Freedom 97, .357 wall hanger

[44man]

I have posted before about the poor groups we get. I loaded a bunch of loads and shot as good as I could at 50 yd's, both Creedmore and sandbags. I am using the Lee 158 gr that I removed the bevel base on so it weighs 160 gr's. The patterns are the same we got with every factory load and jacketed bullet.
The first thing I did was clean the gun spotless and lightly oil everything. I used two different small hole gages in the throats plus expanded lead slugs and they are all a perfect .358". So far so good.
I then pushed a slug through the bore and found it is .0005" tighter at the threads. Then I expanded 5 slugs, one at a time, at the end of the muzzle using a rod against a thick, long piece of Micarta on the recoil shield. I could pull the slugs from the bore like this.
The bore measures .359 to .3595 depending on the groove measured and every slug was the same. The slugs pushed all the way through the tight spot measured .3585" to .3595. No wonder it shoots like crap! The barrel is oversize and larger then the throats plus the bore is constricted at the threads.
Guys, this is a $2000 gun! So much for saying they are built better then a Ruger.
Here is the picture. The center target has 2 of the slugs on it.
I had to tanspose the holes because a lot of the shots were off the target.

[only1asterisk]

Have you contacted Freedom Arms about it?

David

[scrapcan]

Come up with your next steps to make the gun truely a $2000 shooter?

Just curious as to what you are going to do. Surely you are not just going to keep passing it to the next unsuspecting shooter.

[44man]

No, I would never do anything like that. The gun belongs to my friend and I am going to tell him to send it back. There is no excuse for making a gun like that for the price.

[dubber123]

Send that thing back. No excuse for that in a 400$ gun, much less 2,000$. I have a F/A in .475, and it's the nicest revolver I've ever handled. I did read about a fellow in Guns and Ammo that had a similar situation with a .454. He had the throats opened up, and it became a sub-MOA gun. My best group with mine is .8" at 50 yds. (iron sights). F/A guns are known to be superbly accurate, and I would settle for no less. I might mention in your letter to them you mentioned this on the internet, looking for help. I bet they bend over backwards to keep you quiet. Bad publicity you know. Good luck.

[Four Fingers of Death]

I'd try factory loads and send those samples to Freedom.

[Dale53]

Kind of makes one truly appreciate Rugers with their "on occasion" too small throats. $35.00 to a custom gunsmith and they shoot a treat! Myself, I have had a number of Ruger single and double actions. I must be extremely fortunate as everyone of my Rugers are sized correctly and shoot like it.

Dale53

[44man]

The problem with getting the throats opened is that the barrel is so much oversize no bullet/boolit will fit.

[dubber123]

I agree, and you shouldn't have to go to lengths like that for a common caliber like .357. Brian pearce had one of these a year or two ago, (apparently a good one), for testing, and he ended up keeping it. He was after 1" groups at 100 yds. He came close, (very) but said he needed more experimenting. He was having Veral cut him a mold. Send this one back, and hopefully you'll end up in the same boat as him.

[Sven Dufva]

No, I would never do anything like that. The gun belongs to my friend and I am going to tell him to send it back. There is no excuse for making a gun like that for the price.

How is the test target who comes with the gun. What size of group?

I have a FA 357 mod 97 my self and the only limitation whit that gun is the owner.

[lar45]

You could do a Taylor throat on the barrel. Bore the rifleing out for the length of the frame. Normally it's for the bullet length I believe. But that would still leave the throats being too small for the barrel.
Freedom Arms should compensate you for all your trouble proveing their gun was built wrong. It won't happen I'm sure, but it would be nice. Think of all the ammo, components, bullets, powder, primers... that were expended when the gun was a Lemon to start with. I would atleast talley all that up with the letter to them. When I had Win factory 454 ammo split the cases, they sent me some Winchester bucks to spend on new ammo.

Magnum Research should make a 357 BFR. As long as I'm wishing, how about a smaller frame to go with it and a Bisley grip? For a light handy packing gun.

[44man]

Magnum Research sure likes the larger calibers. I don't see them stepping down to smaller ones even though some would be nice.
They are not as tight or finished as good as a Freedom but all I have measured are right on the money and are rifled correctly for the caliber, they all shoot too.
The most amazing is still the big, loose, Desert Eagle that shoots like crazy. I will never believe that thing! With the right load I think it can approach 1/2" groups at 50 yd's. I won't buy one because I can't shoot cast from it.

[mtngunr]

crossposted from his other FA trashing thread....

