Revolver cylinder needs opening up...since Stillwell retired who else ?

[BigSlick]

Talked to cylindersmith, and they can't/won't do what I need.

I just committed to take a .32 H&R Mag one of my buds bought. He shot it a couple of times with factory ammo (junk) and says it's gotta go.

The deal is right, so I'm gonna pick it up when I get home.

I've compared his SP101 with the one I've had for a few months. Like mine, the cylinder throats are a tad tight to say the least.

I had Robert Stillwell open mine up to .3125 and life got better quick. Leading all but went away, and accuracy settled down nicely. Not any more inherently accurate (never really a problem there), just seemed to eliminate the two flyers that seemed to occur with every load I tried.

Now, I know I'm gonna have to do the same on the new (to me) one too.

Cylindersmith opens .32 Mag throats to .314, take it or leave it. I think that's probably a little too much for my needs, plus, I'm already set up to size all my .32 Mag bullets to .313, which works great.

I wouldn't let any of the local so-called gunsmiths touch anything I own with their toolbox with a dremel and a sledge hammer in it, next to the hacksaw.

It has been suggested, that I pick up a .312 reamer, and do the job myself. OK, maybe, but I ain't exatcly a machinist and really don't want my first foray into working metal permanently to be on a cylinder I want to use and keep.

Any ideas on where to send the cylinder ?

TIA

'Slick
________
Klx125a (http://www.cyclechaos.com/wiki/Kawasaki_KLX125A)

[dubber123]

If you had it opened to .314", it wouldn't take much to hone out your size die to match, a job you can do at home. If it really does come back with .314" throats, about .3135" would be a perfect size boolit, meaning you only need to open your size die .0005", a very easy feat.

[Scrounger]

Personally, I don't think opening it up to .314 is all that bad, I could sure live with it. But if you can't sleep nights because of it, you might ask Buckshot to do it, he's looking for work now anyway. Or do it yourself by fire lapping the cylinder. It will do the barrel at the same time but the cylinder gets most of the benefit. There have been several threads here over the years on the subject, look them up and check it out.

[leftiye]

All depends what your GROOVE DIAMETER in your barrel is, though I guess you COULD shoot .002"oversize boolits if you wanted to. My vote is to do it yerself. Use a hardwood dowel with a slit sawn down the middle, and 320 grit, then finer grit with the edge folded into the slit. You can open up the chamber mouths a thou or too without much trouble just by rotating the dowel carefully by hand. Insert it from the rear so as to not bell the fronts of the throats. Get a sized boolit the size you want the mouths to be, and open them up until they all will let that boolit through with some (not too much ) resistance.

It is equally easy to ream them out with a reamer in a drill press or milling machine, and then polish them out the last thou. as just described. I believe it was MTCharlie who had a thread on this. Chucking reamers will flex to self center in the hole- especially if you align the reamer before cutting, and only are taking a thou or too off.

[Bret4207]

Buy a chucking reamer and do it yourself. If I can do it, anyone can!

[Ricochet]

A Lee .314" sizing kit is cheap. I've got one that I use a lot.

[BigSlick]

Groove diameter of the barrel on my SP101 is .312 exactly, I haven't slugged the bore on the new one, but figure (hope ?) it's gonna be the same.

I would look at sizing to .314, but I'm already setup with the Star to do .313. Would love to do bullets that fit both guns, if possible.
________
AVANDIA SIDE EFFECT (http://www.classactionsettlements.org/lawsuit/avandia/)

[EDK]

Go look at BROWNELLS web site for cylinder hones; you can do the throat with it also. (I..er..acquired some used ones from the tool room at work..They got tired of me borrowing them and told me and the hones to go away and don't come back soon. Why is the tool room guy always a grouch? I did buy him a soda at lunch.) I don't know the proper name; we call them "ball hones" and we had one that was 36 inches in diameter! It was never used and they gave it to someone who probably sold it on ebay!

Anyhow, I used lots of cutting oil and the slowest speed on a drill press and a padded vise and checked the inside diameter with a boolit sized to the dimension I wanted. When I was done, the typical rough Ruger Super Blackhawk chambers also were as nice and shiney as those in my 629 Smith! Just go slowly and measure with your "gauge" twice as often as you think you should.

:cbpour: :redneck:

[Scrounger]

If your bullets are sized to .313, your barrel is .312, I really can't see too much to get excited about Cylindersmith opening them up to .314. Tolerances being what they are, there's a pretty good chance they'll end up .313 or .3135 anyway. Cutting tools wear; those which started out cutting to .314 soon wear down to .313 etc.

[Char-Gar]

Any of the major revolversmiths can and will do the work you desire. I suggest Bowen, Clements , Alpha Precision or Gary Reeder. These guys charge full high dollar, but their work is also of the highest quality.

[MtGun44]

Look for an old post on opening up both cyls for my Ruger BH in
.45lc/.45ACP with a reamer and then a final polish an extra .001 with
a split dowel and silicon carbide paper (wet r dry) with some oil on it.

Or if you are looking for a slow way that is a bit more "comfy" go to
MSC and get one of their brass laps and run it in a drill press with the
cyl handheld to keep if alighned to the lap. Use maybe 220 grit or 360
grit at first, leave about half a thousandth for the final polish with about
600 grit. Take it slow and measure a lot. I recommend a set of machinists
plug gages from Enco for about $40 as a great tool for this kind of work.

Bill

[Scrounger]

I think Brownell's sells a kit for this job. I believe Buckshot has one and has used it. Ax him.

[garandsrus]

MtGun44,

Why do you suggest hand holding the cylinder while running a brass lap? I would have thought that it should be in a vice on the drill press table to make sure it stays square to the table.

Thanks,
John

[John Taylor]

I would go with the .313 chucking reamer and wrap masking tape around the rear half of the flutes to keep it going strait running from the chamber end. Then polish with some very fine emery cloth trying not to take any more metal out. Any time you hold something by hand to do a reaming or polishing job you have a chance to have runout. You can get the reamer here
I have made cylinders from scratch and find that it works to use a dummy barrel and ream the cylinder in the pistol frame with the dummy barrel to keep the reamer lined up. This insures that all chambers are lined up with the barrel. Cylinders are first rough bored to about .020" undersize, then reamed to groove diameter and then chambered. Photo shows rough boring.http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l132/johnptaylor/BORINGCYLINDER2.jpg

[MtGun44]

If you have a good drill press and a mill vise plus Vblock, then do what I did
in my post, which is to let the V block and mill vise hold the cyl true to vertical
and let the vise float on the press bed to self center. I was thinking you maybe didn't
have that stuff, and the lap should self align well and removes material pretty
much uniformly, so handheld and letting it float to align the existing hole to
the lap should get you good alignment for minimum "tooling".

If you use the mill vise and V block, you should indicate the quill to level
the press table, which is also unnecessary if you let the cylinder align to
the lap.

Bill

[Johnw...ski]

You really have it easy. Just lap the cylinders to the size you want.

I bought an 1878 Mrc deArms 11mm French Service Relvolver from a gunshop.
It was sitting on a counter when I walked in and the owner said he just bought
it from a guy and it wasn't in the books yet and I could have it for $50.
Figured it would be a good wall hanger if nothing else since I would probably never find ammo for it. Well, got home and discovered some moron had drilled 5 of the 6 chambers with a 1/2" drill, real ugly.

After pondering the situation for some time I realized the bore was a little bigger than .451, 460 dia. with a groove dia. of .445. Hmmm, maybe I could shoot Auto
Rim out of it. The moron had left one bore untouched so I set up the cylinder on a rotary table indicating the one good hole and proceeded to bore out all the chamber holes. Now for the good part, I turned 6 inserts in the lathe and made the chambers to fit .45 auto rim but not content to leave well enough alone I also kept the chamber length tight enough to headspace on the mouth of the case like a good .45 ACP. Gooped the inserts up with silver solder paste and heated the whole mess up in an oven. After a little quick cleaning and touching up I put it all back together and headed for the range.

Didn't expect much with that crazy bore size but the damn thing can keep them on a paper plate at 50 yds. if I do my part. Best thing is I have tons of .45 ACP
and I can shoot that or .45 Auto Rim and it likes my 190 gr. target loads or ball ammo equally as well. Don't make a habbit of hard ball though.

The outside of the revolver looks its 130 years old, but the inside is really like a fine piece of machinery, the fit and finish is incredable. So the wallhanger turned into a shooter I wouldn't part with.

Go ahead and have a shot at your cylinder, it more fun when you say you did it yourself.

John

[pipehand]

I really wasn't interested so much in the cylinder reaming topic when I saw this post, but I'm sad to hear that Mr. Stillwell retired. I just checked my "Favorites" and his website "cannot be displayed." I just got 5 dies for my Star as a Christmas present from my wife. Who are we going to go to for custom dies now?

[Nueces]

Well, Sir, you certainly asked at the right place. Member Buckshot has made custom bullet sizing dies, and many other special projects, for a bunch of booliteers. Narry a negative word, either. Search for his posts (often complete with fine photography) or PM the dude.

Mark