Cylinder size maters

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  • Last Post 07 April 2016
rmrix posted this 10 March 2016

Any of you that know something about revolver accuracy please chime in. Being mostly a rifleman, I know next to nothing. Short story coming...

I am going to try my hand at 100 meter silhouette matches with a Ruger 44 Super Blackhawk. I shoot the local monthly lever rifle  matches as time allows and there is a small bunch of people that enter twice, once in pistol caliber Lever rifle class and just for kicks shoot the same course with a single action revolver - local match restriction on firearms to keep the event from turning into unlimited. So just SA revolver is competing.

  So.... I have a 1970's era Super BH that I plinked the daylights out of when I was young and foolish. PLEASE! No need to tell me I am still foolish. Tho it may be true.

 - OK. I have gun - I'm good to go.

On a whim, I cleaned and pin-gauged the cylinders on my old friend.  After all, accuracy counts. Maybe I'll learn something.  BTW- I envision I will be shooting a light load -maybe like  5-6 grains of Universal or Unique pushing a 250 grain SWC.

Getting back to the subject, the cylinder; The holes are big on the exit side of the cylinders! The good news, at least they all felt very close to the same size!

I worked my way up through the pins to 0.432” GO, 0.433” NO GO.

So, .......... What would you think about shooting my largest diameter bullet? It  is out of round 0.429"-0.430"? OR? Do I need to buy a larger bullet mould?

Learning that the cylinders are as large as they are got me going!  So. I got out my few other 44's. The Uberti Model P blackpowder 44 Special cylinder was smaller -   0.430” GO  -  0.431” NO GO   all cylinders Hmmmm, OK

My last 44, a Smith Model 696 44 Special goes smaller yet! all cylinders - 0.428” GO -  0.429” NO GO.

I'm not sure where my question is exactly but at the least, is that a size difference that is too large to be covered by the same bullet sized the to the same diameter? And for best accuracy would I want a larger bullet the Ruger?

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rmrix posted this 07 April 2016

R. Dupraz wrote: rmrix:   "I may recast the bullets I made with the hardware nuts on them. I was troubled after casting them because they sit down tight on the top of the mold. I do not want to score the tops of the mold blocks."     Use brass cone nuts to set on top of the mold instead. OK. I had a different idea. Instead of spending more $$ I am using available resources. BTW - thank you for pointing me at the WEET info. Very good read.

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R. Dupraz posted this 07 April 2016

rmrix:   “I may recast the bullets I made with the hardware nuts on them. I was troubled after casting them because they sit down tight on the top of the mold. I do not want to score the tops of the mold blocks."     Use brass cone nuts to set on top of the mold instead.

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rmrix posted this 06 April 2016

OK! I looked it over. I should say I found it after working my way backwards up through the search links. Never one to go front to back!

I found a lot of good reading and variations on how to do it. Some great points to be learned from. I may recast the bullets I made with the hardware nuts on them. I was troubled after casting them because they sit down tight on the top of the mold. I do not want to score the tops of the mold blocks.

I really like the idea of not having to cast, lap, clean, cast, lap, clean....

Weet did a good job of walking the reader through the process!

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gpidaho posted this 06 April 2016

RD beat me to it. Read up on the “Weet” method. Gp

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R. Dupraz posted this 05 April 2016

You don't have to heat, cast, cool, try, heat, cast, cool, try every time when lapping out a mold. Only at the beginning and end. The “Weet” method.        Valve grinding compound, two tube pack. One course and one fine. About an hour or so if you stay away from the Makers Mark and don't dally.

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Ken Campbell Iowa posted this 05 April 2016

HERE IS WHAT I WOULD USE::

FOR 0.002 plus dia. increase ........200-300 grit. for 0.001 increase...................400 grit.

800-1200 grit ... too slow except for a polish you don't need .

ken

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rmrix posted this 05 April 2016

I am ready to lap out the RCBS 44 - 250 KT I want to cast round bullets at least 0.432” and 0.433” would be even better. I cast a few bullet with hardware nuts cast on top - instead of using the top plate. Some years ago, OK, a lot of years ago, I did this with a NEI aluminum mold. Worked well except for the stop, clean, heat and cast. Lap some more, repeat until correct size is reached. I do not remember the grade of compound. Maybe I used LBT firelap. Can't remember.

