Cylinder Throats

[nighthunter]

Not too long ago I sent a Ruger 45 Colt and a 45 ACP cylinders to a member here to open the throats. I'm not sure what he used to do the work but they came back not so good. There were large deep gouges in the throats from his tooling. Cast bullets leaded so bad that I was about ready to send the revolver back to Ruger for new cylinders. Before doing that I purchased a 7/16" expandable lap from a machine shop supply house. I used a very fine grit lapping compound to polish out the throats. It took several hours of hand turning the lap but I eventually got most of the gouges smoothed down. I can now shoot cast bullets without leading. I also think I would have been further ahead to just use the lap in the first place and not sent the cylinders out for the throats. I guess what I'm trying to say is "live and learn".


Nighthunter

[Love Life]

Did the member attempt to make it right?

[Char-Gar]

What is the point of this post? If would seem the idea is to warn folks off from the person who did the work. However such a shotgun approach just makes folks suspicious of everybody who does this kind of work. If you are not willing to go on the line and name the individual, you should delete the post.

[45r]

I fire-lap revolvers starting with the tightest throats until they match the rest.
Once they're the same I shoot all 6 chambers.
Usually after 36 to 72 rounds you get a tapered barrel.
I stop when half the tool marks are gone at the muzzle.
I've seen them go from 3 inch down to 1 at 25 yards.

[Shooter6br]

In my day (I am 59) there was a trust to have work you payed for done right. If fact it was a sacred trust between you and the "craftsman"

I applaud the posting. #1 the gentleman needed to "vent" #2 if he prevented one person from"taking it up the tailpipe" it was worth it. It was not just one persons fault ,it was a collective of people who allowed this kind of "Bubba" type work.....................Just my 2 cents

[Char-Gar]

I have no problem with the OP calling out the one who botched the job. But, he is calling out everybody who does this kind of work and that isn't fair. Name the culprit or shut up!

[M-Tecs]

The first step is to give the smith the chance to make it right. Next step would be to post who did the work.

[44 Special]

Name him or delete the thread.
Without a name everybody is suspect and that's not fair to those that do good work.

[tazman]

Name him or delete the thread.
Without a name everybody is suspect and that's not fair to those that do good work.

I agree.

[DougGuy]

I don't know that I did these or not, I don't see any correspondence in my messages for nighthunter, BUT...

A. If I *did* do these, I will accept full responsibility for my workmanship.

B. HELL of a way to find out about a complaint by reading a post like this.

Now, I would like to ask you what alloy you are shooting, what are you sizing to, and did you check to see how snug the boolits fit in your newly sized throats? Are your cylinders blued or stainless?

Ruger cylinders are cast. They vary widely in hardness, blued cylinders are very inconsistent in the granular structure of the casting, you may get one that cuts smoothly, and the next one has metal that pulls out of the surface really badly and there is no way to predict or prevent this no matter what cutting oil you use or how slow you go. I myself keep doubles of my most used Manson reamers here, so that in the event I send one to be sharpened, I am not dead in the water. If I did these cylinders, I can assure you that tool marks are from the cast metal pulling away from the walls of the throat as it is cut rather than marks from a dull reamer. These reamers stay -very- sharp and there are two at Dave Manson's shop now for resharpening.

You CANNOT hone all the marks out! You will not be able to control how round the finished throat is, as the reamers cut a VERY round hole, and you don't want to "Bubba" the hole out afterwards. I blend the tool marks into a finish that is acceptably smooth and even, and I send cylinders out with throats within .0002" of each other. You cannot maintain roundness or accuracy if you polish out the marks fully. Shooting will smooth them out considerably, lube and powder residue will fill in tiny voids, but none of them that leave here have enough tool marks to cause the kind of leading you describe UNLESS there is an undersized boolit being fired.

I could flood the thread with macro photos of cylinders that I have done, and they all come out looking very consistent, and there isn't enough visible tool marks to comment on, let alone collect lead like a coarse file. In hundreds of cylinders done, I have yet to field a complaint of this nature but hey you cannot please everybody and some people will pick at something until they blow it up into a festering sore JUST to get some attention for their rant, whether it is a legitimate complaint or not.

[Outpost75]

Doug,

When I was at Ruger both SA and DA revolvers were machined from solid bar stock, on a Hitachi-Seki machining center in which full mill-length bars were fed in one end, the end of the bar faced off, center drilled, a journal cut on the outside, and the blank undergoing multiple operations before being cut off and the bar advanced to cut off the next blank. The cylinder blanks are then gang drilled, reamed, chambered and roller burnished on another automated machine. This was in 1987.

On a separate complimentary note, the two Ruger .45 Blackhawk cylinders you did for me are superb, the revolver now shoots like a rifle, and I am delighted with your service and would recommend it highly to anyone here. Affordable, prompt and professional the whole way.

[tazman]

In my day (I am 59) there was a trust to have work you payed for done right. If fact it was a sacred trust between you and the "craftsman"

I applaud the posting. #1 the gentleman needed to "vent" #2 if he prevented one person from"taking it up the tailpipe" it was worth it. It was not just one persons fault ,it was a collective of people who allowed this kind of "Bubba" type work.....................Just my 2 cents

Please explain how this became the fault of more than just the person who did the work. At the moment I don't understand your reasoning.

[DougGuy]

Doug,

When I was at Ruger both SA and DA revolvers were machined from solid bar stock, on a Hitachi-Seki machining center in which full mill-length bars were fed in one end, the end of the bar faced off, center drilled, a journal cut on the outside, and the blank undergoing multiple operations before being cut off and the bar advanced to cut off the next blank. The cylinder blanks are then gang drilled, reamed, chambered and roller burnished on another automated machine. This was in 1987.

On a separate complimentary note, the two Ruger .45 Blackhawk cylinders you did for me are superb, the revolver now shoots like a rifle, and I am delighted with your service and would recommend it highly to anyone here. Affordable, prompt and professional the whole way.

What did the bar stock come from? Was it cast or do you know? I was told by a well reputed gunsmith that they used a casting for this. I know the grain structure in their cylinders can be all over the place. If they were machined from an extruded bar, the grain would be consistent and linear which it isn't.

[Gunor]

+1 for DougGuy - throat on super-hard XDS 45 ACP. Don't know if it is needed, my +1 for his work..tho...

[Char-Gar]

Doug has done great work for many, many people and I would not hesitated to send him a cylinder.

Threads like this really get my goat. Doug has been forced to defend himself against accusations that did not name him. This is grossly unfair and offensive to my sense of justice.

[Outpost75]

What did the bar stock come from? Was it cast or do you know? I was told by a well reputed gunsmith that they used a casting for this. I know the grain structure in their cylinders can be all over the place. If they were machined from an extruded bar, the grain would be consistent and linear which it isn't.

When I was there the 4140LS was from Timken and the stainless from SKF in Sweden. They were getting mill length bars in train car lots, were specifying ingot position and discarding the 1-top and 2-top crops off the billets and the bars were rolled to their specifications, buying the steel in 100 ton heat lots. Incoming inspection was as tight as any I've seen in the aerospace or nuclear power industry, cutting ends off bars, check with dye penetrant and doing their own structures and chemistries to validate the millcerts. Doug Fay, their metallurgist, told me they once got burned on a bad batch when Republic and LTV were having their problems,back in the early 1980s, and from then on they got really fussy.

[DougGuy]

Doug has done great work for many, many people and I would not hesitated to send him a cylinder.

Threads like this really get my goat. Doug has been forced to defend himself against accusations that did not name him. This is grossly unfair and offensive to my sense of justice.

Well, OP didn't say who it was but being there are SO MANY of us on here doing cylinders LOL, NOT! Better chance it was me than anybody else.. But yeah to make a post like that and not lay out all of it from the get go is not right either. Time to fess up.

[nighthunter]

My purpose is not to cause anyone a lack of business. I meant simply that sometimes we send things out to be done when we could do them ourselves. I was a journeyman machinist before retiring so I am quite familiar with reamers, hones and laps and their operation. In the original post if you reread it you will notice that I said that I might have been better off to have gone the lapping route in the first place. I don't claim to be a gunsmith. If I had screwed up the lapping I would have had no further loss than I already had. The cylinders should not have been the way they came back. You want a picture? Too late, I already lapped them. I would not have returned them for another throating attempt after the first attempts results. I'm sure the person that did my cylinders usually does good work. In my case is was not good work. I will not delete this Mr Love Life simply because you don't like it.

