Clean the bore and find the largest of your pin gauges that will enter the muzzle. Let it slide down the barrel. You will soon know if you have choke. If you do, go to smaller gauges until you get one that will go all the way through. Then you will know how much.
My favorite but highly un-scientific way to check thread choke involves patching a plastic cleaning jag very tightly into a clean bore, and observing how much effort it takes to keep the jag moving at a constant rate down the bore. Any change in resistance, directly correlates to a change in bore diameter. It is very effective in that it lets you "feel" exactly what the boolit will be subjected to when it travels in the bore.
After using this method on considerable handguns, a few things are quite apparent. First off, the old Ruger 44s with the circle on the barrel, are very prone to having a "bulged" area just in front of the frame, where the jag will become totally loose in the bore for about 3/8" of an inch then it will snug back up again when it enters the threaded shank portion that is threaded into the frame. Very common with these older SBHs, it comes from how Ruger faced, fit, and torqued the barrel into the frame.
Another anomaly comes from the "Lawyer Warning" that is rollmarked extremely deep in the outside of the barrel, you will see raised ridges inside the rifling behind the lines of text on the outside. Yep, that's how hard they impressed the rollmark into the barrel, so much that it created distortions inside the barrel. With a cleaning jag, pushing it rapidly past these ridges will feel like the rumble strips used on our roadways to caution drivers to slow down.
Thread choke that is minimal, can barely be felt by the jag, resistance against motion will only increase slightly. Choke that is severe will stop the jag and require beating the cleaning rod with a hammer to drive it through. These should be sent back to Ruger, as no amount of firelapping will remove a choke this bad without ruining the rest of the rifling in the barrel by the time the choke is gone.
This could be measured with pin gages, choke that is barely noticeable is less than .001" moderately noticeable is .001" to .002" severe chokes are .003" or more constricted.
It will require about 6x the effort to lap a stainless Ruger barrel as it will to lap a blued steel barrel.
Placing a white piece of paper on the recoil shield and shining a bright light on the paper, looking down the bore you can see thread choke with the naked eye. It looks like a hazy distorted "ring" about 5/8" to 3/4" from the bottom of the bore. If you can't see it, you likely won't feel any or very little change in the jag either. Barrels that will stop or noticeably slow the movement of the jag are very easy to spot the distortion with the naked eye.
Got a .22 .30 .32 .357 .38 .40 .41 .44 .45 .480 or .500 S&W cylinder that needs throats honed? 9mm, 10mm/40S&W, 45 ACP pistol barrel that won't "plunk" your handloads? 480 Ruger or 475 Linebaugh cylinder that needs the "step" reamed to 6° 30min chamfer? Click here to send me a PM You can also find me on Facebook Click Here.
Has the OP even shot the gun yet? Why get "out of sorts" until he has shot the gun to see if he needs to do anything. Keep It Super Simple should apply here. Until he finds out that it is not super simple.
Again I mean no hurt, harm, anguish or turmoil by my post I have posted on this posted subject. I am not baiting, trolling or calling out anyone. I am making a post based on my experience, knowledge and/or belief or opinion. That is all.
Hear, hear!Originally Posted by 44MAG#1
For a time I owned one of those Infamous Ruger Blackhawks In 45 Colt, my much-celebrated Built Backwards Bisley that came with .452" grooves and .448"-.449" throats. I did correct that anomaly in due time, but it is also germane to the story that one bullet design actually shot REALLY WELL in that amalgamation of dimensional nonsense--the Lyman #454490. Fact is--that bullet shot SO WELL, from 800 to 1200 FPS, that I palavered around for close to 3 years debating whether I should hone the throats or leave well enough alone. I decided to sally forth, and the outcome is a good one--now the revolver shoots castings of all sorts with good to excellent accuracy, including #454490.