If lapping an IRON mold I wonder if it is going to take about the same time to remove a few thousandths or longer being iron, ....given the same grit size.

Not sure if I should start with something coarse?

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rmrix posted this 02 April 2016

Yes, ...there is a lot of drama with Black Powder. I enjoy it but I think for me the less variables to deal with the better, so I can focus on sight picture and squeeze.

HP-38 powder is in the realm of fast powder. 40-1 is soft alloy. I will just keep at load development and I will also try lapping out one cavity of the two cavity mold and see if I can get to 0.433” and round. A proper size bullet can't hurt!

I think that will help a lot and then alloy/hardness will not make as much a difference either.

At this point, I will not be shooting different loads which eliminate the need to change sights. Good idea, tho I have done that with rifle loads in 25-20 and it works well. In doing that, just need to make sure you are shooting the chicken/pig ammo at chickens or pigs! I've shown up to the line with the wrong ammo box ready to go when the RO said “READY". That is a goat rope.

At this point I will settle for one good load.

Thanks for the input.... !!

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RicinYakima posted this 30 March 2016

Michael,

For me, 12 shots is pushing it for accuracy without a pail of water, nylon brush, dry patches and a towel to clean me up. Takes me about 3 minutes to do that, and I don't know how much time you have between relays.

Ric

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gunarea posted this 30 March 2016

Hey rmrix      2004, 2005 NRA Hunters Pistol Big Bore Iron sight division, Florida Sunshine State Shooting Competition. Back to back gold medals, running home cast projectiles through my old SBH three screw. RicinYakima hit it on the nose, soft cast. For proper obturation, a fast pressure spike propellant is needed. Distance specific ammunition was my choice of options. Three different cast projectiles were used to eliminate sight changes. All loadings were sub-sonic, and marked with a Sharpie for easy identification.      2004 won using Alliant Red Dot, 2005 won using Alliant Promo. All cast projectiles from Lyman moulds in 215gr SW, 245gr SW and 315gr SW. The big bullet needs a heavy crimp to avoid dislodging neighbors under fire.      Just an amusing anecdote, after knocking feet off of two different Ram targets, complaint of over powered ammunition brought forth judges to examine everything I had with me. Upon finding nothing but cast bullets, it was determined the welds must have been at fault. My Ram load is 6.1gr Red dot/Promo pushing the 315gr Keith type SW. Good horn hits spun the target wildly while other good hits knocked Rams back 25 feet.      I would provide my winning load combination to any whom would like the data. Working the loads to gold medal level was by far the most rewarding for me. There is one more secret weapon which I provide to those who compete in Big Bore Iron Sights against me. Let me know when you are ready. Best of skill to you.                                                  Roy       

Shoot often, Shoot well

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rmrix posted this 30 March 2016

RicinYakima wrote: It still works but most don't like the mess of cleaning every other cylinder full.I'm am not sure I can keep the revolver running smooth over the 40 shot coarse. I can keep the cylinder turning if that is all but I bet there will be more to it.

I've put more than 50 ea at a time through my 45 Colt and 44 Special with BP but it was close range can shooting. Plus, I don't remember the down side because I was having fun and we only remember the fun parts!    That may be the limiting factor in spite of it being fun and having a pleasant base drum boom.

In addition to lock up, accuracy may drop off too.   Not sure. I've only fired these ten at paper and from rest.

Likely, if I can get good accuracy with this revolver out the the undersized bullet and BP, I can get accuracy from a correct sized bullet and smokeless.   That may be the better choice for match shooting.

But, I'm pretty sure I will practice run through the course of fire (40) with the BP just for the fun of it and see what happens.

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RicinYakima posted this 30 March 2016

That is exactly the way they did it in the 1800's! Soft bullets, black powder and obduration. It still works but most don't like the mess of cleaning every other cylinder full.

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rmrix posted this 30 March 2016

I got a chance to shoot this 44 Revolver with the large .432” cylinder today. Not much accuracy to really get excited about. My soft RCBS 250 KT bullets shot 3” 25 meters groups and about double that for 50 meters.

I set out steel swingers at the correct ranges in order to get rough sight settings by going to zero or all the way down on the rear sight and counting clicks back up. This was made easy because I was at the 100 meter silhouette range where we hold the pistol caliber lever rifle matches.