And I'm still waiting on an answer to where the first quote came from......and this stuff about FA telling you to shoot it in sounds so uncharteristic I'll.....I'll just keep my mouth shut.....for now.....but it appears there's an agenda or axe grinding going on here, to my eyes....a proper way to deal with what appears to be unsatisfactory mechandise is to FIRST box up the gun, ship it to the maker with enclosed test targets, give them a chance to make it right (if it is wrong in the first place)......THEN, if the owner is unsatisfied with results or the answers, he can start airing out dirty laundry.....but NOT before........I have no patience whatsoever with folk trashing companies and products first......NONE.....fully half of such posts are bogus, and written by folk whose motivations escape me.....except perhaps attention......

edited in PS- please provide a link to that original post you found, as searches don't turn it up, even when quoted in its entirety....

[44man]

Not so at all. I have been wanting to buy several for myself but got scared off. I want others to tell their experiences. I have just had too much trouble with Dan Wessons and TC's over the years and do not expect such problems from Freedom. I have always considered them the ultimate revolver.
When anyone has trouble with ANY gun, they should post it. We should not have to accept shoddy products no matter what the cost.
How many of you have run down Lee molds and Lee leak-O-matic pots? A lot of you run down Ruger's and hundreds of other makes. Is this any different?
Does the name "Freedom" make them infallable?
To keep quiet and silently send a bad gun back does not aid a single one of us.
Mtngunr, why are we here? Don't tell me you have never complained about a bad product!
Freedom might make it right, but their first response sucks. They should have told John to send it right back.

[Merc41]

Well for what my 2 cents is worth, I love my FA 83 in .475 linebaugh. Although, if mine performed like the one you have 44man, I would be hollering at FA for sure.

[MGySgt]

I just got some propaganda er I mean flyers from Magnum Research - They will make any caliber you want for about $1,600 and about 4 week wait.

My new 480/475 with 400gr loads in the 1200 FPS range couldn't raise the rear sight high enough to get a good POA/POI.

I sent them an e-mail - they sent me a new front sight that looks low enough so I can get the impact I want.

Ruger - in the last few months I have dealt with 2 NIB Rugers, Blackhawk 45 colt bisley 7.5in barrel. The throats were a little small and the bore had a constriction at the barrel/frame. Opened up the throats with some 800 grit spun on a wood dowel to .0005 over the starting diamenter of the barrel (.451-). Firelapped it with 36 rounds - Shoots great or about as good as my buddy can shoot.

Just this last weekend my son brings bown a NIB Super Blackhawk Hunter model. Stainless no less. Throats - .431+ bore .4295 with a constriction - 66 rounds latter of fire lapping - throats .4318, bore .4299 and a polished bore. This one shoots a heck of a lot better then I do. with in 10 rounds of sight in my son was hitting a 8X8 steel plate at 109 yrds. He can't shoot that good!

2 Rugers and a day's work and they both are tack drivers.

BUT I STILL LIKE MY BFR .475 MORE!!!!!

Drew

[44man]

My BFR .475 is one I will never part with---period. The BFR 45-70 either! Out of the box, first loads amazed me. A little trigger work and they are even better.
The best part is they are wonderful to deal with.

[lar45]

I just got a new Ruger stainless Bisley 357 mag with 5.5" barrel. Just picked it up today, don't know when I'll get a chance to shoot it. One of the first things I noticed was it has a little blemish in the metal at the back of the cylinder on the outside chamfer. It will probably stone up okay. I checked the throats and they were all .358". It was a dial caliper, but the needle stopped on the 8 every time. I slugged the bore at the muzzle and it is .357" right on the nose. I couldn't locate a soft lead slug to push through the barrel. The barrel cylinder gap is 4 thou. I was hopeing for a little tighter, but that shouldn't be too bad.

Magnum Research will fit an extra cylinder to the BFR for around $300. I was thinking of getting one in 50AE and getting the extra cylinder in 500S&W x 1.4". Total price from them brand new would have been around $1350. I found a slightly used 475 BFR on Gunbroker at about 1/2 the cost so I got it instead.
You can get front sights for the BFR in 3 different heights. Their listed on their site someplace.
The only gun I've handled that I think is better built than the BFR is my 357 max Silver Seville.

[Bass Ackward]

I think that the biggest mistake people in the gun world make is that you get better quality if something costs more. Or if it is custom. I have seen guns that were made by individuals that would qualify to use the word custom that were sloppier than any factory you might get. Or that you pay for looks.

You can get great quality Handies and poor quality Whetherby's. Good quality Rugers and obviously poor performing FA. The difference is the odds. Everyone makes mistakes.

