7 shot .357 GPs - a fix for the rimlock?

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Thel

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The 7 shots are supposed to suffer from rim lock with certain brands of cartridges. Interestingly, over on the other board someone commented he had a 7 shot in at Ruger suffering from the problem and the technician had said they had a "fix" for the problem that was implemented sometime after last November. Be interesting to hear from someone with one of the "new" 7 shooters as to whether that is the case.
 
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It would indeed.

Apparently Ruger's response was "Yes, we have a fix for that now, but it will require switching the gun out for one of our new production models, so please send it to us".

The person in question has said he'll report on the situation when he receives his replacement.

:mrgreen:
 

dbarale

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Just bumping this to see if there's any new information. I really like the 2.5" 7shot, but if it's ammo sensitive, it's useless to me.
 
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Captain America said:
Since this has been bumped, anyone here have this issue? I have a hard time believing a Ruger employee said that they have a "fix" for a "problem"...

Yeah. I got that line from another post, and wondered about it at the time. There has been so much BS bantered around about this issue it's hard to tell what's up. Guess we'll have to see what develops as more folks report their experiences.

:roll:
 

dbarale

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Captain America said:
Since this has been bumped, anyone here have this issue? I have a hard time believing a Ruger employee said that they have a "fix" for a "problem"...

I just fail to see what the fix could be?
 
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dbarale said:
Captain America said:
Since this has been bumped, anyone here have this issue? I have a hard time believing a Ruger employee said that they have a "fix" for a "problem"...

I just fail to see what the fix could be?

It's pretty certain that the "fix" involves a revision to the cylinder as well as a corresponding revision to the frame. Whether they will continue to call this updated gun a GP100 remains to be seen since these will not be retrofit changes to the existing guns.
 

Thel

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"I just fail to see what the fix could be?"

The frame and cylinder would need to be modified to increase the bore center of the barrel distance to cylinder axis i.e. move the barrel upward on the frame a small distance. Smith & Wesson had to do this to their N frames when they decided to offer 8 shot models. As the volume of sales of those 8 shots is not that high the fix cannot be all that involved.

Whether Ruger does this or not remains to be seen, I guess until one of the "fixed guns shows up". If Ruger were to modify the frame it would be a good opportunity to widen the front of the frame a bit like on the S&W 69 to allow offering a 5 shot.44 mag GP100.
 
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Thel said:
"I just fail to see what the fix could be?"

The frame and cylinder would need to be modified to increase the bore center of the barrel distance to cylinder axis i.e. move the barrel upward on the frame a small distance. Smith & Wesson had to do this to their N frames when they decided to offer 8 shot models. As the volume of sales of those 8 shots is not that high the fix cannot be all that involved.

Whether Ruger does this or not remains to be seen, I guess until one of the "fixed guns shows up". If Ruger were to modify the frame it would be a good opportunity to widen the front of the frame a bit like on the S&W 69 to allow offering a .44 mag GP100.

Agreed. I just have a hard time believing Ruger will go this route, because then they'd have the situation of having two different GP100s in their line as far as repair parts are concerned, primarily the cylinder and matching crane assembly. Perhaps they could do it by simply offering a different name for the upgraded gun, like GP200 or whatever, just offering the GP100 in six-shot and five-shot versions currently in the product mix and using the GP200 for a .44 six-shooter as well as the seven-shot .357 chambering. Not sure how this would impact the existing .44 Magnum guns in the lineup, though . . . or if it's worth the hassle just to have a .357 seven-shooter.
 
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jstanfield103 said:
May just call it a GP100+ like S&W with the 686+

Yeah, possibly, or something similar. I'd think that whatever they do they should use a different serial number prefix series for these "upgraded" guns to identify them for future maintenance purposes.
 

Thel

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"Agreed. I just have a hard time believing Ruger will go this route, because then they'd have the situation of having two different GP100s in their line as far as repair parts are concerned, primarily the cylinder and matching crane assembly."

They would also need a different frame to allow for the barrel being moved outward from cylinder axis. Whether they do this or not would depend upon the financial analysis of new revenues vs. new costs. I would buy a new 7 shot if fixed but already have a 6 shot .357 and 5 shot .44 Sp. Same with the .44 mag, if offered. Other than parts there would be the setup cost to make a run of the new version. On the other hand there are the lost revenues of sales going to S&W or Taurus if they don't.
 
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What's required to allow the .357 seven-shooter has been pretty well thrashed over in several other threads, both here and on the other Rugerforum, over the last many months.

It all comes down to whether it's worth it to Ruger to do this. Anybody taking bets?

:wink:
 

PriseDeFer

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Glad I didn't let something go to buy into this. I think they already made their play, called it a bad day at Black Rock and rode on.
 

Thel

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It appears from recent discussion on another board that Ruger may have come up with a fix to this. Seems people with models produced in the last couple of months do not have the problems previously reported and Ruger may have relocated the chambers and barrel a bit further from the cylinder axis.
 
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Somewhat mixed reviews on the "other" Rugerforum concerning current examples of the seven-shooters. No agreement as yet on what ammo rim size the guns will successfully accept. When we get a few reports of guns handling ammo with the maximum SAAMI-spec rim diameter of 0.440" we'll know Ruger is onto something.

Here's hoping . . .
 

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