Throating Hardened Barrels With Carbide

[M-Tecs]

Even with the same manufacture some models the barrels are hardened, and some are not. In some cases, the older models were not hardened, and the new ones are.

[Bigslug]

I will say this about the industry. They DO NOT want you to use handloads, they DO NOT care if their barrel will only accept the majority of factory ammo, this is how they deter you from shooting cast handloads and they along with the ammo manufacturers are good with that.

Not to disparage Doug's services in the slightest - because, face it, the revolver cylinders often need a lot of work - but I think the two part answer to the concerns of this thread is:

1. Just how badly do you REALLY need to shoot THIS bullet in THIS autoloader?

2. Select bullet molds that address the issue of short throats.

One of my flights of fancy - that I am not alone in - was to load Elmer Keith's 452423 .45 Auto Rim revolver bullet for the 1911. It's heavier than ideal, has more meplat than is ideal, and to the point of this post, has a long shank ending in a chunky front driving band that has to be submerged more deeply than ideal into the case in order for the bullet to chamber in anything like a standard .45ACP throat. Made it work, but at the end of the day, the decision was that it was, well, less than ideal. Another way to look at it would be to say that the resulting cartridge was no longer a .45ACP, and we really shouldn't be shocked that .45ACP pistols have other preferences.

Having gotten that out of my system, I've shifted to LFN/WFN style bullets intended to seat so the shank and ogive intersect at the case mouth with an ogive taper that clears the throat. An alternative option is a similar profile but with a slightly stepped-down nose, such as the Accurate Molds 45-230F, or, to go classic, the HG68. To use my previous example - make the gun think it's actually shooting .45ACP. I totally understand the desire for weird science - and for that we have custom/customizable aftermarket barrels - but if the object is simply to send an effective cast projectile downrange from a SAAMI/CIP cartridge in a SAAMI/CIP chamber, we have A LOT of useable bullet profiles to choose from. In addition to clearing the throat, you need a nose and COAL that will feed, combined with a shank that leaves you room for powder, so there's really only so much innovative ground you can tread in making A work in B.

We may be living in an age of diamond-hard barrels, but we're also in a Golden Age of choices for molds, up to and including Accurate who - in the astronomically small chance Tom doesn't have a design in his catalog that will work for you already - will blueprint out and cut ONE mold for YOU, adding it to that same catalog for the next guy. Since Doug is staring at the economics of cutting these hardened modern tubes and declaring it unfeasible, the obvious answer seems a software fix (mold and ammo) rather than a hardware fix (gun).

[DougGuy]

Are you running into hardened revolver cylinders? If so, any problems with the hone cutting them?

I never heard of a manufacturing process hardened revolver cylinder. Maybe heat treated yes.

Ruger gets long rods shipped in via rail car, they use these to make their cylinders. Hardness within these rods varies greatly, all over the map, very inconsistent, so what I have ran into a BUNCH, is Ruger cylinders that are very unevenly tempered, sometimes half the throats in a cylinder will ream normally with a Manson cylinder throater, and then the throats on the other half of it will fight you tooth and nail, the reamer will be near impossible to turn, it will squawk loudly, you will think you are going to twist the shank right off the reamer. This is VERY common reaming Ruger 44 and 45 caliber cylinders, rarely encountered this in lesser calibers. Sometimes only one or two throats will be difficult, sometimes all 6 throats will be a booger bear trying to ream.

The downside of a cylinder that gets reamed with a throating reamer where some of the throats cut harder than others, is the harder throats will finish smaller. This is the main reason that I totally abandoned reaming cylinder throats with a reamer, and started using the Sunnen hone. The uneven cylinders will take longer on the harder throats, but they are pretty easy to finish within .0001" to .0002" of each other. You CANNOT do this with a reamer, and hope to turn out a cylinder with consistently sized throats.

[DougGuy]

One of my flights of fancy - that I am not alone in - was to load Elmer Keith's 452423 .45 Auto Rim revolver bullet for the 1911. It's heavier than ideal, has more meplat than is ideal, and to the point of this post, has a long shank ending in a chunky front driving band that has to be submerged more deeply than ideal into the case in order for the bullet to chamber in anything like a standard .45ACP throat. Made it work, but at the end of the day, the decision was that it was, well, less than ideal.

