winchester348 said:
I see the newer Redhawks have a sleeve and shroud barrel like the SW 69 .44. What's the improvement? Is it just cheaper to produce? I love me some Redhawks and have several in all the calibers. I've been waiting on a used 8 shot 357 in 5.5 to pop up but this new barrel configuration has me wondering.
*****
Winchester348..... the Redhawk, leastwise up until now, has a barrel which is drop forged, profile machined, and broach rifled, same process used by Smith & Wesson for more than a century. A drop forging allows formation of rib and ejector shroud----without the outlandish machining which bar stock would require. The Super Redhawk incorporates the ejector shroud in the frame, while round stock is put through a hammer forge to form rifling in the drilled & reamed hole. Together with a grip-spike, which doesn't require polishing, the Super Redhawk results in a revolver with better single action trigger, with better grip options, that costs less to produce than the Redhawk.
It strikes me that a new Redhawk----with sleeved barrel----could take advantage of hammer forged rifling. This could reduce tool time, eliminate or reduce critical THREAD TIMING, and ease setting BARREL/CYLINDER GAP. The barrel then could be made in Ruger's foundry by the lost wax (i.e., investment cast) process. This would put all manufacturing in-house.
In speaking with Eric Unger, who retired as foundry director about 2007, he says that to make a barrel by investment casting would cost more than machine, gun drill, ream and broach a drop forging.
If the scene I paint fits the actual picture, that would leave the Super Blackhawk the only barrel perhaps originating as a forging. If so, that too might eventually fall to the sleeve process.
To rule on merits of the two methods----barrel insert & sleeve vs solid barrel----I would have to see the sixguns dance head-to-head on the
FIRING LINE, out to 100 yards.
Note on Dan Wesson concept
Dan Wesson's barrel screws full diameter into the frame. A shroud slides over the barrel to butt the frame. A muzzle nut jams against the shroud, putting tension on the barrel. Thus, the barrel acts as a draw bolt. The system produces great accuracy, proven thoroughly in IHMSA silhouette. The shooter may adjust barrel/cylinder gap, or swap barrels, a system unavailable in the Ruger. I don't know whether the Ruger sleeve threads into the frame. if so, the barrel insert will be thinner around the forcing cone than the tenon wall of the Dan Wesson, which utilizes a full diameter tenon.
David Bradshaw