Tips of Slugging a Wheely

[ACrowe25]

So I have a new Ruger SRH, and looking to slug the gun. It is my first wheely I'll be casting for so I'm a bit confused here. Prior, slugging auto loaders was simple--- pull the barrel, grab a fishing sink of similar size, wooden mallet and measure.

The thing I'm confused about is what do I need to exactly slug? Every hole in the cylinder in addition to the barrel grooves? If measurement comes out different, which would be the greater factor for a good fit?

Thanks

[historicfirearms]

Slug each hole in the cylinder and the barrel. Hopefully the cylinder throats are a little larger than the groove diameter, or at least the same diameter. If the throats are smaller, the boolit will be sized down to below groove diameter and leading is likely.

If you've got access to a set of minus pin gauges, it makes quicker work out of measuring all six throats, otherwise the pure lead slug will work too.

[MtGun44]

Good comments. With hinge open guns, remove the cyl to avoid bending the crane, but
for single action guns, cyl is on the bench for slugging - rear to front. Barrel front to rear
as no good way to go the other direction.

Use a .0001" reading micrometer for this, not a caliper. Pin gages are the best for
cyl throats (front), far easier than slugging.

Clean the throats and bbl WELL before slugging.

Bill

[Good Cheer]

Take the time to slug the barrel all the way through and then half way through. And compare. Yeah, it's a royal pain but use short pieces of wooden dowels to get a slug pushed from half way down the barrel to pop back out the muzzle.
By the way, best way I've found to measure chamber throats is to make up some sized bullet alloy slugs and use them as feelers, pushing them through the throats. That tells me where they are and I can compare with the barrel slugs as well as adjust sizing diameter. If the barrel slugs don't agree then it's a new ball game and fire lapping or else just lapping where the barrel passes through the frame might be considered.

[Good Cheer]

By the way, about 91-92 was corresponding with Veral (LBT) on truing up chamber throats trying to perfect a .41 and came up with a reverse twist on emery paper to make it go out to the chamber throats to polish them out until the diameters matched. All you have to do is tape the emery paper onto a dowel opposite of the spin direction so that resistance makes the roll want to expand to the throat wall. It's easier and probably better to fire lap but thought you might be interested on roughing it in if there's a lot of metal to take off. As always though, be very careful because metal cannot be replaced once it's gone.

[uscra112]

In my humble opinion, buying a few precision ground gage pins is a much better way to measure cylinder throats than slugging. They are cheap, and will give you an answer within a couple of "tenths". I get mine at www.gageshop.com. Class Z is plenty good enough. An adequate selection will run you $25.00 or so.

[Iron Mike Golf]

I use a combination of pin gauges and slugs. Remove cylinder and measure throats with a pin gauge. Cut a piece of wood to fit through the cylinder window, making it as big as will fit through. Clamp the wood to your workbench and rest the forcing cone on the wood as close to the bench as possible. Slug muzzle to forcing cone. Use pin gauges to check for any constrictions in the barrel.