George said:
DougYuy, Thank you for your reply! I assume you have read all my posts so you know where I'm coming from. I have a bullet siz-er on it's way to me.. I will resize some 452 cast bullets to 451 then I will slug the barrel and check the size. Maybe a better way for me to check the size of both the .45acp cylinder and the .45colt cylinder is to do the same with them.. Might give me and you a better idea where I am at and what I need to have done if anything.. I will shoot some lead down range with both cylinders and see how it shoots.. Again I assume because of it's size the 451.5 the .45acp cylinder will shoot better with FMJ acp's or Lead cast bullets.. Is this the rout I should take first on a new gun that's never been fired other then from the factory? George
Well, firing it is not going to make the cylinder throats any larger, it will however give you a before and after scenario that you can compare with. Ruger 45 barrels have been right at .451" for many years now, with very few variations sp there really isn't any need to slug the bore. The issue isn't the groove diameter of the barrel, but if the barrel has any constrictions in it. Used to be the real deeply impressed roll marked "lawyer warning" on the side of the barrels was impressed in there so strongly that it actually raised ridges inside the barrel behind each word of the text on the outside. If you have one of these, and want a sarcastic laugh, patch a cleaning jag rather snugly into the barrel and run it back and forth, you can feel the ridges much like rolling over those rumble strip warnings they sometimes use on highways..
The other thing you can check for, is by tightly patching a cleaning jag into the barrel, push it down toward the frame, observe how much effort it takes to keep the jag moving. IF when you get to the area where the barrel and frame join, the jag gets harder to push, this is thread choke you are feeling. Ruger torques the barrels to the frame to align the front sight at 12:00 o'clock and sometimes the threads crush the barrel and squeeze it down a couple of thousandths in diameter. I call these the "wasp waisted" Rugers. If the jag is only marginally affected and pushes through without much effort, the choke is very slight and may not present any issues, and can usually be very easily firelapped out.
If the jag stops, and it takes a LOT of effort to push it the rest of the way through, the choke is severe, likely as much as .003" and until this is remedied, the gun will never group well and will always tend to lead the bore. If it is blued you will have luck firelapping, stainless barrel with this much choke by the time you firelap the choke out of it, rifling in the remainder of the barrel will be pretty much ruined.
Afaik, Ruger will not address this issue unless the gun simply does not group. You could call them and maybe sweet talk them into sending you a shipping label for it if you tell them that at 25 yards your buddies thought you were shooting a shotgun by the group sizes.. Anyway, either Ruger fixes it, or you send the gun to someone and have it Taylor throated to relieve the choke. This, is a worst case scenario. I had one like this, I taylor throated it. End of problem!
Now, if the barrel does NOT have any of the aforementioned issues, and you choose to size to .452" so your boolit will be .001" over groove diameter and seal nicely in the bore, then the cylinder throats simply must be enlarged so as to not size the boolits down to throat diameter upon firing. Shooting one with tight throats doesn't necessarily hurt the gun, but having the throats
correctly sized and all even with each other will be a very noticeable improvement. When you want to do this improvement, before you shoot it or afterwards, is strictly up to you.
I can't see the logic in the "shoot the gun as it is first" suggestions. On one hand if the gun will shoot as good as the shooter with uneven, tight throats, then spending the money to have the cylinder dimensionally corrected might not seem to be much of a justified expense. On the other hand if you already know that the throats are uneven and smaller than the boolit you want to shoot, then proceeding to shoot the gun in the present state seems to be more of a waste of time and ammo just to see it shoot to a lesser degree of accuracy than it is capable of.