I also set up paper targets at 25, 50 and 100 meters to check for group. And, in case anybody is wondering, I did not shoot enough of any one load to make any kind of statistical dent in real data.

The size of main part of the 100meter steel silhouettes targets are Chicken-3” , Pig-4.5", Turkey-5” and Ram - 6+ inches, all measured belly to back. So targets are about 6 moa vertical.

Clearly, my smokeless loads need some help but on a whim I had loaded ten black powder rounds with the same bullet and fired all of them into the 25y paper target.

I fired them in two five shot groups on the same bull. I guess I took a break after five to ponder the nice little knot of holes. The first five were incredibly tight printing at 9:00 and the second group had vertical and additional windage flyers. BUT, the 10 shots together cut any and all the smokeless load groups by half!

Hmmmm, shooting an undersized, soft bullet with blackpowder; it might not be the answer but in this case I say it is worth looking into until I can lap out the bands on the mold.

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rmrix posted this 13 March 2016

Ed Harris wrote: You might also try 7 grains of Bullseye and see if the bullets slug up more uniformly with the alloy you are using. I've had good luck with it. WST is another good choice if you can find any. I use 7.2 grains of Bullseye in both my .44-40 and .44 Magnum Rugers and cast with 1:30 tin/lead from Roto Metals. Good idea, I can try that too.  I dug around my lead pile and found some very soft Pb-Sn on the order of 40-1.

I have Bullseye and HP-38 and very little clays.  I will give it a try. Might be just the answer.

That bullet Print looks like a very good design to have made in custom band size. Being cheap, I may have to exhaust all available resources. Then, do the correct thing and buy a good mold. 

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rmrix posted this 13 March 2016

Old Coot wrote: rmrix, Sorry I misspoke when I typed in the size to have Eric open your mould to.  I was pretty tired and sleepy.  But, you were able to figure it out any way. B

Not a problem - I was on top of the size thing.

I may try to open up one of my molds. I would try that on a LEE mold first but got rid of them all except for a fulll WC 44 bullet. Not too interested in a full WC for 100yd shooting  .>.

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rmrix posted this 13 March 2016

Ric, Yes, I think I will try going very soft to see what happens.

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Tom Acheson posted this 11 March 2016

Odd....in my S&W Model 57 .41 Mag. I found that 7.0 of Bullseye worked well with a H&G Keith Type plain base 220-grain bullet.

Tom

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Ed Harris posted this 11 March 2016

You might also try 7 grains of Bullseye and see if the bullets slug up more uniformly with the alloy you are using. I've had good luck with it. WST is another good choice if you can find any.

In the .44 Magnum I've had good luck at long range, 100 yards revolver, 200 yards rifle, using Accurate 43-230EB which is a modified John Kort design intended for the .44-40 using black powder.  Its traditional nose shape carries up very well at long rifle range and the longer shank length also takes up some of the excess free airspace in the case when using light charges of fast-burning powders. 

I use 7.2 grains of Bullseye in both my .44-40 and .44 Magnum Rugers and cast with 1:30 tin/lead from Roto Metals.

Good hunting bullet too!

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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Brodie posted this 11 March 2016

rmrix, Sorry I misspoke when I typed in the size to have Eric open your mould to.  I was pretty tired and sleepy.  But, you were able to figure it out any way. B

B.E.Brickey

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Tom Acheson posted this 11 March 2016

Just a look back some history with the Ruger SBH as used in handgun silhouette matches. In the late 70's and early 80's the most popular revolver for use in the IHMSA Revolver category was the Ruger SBH in .44 Mag. Most shooters used jacketed bullets and WW 296 or H-110 powder. For the few of us that used CB's, the conclusion was that the the CB had to be sized at 0.432”. The favorite rumor at the time was that the lawyers (I bet Ed Harris has a comment here) at Ruger were nervous about hand-loaders so the inside barrel dimensions were supposedly made on the “generous” side. I can't recall anyone getting into the cylinder throat dimensions in that era that we see so prevalent today. The oversize bore was there for jacketed and CB shooters. Maybe that is why perfect scores of 40x40 were infrequent until the Freedom Arms revolvers appeared on the scene?     Tom

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