DougGuy works his magic

[4bisley5]

I took my new Ruger Bisley 45 to Doug's yesterday to get the cylinder opened up. Had a great chat with him and some of the best coffee I've ever had. After firing a couple hundred rounds through it the week before I knew something wasn't right. 4 to 5 inch groups with proven loads off the bench at 25 yds is not normal. All my previous experience with wheelguns has been with jacketed bullets so they're more forgiving of certain problems. I'm still learning about all this cast stuff.
Sure enough it was typical Ruger 45 cal. All the charge holes were tight.
Doug cleaned up the forcing cone and opened up all the throats to a uniform .4525.

I took it to the range today and begin some test firing. Using the standard pressure 45 load this time my groups shrunk in half, some even smaller right around the 1 1/4 inch mark.

I wished I would have taken before and after pics of my groups but I didn't. You'll just have to take my word for it. He did discover some constriction at the usual spot and suggested shooting it a while before deciding whether or not to lap.

He does a great job and here's a pic of my finished cylinder.

http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/Do...vbs0d.jpg.html

[square butte]

Well, What kind of coffee is Doug serving these days?

[4bisley5]

Well, What kind of coffee is Doug serving these days?

I don't know the flavor but it was well worth the drive.

[DougGuy]

Well, What kind of coffee is Doug serving these days?

Hehe I roast my own beans, what we were drinking on this day was a blend of 5 different coffees from Ethiopia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Guatemala and El Salvador. All roasted to full city + in my cobbled together $35 ghetto roaster made from a popcorn popper and a galloping gourmet. Stick your nose in one of the pots that holds the roasted beans and if you are a coffeeholic, you could go into a trance it smells so good.. Dark chocolate, earthy, woody, cinnamon, toasted caramel, all the flavors and aroma that make coffee interesting. Star$ucks CANNOT touch this..

[Idaho45guy]

I need to send in my cylinder for his magic...

[clum553946]

Doug does fantastic work! The coffee sounds outta this world, but I'm too far away to drive over for a cup! Lol

[square butte]

Doug - I have often wondered about getting one of the small batch custom roasters that are available. But boy are they pricey. Like to hear about your setup - but maybe in another thread so we don't steal the coffee thunder here.

[TXCOONDOG]

DG does good work at a fair price. He worked on a GP100 cylinder and a Stormlake 40-9 M&P conversion barrel for me.

In order to get the most out of coffee, you must have a good coffee machine that brews at the right tempature!

[rototerrier]

Sounds like when we mix together all our leftovers. Kids ask us what we're having for dinner, it's called "shut up and eat it".

Still loving my 45 Walther and Springfield barrels Doug did for me. The Walther is crazy accurate.

[ioon44]

My Walther PPQ 45 comes close to the accuracy of my 1911's and is a pleasure to shoot.

[Green Frog]

Doug,

I'm about 2 1/2 hours North of you in Lynchburg, VA. Having just finished my cup of Nescafé Instant, I'm thinking my Uberti Smokewagon Deluxe might need your treatment, even though it will mostly be used for wax bullets in fast draw!

Is the pot on all day?

Froggie

[johnson1942]

doug gave me the advice on how to do this with rental tools and i want to thank him for it. i followed his advice and my 4 uberti cowboy guns now drive tacks. it is a pure pleasure to shoot these guns and they hit where i point every time. thanks again doug.

[rintinglen]

He fixed the cylinder on my S&W M-69 so that all five holes are exactly the same to limit of my ability to measure them. I highly recommend him to anyone who has a cylinder chamber throat problem. He fixes barrels too!

[DougGuy]

Doug,

I'm about 2 1/2 hours North of you in Lynchburg, VA. Having just finished my cup of Nescafé Instant, I'm thinking my Uberti Smokewagon Deluxe might need your treatment, even though it will mostly be used for wax bullets in fast draw!

Is the pot on all day?

Froggie

Heh we'll just make a fresh pot!

I would not be surprised if the Uberti only needed the forcing cone touched up, they do cylinders pretty danged good the ones I have seen! Nothing like a Ruger where you got anybody's guess what they might be from one gun to the next. At least they leave them small and we can fine tune them.. Thanks Bill!

[rondog]

So, curious - do you use reamers or some kind of hone? I really need to get a set of ball gauges to check my pistolas with.

I'm MUCH too far away to drive there, but that coffee sounds wonderful! Might be too strong for my tummy though, ain't like it used to be.

[DougGuy]

So, curious - do you use reamers or some kind of hone? I really need to get a set of ball gauges to check my pistolas with.

I'm MUCH too far away to drive there, but that coffee sounds wonderful! Might be too strong for my tummy though, ain't like it used to be.

