Ruger SBH Hunter barrel not aligned / level

[blue360cuda]

Hey everyone, Just got done lapping scope rings and mounting a Leupold 2x20 on my SBH hunter 44 mag I got a few months ago. Chasing down some accuracy issues and figured getting perfect scope alignment and contact would eliminate one variable. While mounting the scope I used my wheeler scope level kit, set pistol in a padded vice and leveled scope to the rail ontop of the barrel (hunter model). After torquing everything I noticed right away bringing it up to eye that the scope was canted waaay off. Removed the scope and checked the barrel rail alignment to the top strap and grip frame . . . turns out the whole barrel is canted quite a bit.


Has anyone ever seen or heard of this before? Now what . . . don't want to be without my .44 for 2-3 months right as hunting season is getting ready to start! Hmmm . . . any ideas? Maybe a gun smith can torque it into alignment at his shop, then again don't want ruger to give me a hard time about letting someone else work on it if it does come down to a warranty job.

Am I correct in thinking this barrel is OVER torqued? The whole righty-tighty idea, so to correct this problem the barrel actually needs to be backed out slightly, and doing so would open up my 7 thousands cyl gap even more? I hope i'm mistaken about this
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj9/fenceguy1984/IMG_4868_1.jpg (http://s268.photobucket.com/user/fenceguy1984/media/IMG_4868_1.jpg.html)
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj9/fenceguy1984/IMG_4867_1.jpg (http://s268.photobucket.com/user/fenceguy1984/media/IMG_4867_1.jpg.html)

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj9/fenceguy1984/IMG_4871_1.jpg (http://s268.photobucket.com/user/fenceguy1984/media/IMG_4871_1.jpg.html)
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj9/fenceguy1984/IMG_4874_1.jpg (http://s268.photobucket.com/user/fenceguy1984/media/IMG_4874_1.jpg.html)

[DougGuy]

They won't take that long to correct an issue like this. I bet less than 3 weeks total turnaround.

[475BH]

You will be using a scope.
Your scope mounts to the barrel only.
Don't worry about it.

[dubber123]

You are probably correct in that it is overtorqued, which seems to be common. If the issue isn't readily noticeable with the scope mounted, I would suggest you carry on. If you can see it by eye, it would drive me mad, and it would have to get fixed. Many believe the overtorqueing is the cause of the common bore choke at the frame point. Have you checked for that? I have seen major improvements in accuracy when that was the issue and it gets corrected.

[Larry Gibson]

The real test of over/under torquing the barrel is if the front sight is correct aligned with the rear sight.....not the rib alignment. If you have zeroed the revolver with the iron sights the question is how many clicks left fron dead center is the rear sight? If more than 5 then the barrel is probably over torqued. If that is the case with your Ruger then the slight back out of the barrel to align the front properly with the rear sight will probably have little measureable affect on the barrel/cylinder gap.

I had the problem several years ago with my FTBH .44 of the barrel not torqued in quite enough and sent it to Ruger. Turn aroun was excellent with no charge other than shipping to them and the rvelolver zeroes with rear sight dead center or one click left now dependin on the load.

If you are mounting and using a sope it mounts on the barrel and thus any miss alignment, if any, is a moot point as mentioned.

Larry Gibson

[44man]

Looking at the fit of the rib to the frame, looks perfect to me. The barrel is machined by itself so you will find a few things that are not important.
Cross hairs canted, how did you line them up before tightening? level on a turret adjustment cap? How many scopes have cross hairs in line with a turret?
I would get the scope on straight and go shoot. Eyeballs still best to mount a scope.

[dubber123]

Kinda like I said, unless it was well off by eye, I would just go with it. The rib could be an indicator of over/under torque, or maybe not. The bore may not be centered at all, (it happens). The only way it would really bother me is if after the scope was mounted and I could visually see it was canted.

[blue360cuda]

There was a good amount of thread choke, measured with slugging lead sinkers was 0.002 to 0.003 depending on which land measurements were taken. I fire lapped it using the beartooth bullet lapping bullets, started with 18 shots at 280 grit then about 75 shots of 330 and hand lapped with 400 grit clover lapping compound. The choke is nearly 100% gone now. All cylinders measured 0.431 to 0.4315 using pin gauges. Shooting 0.431 cast boolits I was printing about 6-8 in 6 shot groups off bench with scope, Now I can keep around 2-3 inch groups with 5 out of 6 and seem to always get one flyer per 6 shots no matter how hard I try. Going to number the cylinders and try groups of 5 for each cylinder and see if there is an outlyer in the bunch.

In regards to the barrel canted, yes looking at it from the rib it looks to be on straight where it meets the frame but it's clearly not level. I may be splitting hairs but you would think it should be level to the frame and especially so since that's where the scope is mounted. For now I just leveled the cross hairs by eye and see how I feel about sending it in or stopping by the local gun smith for his opinion.

[dubber123]

If you can't see it by eye, I would let it go. I am guessing you are shooting groups at 100 yds.? 2-3" groups would make me pretty happy from a revolver, a guaranteed flyer would not. Numbering and tracking the chambers is a good idea. A friend won state silhouette championships a couple times with a Dan Wesson revolver. A one holer at 50 yards, except for one chamber.. :) He marked it and never used it in competition. It sounds like you are well on your way to a fine shooting machine. How is the trigger? They are easy to work on, and it makes a huge difference in groups.

[DougGuy]

Now I can keep around 2-3 inch groups with 5 out of 6 and seem to always get one flyer per 6 shots no matter how hard I try. Going to number the cylinders and try groups of 5 for each cylinder and see if there is an outlyer in the bunch.

Pretty common with factory cylinder throats. It's hit or miss how even they will be all the way around. This is why I always stress the most important thing with the cylinder throats is matching them all in size as close as possible. You can always size the boolits to the throats. I try to send them out within .0002" of each other. If you'd like to send the cylinder I offer a very fast turnaround time and very affordable pricing..

[blue360cuda]

Groups shot at 50 yards . . . haven't tried at 100 yet. I can shoot pretty darn well with the 240 SWK keith design cast www.dardascastbullets.com He's a fellow Michigan guy and puts out top notch boolits. Can keep them in one ugly ragged hole at 25 yds and 2-3 in at 50. Sadly he doesn't make anything heavier than 240s. I'm currently playing around with 310g Oregon Trail cast wide flat nose with 4227 and H110. Will eventually just put an order into Beartooth and just wait the 3-4 months.

Doug Guy- I'll get back with you after I do a cylinder group test and see if I have a gremlin in there. Thanks. By the way, you don't do taylor throating for 44 mag do you?

[gray wolf]

If your shooting from a good rest, and you are a good shooter,
2 to 3 inch groups at 50 yards is quite bad.

If your standing I guess it's pretty darn good.

[DougGuy]

Nosir, only for .45 caliber.

A note on your Beartooth order, not knocking Beartooth at all, but their boolits are something like BHN22 and so is the Oregon Trail. The lube on both these commercial offerings is pretty hard too. The Ruger twist is 1:20 in the .44 barrel, and the way the rifling is cut, I have found that a softer alloy, my personal favorite is 50/50+2% seems to take to this twist rate and rifling like a duck to water. Especially when paired with Felix lube.

Getting the Ruger SA to show it's best is a combination of factors. It's like when you hit on the exact right combo, oh boy do you know it. I found mine in the Lee C430-310-RF cast in the 50/50+2% and Felix lube. The 7 1/2" SBH just took an instant liking to it loaded over 17.0gr H2400. I knew in 3 rounds that I had found what the gun loves. Velocity was 1180 ~ 1200fps with this load. This is a gas checked boolit. The gas check will let you use a softer alloy with zero or near zero leading. Provided you don't have any tight throats and the forcing cone isn't a semi-angled collection of radial tool marks..

I have some of the Beartooth boolits and they don't do nearly as well as the softer alloy at the same velocity. I also found that using a modified Lee collet style factory crimp die gave me less spread over the chrony. Something about slow burning powder and heavy for caliber boolits and a hefty amount of neck tension and a stout crimp holding back on the boolit during that few nanoseconds between the primer flash wanting to push the boolit out of crimp and the powder lighting off I guess, I don't know exactly why or how, but I know it works. At least in my SBH.