The thread outlining your struggles as mentioned here was already several pages long about the time I started offering barrel throating, so I was late to the party on that one, and had you been able to get that barrel throated, it would feed your 452423 like a Singer sewing machine, seated out as long as you could go with it and still fit it into the magazine. Char Gar has posted his very positive experience with the same boolit and a throated barrel in his 1911 a couple of times in replying to various threads that relate.

We may be living in an age of diamond-hard barrels, but we're also in a Golden Age of choices for molds, up to and including Accurate who - in the astronomically small chance Tom doesn't have a design in his catalog that will work for you already - will blueprint out and cut ONE mold for YOU, adding it to that same catalog for the next guy. Since Doug is staring at the economics of cutting these hardened modern tubes and declaring it unfeasible, the obvious answer seems a software fix (mold and ammo) rather than a hardware fix (gun).

Incorrect. I disagree on this point because your solution fails to address the root cause of the failures to go into battery, failures to feed smoothly with a shorter COA, compensating load data for a shorter COA, etc. The most practical approach at this point is to use an aftermarket SS barrel that can be throated and you are then free from all of the problems inherent in seating deeper to pass the plunk test.

The 9mm Luger is already a high pressure cartridge, manipulating COA and load data can very easily lead to a simple mistake that could cause a catastrophic event, it needs all the help it can get. You should read up on Jerry Keefer's philosophy concerning throating barrels. It's interesting reading and ultimately practical pistolsmithing.

[charlie b]

My HK is one of those that is a problem. Nitride treated barrel. No throat. So, no cast for it. If I want to shoot cast it is a conventional barrel with a throat. But, since I shoot cast in my wife's Commander the 9mm is reserved for copper bullets.

[gloob]

I wonder if you couldn't just partially size the nose end of your boolits to jacketed OD, making them a "bore rider" shape. Seems like this would be trivial to do, only requiring 1-3 thousandths of sizing. But would they shoot?

[charlie b]

The problem with not having a throat is the sharp edges of the rifling scraping off the powder coat or scraping lead off the bullet.

[GONRA]

DougGuy - GONRA real appreciates yer Detailed Post (s)!
Learned a LOT ! THANX

When you say "CARBIDE" do you had any additional info ?
(Lottsa "CARBIDES" used in cuttin' tools! Weird coatings too!)

[FergusonTO35]

Doug throated and crowned my Taurus G3C and now it shoots boolits lights out. Gave it some exercise today and this way less than $300 pistol was trying to put them in the same hole but the dummy pulling the trigger spoiled it. The G3C is on sale for $209.00 at Rural King right now. You can buy one and have Doug work his magic on it and still be under three bills total.

[Tokarev]

If the steel is not TN or TCN coated it can be removed by electrolysis, no matter the hardness. It's not going to be as straightforward as reaming but it is doable. One day, I am sure, someone will develop the process.

[alamogunr]

Approx. 5 years ago I inquired of DougGuy about throating a S&W Shield that they were offering rebates on. He told me then that they had the super hard barrels and it wasn't worth trying to throat them. Sounds like little has changed.

[M-Tecs]

If the steel is not TN or TCN coated it can be removed by electrolysis, no matter the hardness. It's not going to be as straightforward as reaming but it is doable. One day, I am sure, someone will develop the process.

Lots of available processes to do this. Not so much for cost effective methods.

[edp2k]

deleted

[Tokarev]

No production EDM machines exist that can enclose a rifle barrel in the bath. Pistol barrels should be OK.
But since rifling is often done by electrolysis these days production equipment already exists that can be repurposed for the throating.

[truckjohn]

Yeah, there are barrels that just won't shoot cast as they show up. I've got two. No matter what I do with them, they lead like mad. My solution was to shoot J-words.

It's a shame that many manufacturers do this. I doubt it has anything to do with preventing reloading or blocking cast. More likely to reduce warranty complaints or safety problems because of the design of their guns. Using properly heat treated alloy steel goes a long way to reduce fatigue failures. This is an important consideration with smaller guns that have less mass to soak up force and thus rely on super stiff, short springs.

Also, many police/government duty gun purchase contracts have specifications for minimum barrel life, and those untreated barrels won't meet them. The last thing The Big Boys want is to eat a pile of warranty returns for wrecked barrels. The hard coatings and heat treatments are a great way to increase the wear life while using steels that are well suited to modern gun barrel manufacturing processes.