I use reamers with live pilots, then follow up with a Sunnen precision automotive hone. I have a selection of mandrels for the Sunnen hone that run from 22 caliber all the way to 500 linebaugh. I have some of the more exotic borazon and diamond stones but for revolver cylinders I find that silicon carbide stones work best starting with 280 grit and finishing with 500 followed with an 800 grit ball hone.

You could check cyllinder throats with the boolits you shoot, a very simple test is try and push a boolit through the cylinder throats from the front. If a .452" boolit goes into a 45 Colt or 45 ACP cylinder from the front with finger pressure, the throat is sized properly for shooting .452" cast boolits. If they won't push into the throats from the front, then the cylinder is acting as a multi-port sizing die, because the boolits will exit the front of the cylinder at throat diameter. You can load ammo with .452" boolits all day, but if they are fired through .4505" throats, they enter the barrel undersized and usually groups are poor and leading is often noticed in the barrel.

[bluelund79]

One of these days I'll start sending my cylinders to Doug, just need to learn the proper way of measuring my barrels first. Thanks for sharing the reviews, and decent coffee does sounds good, but the smile from Mrs. Bluelund79 that comes with my morning cup of whatever was on sale at the commissary works just fine this morning.....

[Triggernosis]

I just noticed from his profile that this "DougGuy" is located "just above Raleigh". Hmmm....I work in Raleigh and pass just north of Raleigh quite frequently on my way to and from Butner for my service rifle competitions, so maybe I should pay him a visit and have him check my hand-cannon out.
Doug, where are you exactly? PM if you wish.

[DougGuy]

One of these days I'll start sending my cylinders to Doug, just need to learn the proper way of measuring my barrels first. Thanks for sharing the reviews, and decent coffee does sounds good, but the smile from Mrs. Bluelund79 that comes with my morning cup of whatever was on sale at the commissary works just fine this morning.....

I honestly don't know if measuring a barrel is even necessary. Pretty much you can guarantee a .4525" cylinder throat will be sufficiently larger than the groove diameter of any modern production 45 caliber be it revolver or auto. same with .4325" for 44, .3585" for 35 caliber.

You may encounter a levergun that won't like anything smaller than .433" or .434" or .359" or .360" depending on which caliber you are loading for and depending on the maker of the barrel.

Doug, where are you exactly? PM if you wish.

I am in Wake Forest, NC. PM answered sir!

[DougGuy]

Yesterday was a fun day in the shop, not fun in the laughable sense but interesting. Let's see if I can post up some pics..

Guy from my facebook page sends in two barrels from Cali, he is adamant about only wanting them throated, even though the package deal I offer is hard to beat.. So anyway I says okay, send em on in, and they are both Storm Lake 9mm for Glock. First one comes out of the box, and one look at the crown showed how uneven it was, so it escalated to the throat, crown & polish package once I sent a pic to the owner..



Second one comes out of the box and it is some off the wall long ported jobby that was (according to the owner who bought the pistol used with this barrel installed) just butt ugly so he wanted it cut back. It was really close how they angled the ports at a negative angle back toward the breech, almost cut too much meat out of it to salvage it without it being too short but it worked out to be only about .010" shorter than the stock barrel once it was cut and crowned:

Cut off barrel in the lathe:



Sneaking up on it to cut only enough that once the 20 degree crown is cut, the port will disappear:



First you see it, now you don't:



These turned into a nice pair of crowns by the time they were finished:



The next project is a ROA cylinder. Special projects need special tooling. If you can't buy it, you better be able to build it! I used 3 different reamers to enlarge the throats in this Ruger Old Army cylinder, the owner's complaint with it is typical for Ruger, .452" barrel and .450" cylinder throats.

I had to modify each reamer specifically for this cylinder which must remain tapered the length of the charge holes to work right. They are not parallel like modern cylinder throats. The finishing touch was using this #4 tapered reamer to re-create the slight chamfer needed to ease loading, I cut the reamer in half and spun it up in the lathe and used a precision toolpost grinder to create a nose on it to use with Manson live pilots, they held the reamer VERY SNUG in each charge hole, and it did a wonderful job on the entrance of each throat, you can see the slight machine marks that it left behind, these were polished out before bluing was applied. Now it can be loaded with .453" or .454" projectiles which will fit the barrel MUCH better!



Awaiting a range report, I'm sure this ol' girl will be a much better shooter!



On another note, here is a Storm Lake barrel that was sent in, have no idea who did this crown as this was sold on clearance at Midway so I can't bad mouth Storm Lake but I can say that their bores are generally NOT concentric with the outside of the barrel, and it is a bad idea to try and crown one in a lathe. You can get close in the lathe, but then you need to switch to a cutter that is piloted off a Manson mandrel which is very concentric with the lands... The owner of this barrel hadn't paid it any mind and wasn't aware of how badly eccentric the crown was until I pointed it out to him and sent him some pics. I sent him a cell phone video of it spinning in the lathe, quite comical really.. Not in a good way either!

Narrow side:



Wide side:



More gooder now!