Want flawless quality control? Now you have a $2500 gun.

That should just be a barrel change. I agree, send it back with targets.

Just don't tell them who you are. They might say that you need a moon observation devise mounted on it before you can shoot it. :grin:

[mtngunr]

Mtngunr, why are we here? Don't tell me you have never complained about a bad product!


I am not here to attempt to destroy a company by driving off customers, that's for sure......I have complained about a gun, after giving the S&W company several attempts at fixing the gun's tendency to break firing pins.....I did NOT post "crappy S&W posts" before S&W ever saw the gun back, and I did NOT post such afterwards, either......I KNEW I had an uncharacteristic lemon that had a mislocated hammer or mislocated firing pin port whose only remedy was complete replacement of the gun.....a gun that was out-of-print, unfortunately.....

And I am still waiting for the source of that "me and Dennis" FA trashing post that you say you found somewhere....are you gonna provide a link, or are you going to leave me/us wondering if you might be the original author of ill-repute?

[44man]

What I started as a post to find out if the problem is common before I invest in one (And, Yes, I am still considering it.) has kind of turned you inside out, do you have a stake in Freedom?
When someone posts about a bad Lee mold before calling Lee, I don't see you jumping down their throats for flaming the company.
Information is why I am here and if we had gotten a bad Ruger or S&W the post would have been the same but I doubt you would have jumped on me the same. I am not trying to harm Freedom's sales but it would hurt drastically to get a bad one. I have had too much trouble with other makers and need to know what is going on before committing what to me, is a huge sum of money. Even postage to return one would hurt. I see one of you has 17 of them, which cost double what my first house cost me. It seems as if a lot of you have no patience with a poor person living on a pension that would have to sell 3 or 4 prized guns to buy one Freedom.
Many have posted that they are very accurate and have had no trouble which encourages me.
My friend has been told to return the gun and they will change the barrel. This also encourages me. Is it not my right to post what is and try to get a balance before going further? If I am the only person to ever post about a problem with ANYTHING, I will apologize. If you have never gone after anyone else complaining about anything other then Freedom, then you should apologize!

[mtngunr]

My final word on this subject is that if you are looking for sympathy, you won't get it from me by quoting a post by one of the most infamous gun-thread troll-type posters known to the internet....wrapping yourself in the flag of honest reporting while using an old post (and where you "found" it?) whose only purpose was to cause FA problems is not journalistic honest reporting, although it might be fairly said to be "yellow" journalism......and quite frankly, looking at your photos of purported groups with a gun gives me further reason to doubt the sincerity and integrity of these several anti-FA threads you've started.....those photographed "groups" look more like someone fired long strings of fire up a piece of paper, and then arbitrarily drew lines through them claiming to be different loads.....
And don't anyone buy for a minute the thought you are being singled out....I give the same grief to 1911 owners who buy a gun, have some problem, and then go on anti-Colt diatribes without benefit of giving the company a chance to make it right first, and none of them has had the gall to dredge up an otherwise unfindable quote of Monte to back up their product "testing"......the firearms industry has enough troubles without so-called fans doing their best to damage companies....
Sure, other companies have their all-too-common problems, too.....there are responsible ways to deal with such......starting with letting the company deal with it first......if they can't make you happy after several tries, feel free to report, feel free to vent....a good example of this would be Ruger Blackhawk chamber throat variance.....
Meanwhile, the following quotes make you look like anything BUT a poor pensioner just trying to find a good gun.....
"I have posted before about the poor groups we get"
"They are not as tight or finished as good as a Freedom but all I have measured are right on the money and are rifled correctly for the caliber, they all shoot too."
"I have just had too much trouble with Dan Wessons and TC's over the years"
"My BFR .475 is one I will never part with---period. The BFR 45-70 either! Out of the box, first loads amazed me. A little trigger work and they are even better.
The best part is they are wonderful to deal with."
"I have posted in a lot of sites, asked questions, talked to my gunsmith friend and a lot of guys at my club and get as many answers about bad guns as I do good ones.Freedom is not infallable and does turn out some junk "
"To be accused of not being able to shoot by Freedom is a low blow. We shoot revolvers to 500 meters with accuracy that turns a lot of rifle shooters blue. We have seen many pack up and leave after watching us."