Moral of the story--sometimes The Conventional Wisdom is neither "conventional", nor is it "wisdom". Let the gun tell you what likes, hates, and doesn't give a darn about. That will require shooting (aw, shucks!)
I don't paint bullets. I like Black Rifle Coffee. Sacred cows are always fair game. California is to the United States what Syria is to Russia and North Korea is to China/South Korea/Japan--a Hermit Kingdom detached from the real world and led by delusional maniacs, an economic and social basket case sustained by "foreign" aid so as to not lose military bases.
I think its funny really. People buy a new handgun and before they even fire it they are running in a circle wringing their hands worrying about what they need to do to it to get it to shoot well.
Shoot the gun some to see if it needs anything done to it. It may and then it may not. But how will someone know if they dont shoot it.
Funny just funny to me.
Again I mean no hurt, harm, anguish or turmoil by my post I have posted on this posted subject. I am not baiting, trolling or calling out anyone. I am making a post based on my experience, knowledge and/or belief or opinion. That is all.
What's even funnier, quizzical to me even, is that for instance, the throats are tight, people say shoot the gun. Okay, the gun will shoot. you can even put a 44 cylinder in a 45 and shoot it, this will work! BUT....
Shooting the gun is not going to magically enlarge the throats, and I think by now we ALL know that the proper relationship between the throats and the boolit will let the gun perform to it's best, so it's a no brainer that you can shoot it and see how good it shoots, and then see an improvement AFTER the throats are corrected and the gun shoots better groups. Some of us would rather tweak the gun first knowing that it is not as dimensionally good as it can be, and it will not shoot its best until it is.
Got a .22 .30 .32 .357 .38 .40 .41 .44 .45 .480 or .500 S&W cylinder that needs throats honed? 9mm, 10mm/40S&W, 45 ACP pistol barrel that won't "plunk" your handloads? 480 Ruger or 475 Linebaugh cylinder that needs the "step" reamed to 6° 30min chamfer? Click here to send me a PM You can also find me on Facebook Click Here.
Not going to argue this subject. How simple is it to go to the range and test a few loads and see how the gun shoots? Other than the cost of the ammo and fuel going to the range the cost is very little.
How many people can tell the difference between a load that groups 1 inch groups off the sandbagged benchrest and a 2 inch load off a sandbagged rest at twenty five yards when shooting from field shooting positions out to one hundred yards including offhand shooting. Now, I am not talking about someone that drags some form of a portable benchrest out to the field or woods or something of that nature. From observation i can tell you very few are capable of it. It is nice to dream but dreaming doesnt negate reality. Reality is an ugly thing but it is something that is there and will always be there.
Each one do as they want as I surely will. But I am firmly grounded in reality.
Again I mean no hurt, harm, anguish or turmoil by my post I have posted on this posted subject. I am not baiting, trolling or calling out anyone. I am making a post based on my experience, knowledge and/or belief or opinion. That is all.
Well! I finally found time to do as fourarmed suggested. I got out the plug gauges and tried several until I found the one that fit very well in the muzzle. Although I oiled it well, I had to nudge it down the barrel. It didn't take any pressure, it just wouldn't slide by inverting the gun. Much to my surprise the gauge slid all the way out the breech. There was no play at either end of the barrel. I had to invert it muzzle down to remove the gauge since the gauge was too long to clear the breech.
I have no idea why I felt more resistance when I slugged the barrel unless by the time it got to the area that is threaded into the frame it ran out of oil and was trying to go thru dry. I didn't notice any smears but then I wasn't looking for any either.
I appreciate the patience all have shown in this thread and hopefully I will find time to go shoot before Christmas. I'm going to load wadcutters in .357 brass for now to keep the boolit well into the throat. Probably not necessary but I've go some new Starline .357 brass that I've been wanting to load anyway.
John
W.TN
That sounds like you ran a good test. Appears there is no choke in the barrel. Now just go out and shoot it.
Enjoy shooting with the added confidence in knowing all is well .
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