Nighthunter

[DougGuy]

Nighthunter, who did your cylinders?

[M-Tecs]

What size did the throats have to be lapped to to remove the gouges?

[Tar Heel]

Doug has done great work for many, many people and I would not hesitated to send him a cylinder.

Threads like this really get my goat. Doug has been forced to defend himself against accusations that did not name him. This is grossly unfair and offensive to my sense of justice.

We don't know if the referenced work was performed by Doug but it speaks volumes that he chided in here. Doug has done two of my revolvers and I watched him do the work while visiting and having some great coffee too. His work is top notch. If anything else....this should get him even more exposure and business.

[DougGuy]

I don't think I did Nighthunter's cylinders. I looked at some of my photos of cylinders I have done, and for the life of me can't see anywhere that lead could stick to if you tried to WELD it into the throats. I do them all this same way, and I don't send them out with any other finish than what is shown here in the photos. I am very picky about the quality of my work and the photos speak for themselves.

However I did learn a trick from this thread that I will gainfully employ.. The expanding lap is one I have not used but will definitely be putting some into the tooling. Sometimes I get cylinders with dummy loads sent along for a go/no-go gauge, and the throats have to be sized a few tenths over what the reamer cuts. This is a PITA to do and it is very time consuming but I do it for those customers who need it. Sometimes the dummy loads won't chamber in a .4525" throat to suit me, and I hone them bigger until they fit with the right amount of drag. That way I *know* what the customer is working with and there won't be any issues when they get their cylinders back.

Photos of work that was done last year. I got tired of taking pictures anymore because they all look the same..


http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb374/DougGuy/Cylinder%20Services/DSC03091_zps644396c3.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/DougGuy/media/Cylinder%20Services/DSC03091_zps644396c3.jpg.html)

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb374/DougGuy/Cylinder%20Services/DSC02471_zps8c42521a.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/DougGuy/media/Cylinder%20Services/DSC02471_zps8c42521a.jpg.html)

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb374/DougGuy/Cylinder%20Services/DSC02468Custom_zps19ea32f3.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/DougGuy/media/Cylinder%20Services/DSC02468Custom_zps19ea32f3.jpg.html)

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb374/DougGuy/Cylinder%20Services/DSC02381Custom_zps6f13546e.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/DougGuy/media/Cylinder%20Services/DSC02381Custom_zps6f13546e.jpg.html)

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb374/DougGuy/Cylinder%20Services/DSC01949_zps3fe6f087.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/DougGuy/media/Cylinder%20Services/DSC01949_zps3fe6f087.jpg.html)


http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb374/DougGuy/Cylinder%20Services/DSC01945_zpsadbcd0fa.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/DougGuy/media/Cylinder%20Services/DSC01945_zpsadbcd0fa.jpg.html)

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb374/DougGuy/Cylinder%20Services/NewModelConvertibleCylinders_zpsl2cb60k2.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/DougGuy/media/Cylinder%20Services/NewModelConvertibleCylinders_zpsl2cb60k2.jpg.html)

[Love Life]

My purpose is not to cause anyone a lack of business. I meant simply that sometimes we send things out to be done when we could do them ourselves. I was a journeyman machinist before retiring so I am quite familiar with reamers, hones and laps and their operation. In the original post if you reread it you will notice that I said that I might have been better off to have gone the lapping route in the first place. I don't claim to be a gunsmith. If I had screwed up the lapping I would have had no further loss than I already had. The cylinders should not have been the way they came back. You want a picture? Too late, I already lapped them. I would not have returned them for another throating attempt after the first attempts results. I'm sure the person that did my cylinders usually does good work. In my case is was not good work. I will not delete this Mr Love Life simply because you don't like it.

Nighthunter

I never asked you to delete it.

I just asked if the person who gooned up your throats made an attempt to make it right, which is important info for me because anybody can make a mistake. It's how they recover from or deal with that mistake that is important.

[Silver Jack Hammer]

DougGuy did a cylinder on one of my Ruger's that left the factory sorely out of spec and the finished work was top notch and his price was more than reasonable. I didn't get any coffee tho.