Two on the left are done with the modded collet crimp die, two on right are roll crimped in the standard way by the seating die:

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb374/DougGuy/Reloading/DSC01964_zps17b81bf2.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/DougGuy/media/Reloading/DSC01964_zps17b81bf2.jpg.html)

I thought to ask about the forcing cone earlier, these wide meplat/smooth ogive boolits seem to be a perfect match to an 11° cone, if you are comfortable enough with skills and tooling you can rent the forcing cone kit from 4D rentals and do it yourself. This is mine after cutting and before polishing:

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb374/DougGuy/44%20Magnum/DSC01739_zps53352b7c.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/DougGuy/media/44%20Magnum/DSC01739_zps53352b7c.jpg.html)

You may do well to make a post in the Boolit Exchange board and ask for some samples of the Lee 310 in softer alloy to try, might even get enough to hunt with this year if the gun likes them.

[44man]

I don't like that Lee crimp and the roll crimps are way more then I use too.
The Lee has chicken scratch grooves so I raise my die with a washer made from shim stock for them.
The Lee has proven very accurate and so is the RD 265. My cone is also 11° and when I made my mold for the 330 gr I cut the ogive as close to 11° as I could get, gave me a longer nose and is why I was 10 gr off in weight but the SBH took to it like a duck to water. It is the most accurate boolit I ever shot and yes, my boolits are 22 BHN too. Guidance in the cone and cylinder pull to alignment can't get better.
Hearing about a flier all the time can also mean that piece of brass did not have the same neck tension as the rest. Set that piece aside and try another in it's place.
I am going to say that Hunter is a Bisley and sorry, you will never control the grip hold good enough to keep all shots tight. I have exactly one good group from one and I sold it in 2 weeks. I have shot many and I can't control my hold with them.
Now I know there is a love, hate affair with the grips, my side is hate.
I can't control a 29 either, I can shoot a 1/2" group at 50, put the gun down to change a target, pick it up and the next group can be 10" from the first. I sold all 5 29's. That is the reason the 29 was never, ever in the winners circle at IHMSA.
The RH grip is sad too but I can control the SRH grip good enough to hit beer cans at 200.
It is all about the individual but the better you shoot, the faster you will detect these things.
I can tell you what primers you use in your .44 if I shoot them.

[blue360cuda]

My SBH hunter is actually not a bisley grip. I had a chance to buy a bisley model used but just didnt like the way it fit my hands, it was just odd feeling. This SBH is a plow handle grip. I was thinking about getting some aftermarket grips to see if that would help, it is fairly difficult to get a consistent grip with the stock wood ones but they sure do look purdy :)
Now debating about what to do with this .44 Do you think a 0.0075 cyl gap is excessive for ruger specs? My BH 357 and 44 redhawk all have cyl gaps under 0.004. And theres the whole canted barrel thing . . .

My current set up for working accuracy loads is this: Starline brass, CCI Large pistol mag primers. H110 or IMR 4227 on hand currently and watever boolits I'm playing with. I deprime with a RCBS universal decapper, ultrasonic clean everything, dry, hand prime with the manual primer on my Forster Co-Ax press. Lyman M-Die for expanding/flaring cases, I use Lyman #55 to dump charges then trickle the last few 10ths onto a GemPro 250 digi scale (check a few with Lyman beam scale), Seat with Hornady custom II seater die, crimp with same die as second step. Thats about it, then shoot haha. When I got the first set up 250 Starline cases I set 100 aside and trimmed them all with a Forster trimmer to within 0.001 of each other, thinking it would make my crimps more uniform, dont think it made a huge difference though. What do you guys think of the RCBS crimp die? I was also thinking about getting a custom plug made for my M expander that would work better for cast boolits, similar to what they did on the beartooth website tech article. Have the first 0.25 be the sized inside diameter as a pilot to minimize run out then next step be 0.428-0.429 about 0.40 long to seat a 0.431 boolit with a little neck tension then last little bit step to 0.433 for flair

[DougGuy]

^^ 44man..

I was going to mention his methods use a hard boolit, and here is a case of his loads and practices work for him in his guns, and mine seem in a lot of ways totally opposite to what he does, and they work quite well for me in my guns. This just goes to show that there is more than one school of thought that is correct. It's not at all "this way or it won't work" it's like I said earlier, getting the Ruger to shoot well is the result of a combination of factors. There are numerous combinations that will work but it basically boils down to "for a soft boolit use this... For a harder boolit use this.." When I hit on mine, the gun just took to it like a duck to water. THE GUN will TELL YOU when you are ON or OFF in your game. And for the record, let it be stated that I totally respect 44man's skill level and knowledge with the .44, and also respect his practices and results at the loading bench. But it's fine to be different, as long as you are onto what works. Case in point, he doesn't like my crimps but hey they work for me.

And I think he uses Felix or another soft lube as well, which when I was shooting harder alloys I did not have anything but the as shipped hard magma lube that the boolit casters use for their commercially sold boolits. AND it was before I found the castboolits forum. I have learned a lot since I have been here. Both learned new things, and learned that a lot of the old things I was doing, were correct as well.

Don't be afraid to put your curiosity to the test either. It's your gun, ultimately, YOU are the bottom line in getting it to do what YOU want it to do, not what IT wants to do.

"getting it to do what YOU want it to do, not what IT wants to do." << THIS IMO, makes the shooter a shooter. You can be a technician to the 'nth degree, but do your results bear out the effort and validify the concept of what you were trying to do?

If you want a custom die to perform a certain function, have it made or get someone to mod a die you already have. I got a Uberti Old West that is just the coolest sweetest (period correct too I might add!) reproduction of an 1873 Colt and the only thing they DIDN'T faithfully copy, is it's .454" bore and the thin tall rifling that was used in the originals. they DID however copy the .4565" cylinder throat diameters, which sent me hunting for 454190 boolits that dropped large enough that I could size them to .456" and a light drag fit in the throats. To make this boolit diameter work, I needed to make a custom Lee expander plug a few thousandths larger than the factory plug for .45 Colt which is meant for .451" and .452" bullets/boolits. I also had to lap out a .454" sizing die so it would not squeeze those pretty boolits down any further than .456" So far, the lathe has made itself well worth what I paid for it.

Bottom line? It is a LOT of PITA effort to go through, JUST to get one load sorted out for one gun, but this is what the gun needed for fitment of the boolits into the cylinder, and for the brass to be correctly prepped to load this one boolit.

[DougGuy]

the roll crimps are way more then I use too.

Alloy here plays a major role in the crimping process. I doubt you could even get this much roll crimp on a boolit that is BHN22 without risking breaking the handle right off the press. The die will just stop and go no farther. Softer alloys need a stronger crimp to keep the boolit from moving as the alloy will become swaged by the crimp under heavy recoil and if there isn't enough crimp, they will pull forward. Even .010" boolit jump is enough to throw off POI because it will change the pressure according to the case volume.

One further note, I use WLP primers which are neither magnum or standard but somewhere in between from what I understand. Magnum primers can make your boolit jump crimp before the powder gets to burning well and if it does this, it will cause pressures and accuracy to be all over the map. I think 44man uses nothing but Federal 150 primers. Again, the combination of factors comes squarely into the front and center here. Change one thing, and it affects all the others.

[44man]

OK, DUMP the "M" die! You lost half the tension.
Gap does not mean a whole lot, you might lose a few FPS.
Dump the mag primers and go to the Fed 150 but CCI 300's are good in a pinch. Mag primers move the boolit out before ignition. Same result making more air space as under loading H110.
Stay with H110 and better yet is 296 for Rugers. I know, I know, same powder but the burn rate per batch is either boxed as Hodgdon or WW. I found a difference.
4227 can cause a problem with a warm gun. Hotter the .44 gets, the worse it is.
Put Pachmeyer Signature grips on the gun.
I seat and crimp everything at the same time with Hornady dies. There is no advantage doing it in two steps.
Do not over crimp, just fold to the bottom of the crimp groove and lee boolits take less.
Hornady dies make the most accurate loads.
Make the boolit tough enough to take the tension without sizing them.
The best load for the Lee 310 is 21.5 gr of 296 with a Fed 150. CCI 350's or the Fed 155 will triple groups and yeah I know the book says different. Use lower crimp groove.
The RD 265 takes 22 gr and my 330 gr uses 21 gr.
That Hunter WILL shoot and I would do nothing more.
Keep the cylinder pin and hole clean, put STP on the pin and a drop on the ratchet. I put a drop in the hole and feed the pin in as I turn the cylinder, enough will get on the front bushing too.