cylinders won't exchange with right fit.

i have a ruger service six and after i bought it i posted of a thought of getting a spare cylinder and lots of parts. but i have decided my money can be spent on more things that i really need, i did get a few parts but no cylinders as i was afraid of them not fitting. well today i was shooting with five of my friends, we all had rugers either service, speed, or security sixes. well the question came up about spare cylinders, so we decided to try ours and just see how they would fit. the cranes would not go from gun to gun except one and it had a gap that was very noticeable, the cylinders all would fit if we used our own cranes but not fit as good as the originals, some were loose with end play others were tight and none seemed as good at lockup as the one that was fitted by ruger to our gun. so i'm glad i saved my money as there are no gunsmiths near me to help fit anything and ruger won't work on old guns anymore not even blue them. just thought i would tell my experience on this as some have got lucky and even us trying them had a few that would be ok in a have to case but none fit like it should.

The occassional lucky-exception not withstanding, cylinders have never been a "drop in" part, ever. Nor has cranes, action parts, firing pins, and/or the side plates on old school DA's. As a matter of fact, I can think of dern-little that is...leastways not on a well built gun.

Ya might get by with it on an old Roscoe though... :lol: .

DGW

The Six series guns were Ruger's "learning DA design. They work embarrassingly well, and are rock-solid largely, IMHO, due to the fact that they were essentially hand-made, if not hand-completed guns.

Cylinders and timing were often fitted one-at-a-time, and I would think my self lucky to find "drop-in" interchangeability with such mechanisms.
still any API pistolsmith worth your business can fit and time a replacement assembly.