting for this. I know the grain structure in their cylinders can be all over the place. If they were machined from an extruded bar, the grain would be consistent and linear which it isn't.

When I was there the 4140LS was from Timken and the stainless from SKF in Sweden. They were getting mill length bars in train car lots, were specifying ingot position and discarding the 1-top and 2-top crops off the billets and the bars were rolled to their specifications, buying the steel in 100 ton heat lots. Incoming inspection was as tight as any I've seen in the aerospace or nuclear power industry, cutting ends off bars, check with dye penetrant and doing their own structures and chemistries to validate the millcerts. Doug Fay, their metallurgist, told me they once got burned on a bad batch when Republic and LTV were having their problems,back in the early 1980s, and from then on they got really fussy.

[DougGuy]

Doug has done great work for many, many people and I would not hesitated to send him a cylinder.

Threads like this really get my goat. Doug has been forced to defend himself against accusations that did not name him. This is grossly unfair and offensive to my sense of justice.

Well, OP didn't say who it was but being there are SO MANY of us on here doing cylinders LOL, NOT! Better chance it was me than anybody else.. But yeah to make a post like that and not lay out all of it from the get go is not right either. Time to fess up.

[nighthunter]

My purpose is not to cause anyone a lack of business. I meant simply that sometimes we send things out to be done when we could do them ourselves. I was a journeyman machinist before retiring so I am quite familiar with reamers, hones and laps and their operation. In the original post if you reread it you will notice that I said that I might have been better off to have gone the lapping route in the first place. I don't claim to be a gunsmith. If I had screwed up the lapping I would have had no further loss than I already had. The cylinders should not have been the way they came back. You want a picture? Too late, I already lapped them. I would not have returned them for another throating attempt after the first attempts results. I'm sure the person that did my cylinders usually does good work. In my case is was not good work. I will not delete this Mr Love Life simply because you don't like it.

Nighthunter

[DougGuy]

Nighthunter, who did your cylinders?

[M-Tecs]

What size did the throats have to be lapped to to remove the gouges?