Is it possible/how much?

Been thinking about getting a .45 acp cylinder for my .45 colt Blackhawks. Will Ruger fit a cylinder to it, and has anyone done it? Any idea of the cost?

Ruger will only fit a 45 ACP cylinder to a 45 Colt revolver if the gun originally came as a convertible. It isn't hard to do yourself provided you can find a cylinder that is the same length as your Colt cylinder. You can fit a slightly longer cylinder, but short isn't as easy.

Bought an OM Blackhawk that only had a .45 acp cylinder, Trapr was kind enough to sell me a .45 Colt cylinder. They were close to the same length, the one I bought was a little longer. Did a little file work and it works fine. I paid $75 for the cylinder, it had a little wear on the back edge but it shoots great.

Best to call up customer service, tell them the serial number of the gun in question, as them for a quote, rememebr, shipping there AND back, parts and labor.....I recall some time back a guy told me at the show when all said and done his cost like $168.........even if you find a used one, unless you know HOW to properly install, fit and time, you can find one at the shows or place an ad here on the forum.......sometimes you get lucky and may get a "used"one the proper size, vintage, and it may "drop in"...other times you buy a "used" one and it has to be redone ( refinished) and that can get costly if it is in BAD shape, rusted, pitted, no bluing, needs to be "stretched or lengthened",etc.............

Ruger has listed on their web site many of the services they provide.

I too recommend a phone call to them. Heck, I recently emailed a question to Ruger about my LC9s Pro and was kind of surprised when 48 hours later a man from Prescott CALLED me. He told me to just pick up the phone and call any time I had a question.

That's a very personalized touch from a huge corporation.

As has been noted above - Ruger will only produce a convertible cylinder for serial numbers which left the factory as a convertible. Guys do get lucky here and there and convince Ruger they lost the 45 colt or 357mag cylinder and would rather have a 45acp or 9mm, and Ruger has gone with it, but it's few and far between at best.

The good news, is almost all Ruger cylinders will transplant into almost all Ruger Single Actions of the same frame size without much if any fitting required. So if you can find a 45acp takeoff cylinder, odds are, it will fit your BH. Of course, a LOT of us want to do the same thing, and there aren't that many 45acp cylinders to choose from (compared to say, the 9mm's), so it's not as easily done.

Another option which can be done with relative ease, however, is to find a 9mm or 357mag cylinder for a BH and have it reamed to 45acp. Costs a bit at a gunsmith, but it does work at a decent price, and good availability. I'd venture there's a handful of 357mag cylinders on ebay right now - always are.

Old Eyes,

The one caution is that Ruger makes 45 ACP cylinders in two sizes: for the large frame Blackhawks (44 Mag size) and the medium size frame of the NM Flat Top Blackhawks and New Vaqueros. If you find one, be sure it's the right sized cyl for your gun.

Varminterror said:

Another option which can be done with relative ease, however, is to find a 9mm or 357mag cylinder for a BH and have it reamed to 45acp. Costs a bit at a gunsmith, but it does work at a decent price, and good availability. I'd venture there's a handful of 357mag cylinders on ebay right now - always are.

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Rechambering would be a breeze. However, since the cylinder body of a 9mm or 357 cylinder is much shorter than the body of a 45 cylinder, the barrel/cylinder gap would be HUGE if you go this route.

As Jim pointed out above, there are two sizes of Blackhawks and Vaqueros. Among each size, Anniversary/New Vaq mid size and Blackhawk/2digit Vaq large frame, the cylinder lengths for 357 and 45 are exactly the same. So there will not be an excessive BC gap to ream a smaller bore cylinder - been there, done that.

The overall cylinder length, among each size, IS the same. The cylinder body length (not counting the ratchet and "boss"), among each size, is NOT. You might have run into a one-off that happened to be the exception, but Ruger intentionally designed the cylinder body length of each larger-bored cylinder to be longer than all smaller-bored chambering. IE, the 45 is longer than the 44 which is longer than the 41 which is longer than the 357, etc. Thus preventing somebody from putting a 45 Colt cylinder into a 357 Blackhawk and firing it, to catastrophic consequences.

Several years ago I acquired a 45 ACP cylinder (believe it may have been a Blackhawk cylinder) and fitted it to my OM 45 Vaquero. Just needed some minor file work to get a perfect fit in my Vaquero's frame. I turned out that the 45 ACP round was more accurate than my 45 Colt using a hard cast 200 gr semi wadcutter bullet over a healthy dose of WW 231. Same load I used in my 1911's. Go for it!

Jeepnik said:

Been thinking about getting a .45 acp cylinder for my .45 colt Blackhawks. Will Ruger fit a cylinder to it, and has anyone done it? Any idea of the cost?

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Look also for NMBH 357 Maximum cylinder. Not too many around, but contact some well known custom smiths, they do have them from time to time.