Ruger cylinder throats, corrected

2 dogs just fixed up both cylinders on my 45 convertible Blackhawk. Very fast turn around, and he did an excellent job. VERY reasonable cost also. There is a heck of lot of reaming to do on a 45 acp cylinder! He has been getting a bit of grief lately about not having a set price per job. The thing is though, there is more to this job than many folks realize. He has to accurately measure each throat, as many (most?) cylinders won't have all of the throats be the same size from the Ruger factory. This also means that the pilot for the reamer must be changed once, twice, or several times per cylinder. This doesn't even factor in the well known fact that Ruger steel often has very hard spots in it. I am very satisfied with the work he did for me, and the cost was much less than I would have expected. Thanks 2 dogs!

Yep,,, that 2 dogs is a good one!

I have used as many as 4 pilots on the same cylinder. This is very common. Usually two will do it. Medium framed cylinders have some of the more consistent throats that Ruger has ever produced. The majority of these 45 cylinders will use either a .4505" or a .451" pilot.

The heat treat process used on the rods that Ruger makes cylinders from is all over the map as well. Some cylinders will have throats on one side that take two hands and all the torque you can give it to force the reamer through the throats, and the other side of the same cylinder cuts like butter. I have seen this on numerous cylinders, mostly the blued steel variety is the most inconsistent but there are stainless ones too that are uneven. When you have a cylinder like this, it is impossible to cut evenly sized throats with a reamer alone and throats must be honed to final diameter. I use a Sunnen precision automotive hone for finishing throats as it is the only way to finish throats of uneven hardness to the same diameter and hold them within .0002" of each other.

Yes sir! 2 dogs got my cylinder problems fixed too. Really a class act!