[Char-Gar]

My purpose is not to cause anyone a lack of business. I meant simply that sometimes we send things out to be done when we could do them ourselves. I was a journeyman machinist before retiring so I am quite familiar with reamers, hones and laps and their operation. In the original post if you reread it you will notice that I said that I might have been better off to have gone the lapping route in the first place. I don't claim to be a gunsmith. If I had screwed up the lapping I would have had no further loss than I already had. The cylinders should not have been the way they came back. You want a picture? Too late, I already lapped them. I would not have returned them for another throating attempt after the first attempts results. I'm sure the person that did my cylinders usually does good work. In my case is was not good work. I will not delete this Mr Love Life simply because you don't like it.

Nighthunter

Actually it was me that said you should either name the person who did the work or delete the post out of fairness. Of course, you can do or not do as you please.

[Love Life]

Are you going to name the person who did the work?

[salvadore]

Ya know what I know about gunsmiths? The ones I've dealt with are very optimistic as to completion date. I sent a shooter to a smith in october and he mentioned weeks, I'm still waiting. The price quoted is a WAG, had a smith in Gooding turn my post war Winchester into a tanker '94 that cost about double the quote. Had a gent in Montana replace a barrel on an Uberti seventh cav SA. and turn my Colt 44 spec. Into a 45 Colt. Am I done with Smiths?, nope, good ones are worth their weight in gold. Oh yeah, all these guys were good ones

[Oreo]

Please name the person. I need cylinder work done and I would like to take this info into consideration.

[DougGuy]

5 people have asked the OP to name the person he sent his cylinders to and he won't. This is about a B.S. post if I have ever seen one. You (nighthunter) come in here and make these generalized accusations, yet you don't bother to take any photos of the "leading" that was SO SEVERE you had to go buy a lap and have at it yourself. Photos would be the FIRST thing I would have done. THEN I would have contacted the person who did the work and discuss the issue with them after I had sent them the photos and verified that they did arrive in email.

I see a LOT of cylinders with leading and hard as glass carbon deposits in the chamfered area just in front of the case mouth. This is VERY common. If you have leading in this area, this is by NO FAULT of the person who reamed your cylinder throats, since a throating reamer won't even come in contact with this area. If I did your cylinders, they got sent back to you pretty much in the exact same condition as the string of them in the photos in a previous post. WHAT tool marks? Show me the tool marks in any of those photos. If you put those cylinder throats under a magnifying glass you will see not tool marks, but grain structure of the steel Ruger uses for cylinders has pulled out and that's what ALL these cylinders do. It's the metal they are made out of, it is hard, tough, and does NOT like to be machined on. The metal pulls and tears even when cut with a brand new reamer. You are at the mercy of the metallurgy when you start reaming a cylinder, you never know if it will cut smoothly or if it will be a tough one that finishes rough. I choose to blend these "tool marks" or whatever you call them into a crosshatch pattern with 180 grit abrasive which is TOO FINE to be leaded by normal firing of a correctly sized and lubed cast boolit, even at magnum velocities.

I actually like this brushed finish better than a slickly polished finish. After shooting, the tiny voids and grooves in the surface fill in with boolit lube, powder residue, and carbon to form a seasoned surface not unlike that of a seasoned cast iron skillet. Eventually boolits won't even touch metal in the throats, and the residue and lube build up and pretty much shrink the throat to the boolits that are being fired through them. I don't even clean my own cylinders with solvent, I clean them with a nylon brush in warm mildly soapy water and blow them out with air so it keeps the seasoning in the throats.

But now, the fact that you have altered them yourself after the fact, and then make these accusations that you yourself CANNOT back up, has voided any chance of asking the smith for any kind of compensation or rework. Rather this whole thread is not in earnest for the good of the membership here. Needless to say, this has gone on plenty far enough and I will ask a mod to lock the thread or delete it.

[Bzcraig]

Ok, for the 6th time, name the 'smith please!

[runfiverun]

okay.
it sounds like a half ummjeez what's the word assed accusation.
if it was NOT doug guy I think he is owed an apology.
if it was him he should have been contacted and allowed to rectify the situation.
I'm plain out gonna lock this thread.
I hope the o.p. thinks about this for a second and makes the right choice.