44 Dan Wesson Misery

[JohnH]

This spring I bought a stainless Dan Wesson 6" heavy barrel vent rib. Beautiful handgun. But the barrel leads like the dickens. I'm using 45-45-10 for lube and shooting straight ACWW and 5 grains of Red Dot for about 800 fps. Every other gun I'm using this same lube and alloy in I have zero problems, that's a RIA 1911 45, a Ruger BH 45 Colt a Contender 357 and 44 a Rossi M92 357. I finally pulled the barrel last night to get it clean, the forcing cone shows tool marks but is otherwise smooth. The rifling appears quite sharp, the gun was a safe queen, I know the man bought the gun new and he tells me he's fired not over 2 boxes of ammo through it. I'm beginning to think two things, try changing lube to see if that makes a difference and/or running a pile of jacketed through it to smooth it up a bit. Following the latter course, do you think that 1000 fps loads will be enough to do the job I'm seeking or should I try higher velocity loads? Other than those two things what can I do to smooth the gun up some? Thanks.

[Thumbcocker]

Bore and cylinder slug diameters?

[waco]

Bore and cylinder slug diameters?

Yeah. Size to cylinder throats. Have you considered a more traditional lube? Just asking. I have had some luck with 45-45-10
BLL is worlds better IMHO.
What boolit are you shooting? And yes. A few hundred J words will help smooth out some of the roughness of the barrel.

[JohnH]

Bore and cylinder slug diameters? Cylinder throats mike at 4305, that is using a small hole gage then a 0-1 mic graduated to .0001. I have not slugged the barrel but with calipers the lands measure .430 at the muzzle. I'm using the Lee 429200 RF from a 6 cavity mold, the boolits drop out of round 432-435. I use this same boolit it the Contender, an NEF 44 and a Rossi M92 44 with no problems. As well, have shot the boolit quite a bit from Neighbors Ruger RedHawk. The Dan Wesson is the only gun giving trouble.

[JohnH]

Yeah. Size to cylinder throats. Have you considered a more traditional lube? Just asking. I have had some luck with 45-45-10
BLL is worlds better IMHO.
What boolit are you shooting? And yes. A few hundred J words will help smooth out some of the roughness of the barrel. Prolly gonna lube some up with Felix lube and see what I get.

[DougGuy]

Sounds like a good candidate for throat reaming for using either .431" or .432" boolits and the barrel being removable makes it very easy to recut the forcing cone and clean up the tool marks. There are some DW pics on my facebook page of work in progress.

Sizing the throats to .4315" or .4325" and recutting the forcing cone and a nice crown would improve it immensely.

[PS Paul]

I do believe Doug is on the right track.... Chamber/throat reaming, but you should still slug the barrel. Could be a frame restriction to only complicate matters.

[Victor N TN]

A long time ago when I was shooting IPSC... a lot! I bought a Lewis Lead remover. They still make them and they aren't all that expensive. Get the barrel spotlessly clean and hand lap the barrel. That'll take care of 70 to 80% of the problem. Don't use the fire lapping stuff on a pistol. On pistol barrels I've heard bad stuff.

[DougGuy]

Well, there won't be any thread constriction on a DW as the barrel is just a liner inside of a shroud. If the throats are undersized, it will lead the daylights out of the bore even if everything else is perfect. Firelapping won't hurt the barrel unless you REALLY overdo it. It won't correct tight throat diameters, and it won't "fix" a poorly cut forcing cone, but it won't hurt it.

Attempting to lap a barrel in a revolver with undersize throats will only cause the lapping boolits to be sized down too small to actually do any lapping once they enter the bore.

[runfiverun]

i'd just try some larger diameter boolits.
or softening the alloy up some.
the powder timing could just be off a little and the larger/softer alloy could help fix things.
try a few unsized and tumble lubed then decide.

[fourarmed]

I agree with Runfiverun. Add some pure lead to your wheelweights. Maybe try Felix lube, too.

[SSGOldfart]

You'll never Get It FIXED,Put it in a Box and ship it to my FFL,I bet in two minutes I'll have it shooting new. Oh don't worry I'll send you a little check for your time and trouble shipping it for me;-):kidding: