chamber-bore alignment in regards to oversized throats

[castmiester]

Forcing cone should be short enough to guide shoulder of bullet into rifling----while chamber supports heal.

Also would a gas seal be better with a snug throat to seal the bullet ?

[Thor's Daddy]

Generally the forcing cones on production guns from the likes of Ruger, Smith & Wesson, Colt, Hawes, Interarms, Uberti, etc., work just fine straight from the factory. In certain applications a short cone may be desirable. The cones in Freedom Arms guns are short, but the 454 Casull is a nitrous funny car in a world of Ford Mustangs. Everything about a FA is built for the bullet to perform at the utmost exactitude. But the owners of such arms pay good money for such precision. They have no excuse on the firing line and they know it.

Truth be told, most guys can't outshoot a box stock Ruger. It takes years of disciplined shooting to even begin to scratch the surface of ability. Many get lured into bigger and " better" cartridges when they should humble themselves to the diminutive 22LR.

But what fun is that?

It's easier to blame the gun, but it's not any more honest.

[castmiester]

Guess I'm just spoiled with rifle shooting. But it took awhile to figure out what I wasn't doing to shoot accurately and it wasn't me. Concentric and straight ammo was the issue. Revolvers are a different animal. With rifles you can get really close to the throat unlike a revolver. And a revolver exposes the rounds internal ballistics unlike a rifle.

[stubshaft]

The problem with mis-alignment is that the bullet shoulder will strike the forcing cone distorting the concentricity of the bullet and causing an imbalance of the axis.

[castmiester]

The problem with mis-alignment is that the bullet shoulder will strike the forcing cone distorting the concentricity of the bullet and causing an imbalance of the axis.

I can't see why you guys are hung up on a cast shoulder. A bullet that doesn't land square in the cone is one thing, from misalignment.

[DougGuy]

I can't see why you guys are hung up on a cast shoulder. A bullet that doesn't land square in the cone is one thing, from misalignment.

Don't make a mountain out of a molehill. Size your boolits to fill your throats with a drag fit and let the gun do the worrying. The forcing cone is not to "funnel" the boolit into the bore, it will push and rotate the cylinder into the alignment that offers the least resistance, that's it's job.

[castmiester]

Don't make a mountain out of a molehill. Size your boolits to fill your throats with a drag fit and let the gun do the worrying. The forcing cone is not to "funnel" the boolit into the bore, it will push and rotate the cylinder into the alignment that offers the least resistance, that's it's job.

I already know about sizing bullets to the throat, but what confuses me now is, on your part, about the forcing cone aligning the bullet by rotating the cylinder. So then there's no reason to filling the throats then? Sounds a bit contradictive.

I get what you're saying about alignment and the job of the forcing cone.

Even with a worn cylinder stop, the cone takes up for that ?

[Outpost75]

Taylor throating....

[castmiester]

Taylor throating....

barrel has to come off the gun ?

[Outpost75]

barrel has to come off the gun ?

Yes.

[castmiester]

Yes.

any cutter that doesn't require the barrel coming off the gun ? I saw a cutter that faces the cone on you tube, but no chamfer tool that increases the angle.

[Thor's Daddy]

Goodness, now we're to recutting the forcing cone and Taylor throating?

When you get tired of needlessly throwing money at this poor gun (and you still can't get it to shoot), please remember... I would love to take it off your hands. It'd make a helluva 45 Colt.

[DougGuy]

I already know about sizing bullets to the throat, but what confuses me now is, on your part, about the forcing cone aligning the bullet by rotating the cylinder. So then there's no reason to filling the throats then? Sounds a bit contradictive.

I get what you're saying about alignment and the job of the forcing cone.

Even with a worn cylinder stop, the cone takes up for that ?

Yes. The boolit begins to exit the cylinder throat, it comes into contact on one side usually, this creates resistance on that side that causes the cylinder to turn away from the resistance which usually aligns it to the bore. I don't suggest bigger cylinder pins either, for the same reason, so the forcing cone can move the cylinder up (or down) as necessary to lessen the resistance.

When they align bore a cylinder to a frame, they take the barrel off and there is a mandrel that screws into the frame to mark or bore the cylinder and i have seen photos where a smith will use the front screw hole and put a screw in the hole to push the cylinder upward and hold it during align boring b/c when the gun recoils, the cylinder pushes forward and upward as the gun recoils so your align bore is figured with recoil taken into account and compensated for accordingly. At least this is my understanding of it.

You can put aftermarket doo dads in a Ruger to tighten it up, and without align boring and full gunsmith fitted parts it will eventually shoot loose again so it's best to leave the base pin and cylinder latch stock. You can't make a Rolex out of a Timex.


barrel has to come off the gun ?

I don't take them off I use a Taylor throat reamer that fits in the frame window and is turned by the same rod and handle that is used to cut the forcing cone or face off the end of the barrel. This has to be done in person, b/c I can't receive the frame with serial number on it, and I won't loan that reamer out, it cannot be replaced not sure it can even be sharpened.

Story I got was that Nick at Clymer made those and he said he would never make any more of them.


I see gas cutting the sides of the bullet, maybe not the base with a gas check. Am I wrong ?

Target velocities that might not obturate a load to fit oversize throats might suffer with or without a gas check. Magnum loads like the Lee C430-310-RF over full house magnum loads will try to shove the base of the boolit (including the gas check) upward through the nose and this causes the boolit to "bump up" or obturate to fill the throats, the gas check is fairly soft and it will bump also within reason, the sides of the gas check cup will be bumped outward by the weight of the lead pushing in all directions and the pressure pushing it upward and outward until the walls of the cylinder throat stops it's obturation.

Gas checks work better when there is a heavy for caliber, softer alloy boolit on top of them. Super hard alloys with a gas check stub that is too small like the Lee mold often drops makes the gas check fit loose on the stub and the commercial gas checks I have used have been Hornady (.430") they may not fill the bore b/c the boolit doesn't bump up which wouldn't be pushing the cup of the gas check outward like slugging it up into a soft alloy.

It would be interesting to see two gas checks fired with the same load, one a hard boolit, and one soft, recover the boolits from a dirt berm look at the gas checks and see if the soft alloy left deeper rifling on the gas check than the hard alloy did, both .430" Hornady gas checks, Lee C430-310-RF boolit. This would (to me) verify my explanation of how gas checks work in the above paragraphs.

[castmiester]

Thanks Doug for the info. I made a folder to store these posts.

This is a hard pill to swallow.......especially the bold underlined Italics.

Magnum loads like the Lee C430-310-RF over full house magnum loads will try to shove the base of the boolit (including the gas check) upward through the nose and this causes the boolit to "bump up" or obturate to fill the throats, the gas check is fairly soft and it will bump also within reason, the sides of the gas check cup will be bumped outward by the weight of the lead pushing in all directions and the pressure pushing it upward and outward until the walls of the cylinder throat stops it's obturation.

and this explanation.... makes it clear, which I'm sure you mentioned before.

Cast bullets get sized to throat diameter or slightly under because oversized bullets run the risk of raising chamber pressure rather significantly

Again I appreciate your time and effort explaining things.

[El Bibliotecario]

...most guys can't outshoot a box stock Ruger. It takes years of disciplined shooting to even begin to scratch the surface of ability...

That's certainly a breath of fresh air! I would speculate many of the minute tweaks on handguns and ammunition are overshadowed by human error. I suspect they are an aspect of the American culture's propensity for trying to fix behavioral problems with technological fixes.

[castmiester]

That's certainly a breath of fresh air! I would speculate many of the minute tweaks on handguns and ammunition are overshadowed by human error. I suspect they are an aspect of the American culture's propensity for trying to fix behavioral problems with technological fixes.

I hate to pee on your parade but eliminating technical problems factors them out. I blamed my self for years, until found out a couple of loading practices that the culprit. So you’re dead wrong!

[Thor's Daddy]

That's certainly a breath of fresh air! I would speculate many of the minute tweaks on handguns and ammunition are overshadowed by human error. I suspect they are an aspect of the American culture's propensity for trying to fix behavioral problems with technological fixes.

Don't get me wrong. There are aspects of guns and ammo that are incredibly important. A good trigger is hard to do without. Bullet fit, lube choice, certain things really are important. And there are bullet designs out there that are either not very good, or their rather mission-specific and you may be asking it to do something it wasn't designed for. The wrong bullet can make you think there's something wrong with your gun.

I once loaded up a bunch of rounds for my 475L with 400gr cast slugs with a charge of HP-38 that would have them chugging out the muzzle at a sedate 950fps. Everything was great until targets got past 50 yards. By 75 yards I was getting patterns, by 100... wow, I was really perplexed. About the third trip to the range I was about to lose my mind, is there something REALLY wrong with my gun? my sights? Me? Then realized I had some similarly loaded 400gr Deep Curls in my bag. Ten, to be exact. Sat my butt down at 50 yards. Knees up, forearms on thighs, lined everything up and lit the switch. Couldn't see a hole in the target, but the impact on the berm looked OK-ish. Carefully worked my way through the remaining four rounds in the gun, got up and slowly walked up to the target. And there, nestled in the black, a nice tidy group that you could cover with a teacup. I about melted.

Those cast slugs craved velocity. Did fine at 1,100fps, 1250, 1350, but fell apart at distance when run too slow. I just consider it a lesson learned.

The problem is you have to know when it's you and when it's the gun. I poured thousands of rounds of rimfire through my Smith 617 before ever touching a round of centerfire. Years later the ratio is still probably 50:1 or greater, rimfire:centerfire. You have to learn the basics of technique and make it repeatable. Problems arise when a novice buys a big magnum and can only manage 6-inch groups at 7 yards. Guns a piece of junk, he exclaims! It's not the gun at 7 yards. It's not the gun at 50 feet. It might not be the gun at 25 yards. I've played that game before. Left the range shaking. TOO MUCH GUN! Whoo!! Nerves fried like I just drank ALL the coffee. A man's gotta know his abilities AND his limitations. But you've got to start with finding your abilities, and be honest about where they lie.

[Thor's Daddy]

I hate to pee on your parade but eliminating technical problems factors them out. I blamed my self for years, until found out a couple of loading practices that the culprit. So you’re dead wrong!

So, essentially, you were blaming your shooting, when you should have been blaming your loading. I'm not so sure that El Bib is all that wrong.

One practice that I've found helpful is to have a standard load I can fall back on that I KNOW works well in my gun (in rifles I tend to stack things up against factory ammo). That way I can pull some of those out of the bag and run them to see if I've got an issue, or if I'm just having an off day. The cool thing is there are KNOWN LOADS for almost every handgun cartridge. Tried and true recipes of bullet/powder/primer that seem to work in damn near any gun you care to run them in. That's why certain recipes get names. The Skeeter load in the 44 Special. The Keith load in 44 Mag. The Bill Wilson load in the 45APC. Loads that work. They might not be barn burners, but they're good loads to have on hand to test a new gun, or to test a new load against.

[castmiester]

I installed a peep sight and am sure that will help POA and POI

I've been shooting too long to blame my shooting skills. An undersized bullet in an oversized barrel isn't my fault, seeing no copper in the grooves and after slugging the barrel it proved it wasn't my fault having a target that looks like a scatter gun hit it . I hope that helps.

[castmiester]

Don't make a mountain out of a molehill. Size your boolits to fill your throats with a drag fit and let the gun do the worrying. The forcing cone is not to "funnel" the boolit into the bore, it will push and rotate the cylinder into the alignment that offers the least resistance, that's it's job.

So when you pinned my cylinder you were seeing consistent throats.... .4325 all the way around the cylinder?