[44man]

I shot those groups from Creedmore and from bags. To accuse me of not being able to shoot is a low blow! I had to hold paper behind the backing cardboard and use a marking pen to record the hits because most were off the paper.
I would welcome you to come and shoot with me at the club. We have a 500 meter silhouette range. If you are a 25 yd shooter, bring your Freedom and you will find that it is easy to keep all shots on steel at that distance. You might just surprise yourself. Don't knock it until you try it. Why you run us down for shooting that far when you never tried it is beyond me.
And Yes, we have seen rifle shooters shake their heads and leave, but the better rifle guys showed a great deal of interest, most could not believe a handgun could shoot that far.
While you are here I will show you all the trophys won shooting IHMSA and my first place Ohio State international class plaque won with 79 out of 80 with the lowly SBH. I hit the last one too but it didn't fall! Then there is my Ohio State .22 international class trophy with 57 out of 60 with no starting sight settings using a new Ruger Mark II. I missed the first pig, turkey and ram from lack of sight settings but my spotter seen the hits. I also hit all of the .22 chicken shoot off targets at 100 yd's.
PLEASE come over and shoot with us.
Your responses show an agenda to show you know more then anyone else. Instead of arguing, we should be learning from each other. I refuse to get angry and respect your opinion. But I will always post the truth and the way it is. I will not get into your witch hunt.

[mtngunr]

No witch hunt at all.....just exception to back-to-back FA trashing threads titled "wallhangar" and "crappy", the "crappy" thread a direct quote of someone with a REAL anti-FA agenda....he also accused Ruger of using cast cylinders when he blew up one of their guns.......I well know the capabilities of good revolvers, FYI...

[shawn45]

since it won't shoot I would expect a good price.

[deadguy]

Just get one of those .360" group buy molds and try shooting it again. It may shoot those loads well.

[BluesBear]

Will some pleae educate those of us out of the loop as to just who the heck is the "me" in "me and Dennis". Are we supposed to know this person?
At first I thought is was 44man and Dennis but now it seems it might be Monte and Dennis?

Or is this a comic strip and it's Joey and Dennis the Menace? If so, where's Margaret and Ruff?


Of course I should be inquiring as to who the I is in Dennis and I, but that's a job for the grammar police.

[mtngunr]

Will some pleae educate those of us out of the loop as to just who the heck is the "me" in "me and Dennis". Are we supposed to know this person?
At first I thought is was 44man and Dennis but now it seems it might be Monte and Dennis?

Or is this a comic strip and it's Joey and Dennis the Menace? If so, where's Margaret and Ruff?


Of course I should be inquiring as to who the I is in Dennis and I, but that's a job for the grammar police.

The "crappy FA" post starting off with the "myself and dennis" line is the one that got my dander up.....44man not only went to the trouble of writing a lengthy post about the FA a friend owns being a wallhangar, but dredged up the adjacent "myself and dennis" post from somewhere he says cannot even recall.....the "me and dennis" post was written quite some time back by a fellow who, among other names, goes by the handle of Monte, Monte being famous for outrageous diatribes against many guns and gun makers, the same guy helping to trash numerous gunboards over the years....Monte's rants were always first-class slander aimed at whatever maker was in his sights that day.....among the more memorable and false assertions Monte claimed to have proved was that Ruger Blackhawks and SuperBlackhawks used cast steel cylinders, proved by Monte's expert analysis of the split cylinder of a gun he blew up......he also was a proponent of insane overload data posted on websites, and would freely suggest loads 50%-100% over SAAMI max as perfectly safe in revolvers, and I just hope nobody got killed when checking the web for info and finding some of Monte's stuff.......this stuff I'm listing is just a drop in the bucket of some of Monte's on-line antics, and posters like him need to be taken seriously indeed, as they seem to actually want to destroy gun makers, cause injury to shooters, and preside over the destruction of nice places like this gunboard.............so, when someone uses a Monte quote to back up a product trashing, alarm bells go off..........FYI, Monte often posted under numerous names and quoted himself to back up his slander.......

[BluesBear]

Thank you Mtngunr. That helps me keep track of the players.

I have serious doubts when people quote an anonymous source and then use the all to convienient excuse they forgot where it came from. It reminds me of folks who are always saying, "well, they said so and so..." but then can never quite define just who "they" is.

And my feeling is that if you can cut and paste the text you can also cut and paste the URL. To do otherwise is reckless as well as just plain lazy. It also creates suspicions as to the posters actual intentions.

As I said on another thread...
even on the errornet, copying and pasting without stating the original URL is plagerism.
And no matter how unintelligent the text may be it's still a Theft of Intellectual Property.
In addition to illustrating a total lack of respect, it's just not cool.

And you can quote me on that. ;)