Do any of you guys have a GP100 with a canted barrel?
I bought a new 3" GP100 about a year ago and was not aware of what a canted barrel was at that time. Read about the issue on some forums about 3 months ago and immediately grabbed all my revolvers and checked the barrels. They all looked good except for my 3" GP100. It was overclocked by about 1 degree.
I measured the distance from the top of the frame to the barrel rib on both the right and left sides of the barrel. Right side was .041" and the left was .048". So the difference is .007" which is equivalent to 1/143 of an inch.
Does not sound like much, but it is visible when looking down the barrel from the muzzle end.
Pictures are better than words, so the attached pics show the degree of cant. Kind of hard to see it until you zoom in and draw the yellow lines parallel to the barrel ribs vs the top of frame.
I contacted Ruger and they told me to take it to the range and shoot it at 15 yards and send them a picture of the target. My range only has 11-yard and 25-yard range lines to bracket that distance. I shot with my hands on a sandbag. At 11-yards, I had about a 6.5" group, with holes to both the right & left of the bullseye. At 25-yards, the grouping was about 7", but I only got 8 of 13 rounds on an 8" target.
I had a real problem with the black front sight blade against the black target background, very difficult to get a good sight picture. To compound the problem, I shoot with bifocals, so you either see the target in focus or the front sight, not both at the same time.
I just painted the front sight blade red, so I will hit the range again and see if I can aim a little better and see if there is a consistant grouping trend.
From the forum postings that I have read there is a wide range of opinions on canted barrels, i.e., some folks say anything less than a perfectly clocked barrel is unacceptable and the gun should go back, while others say if it shoots straight don't worry about it. Esthetics & symmetry are a little bit of an issue with me (probably because I am an engineer), but this barrel is not grossly canted. I am a little undecided at this point (even it it shoots straight during the next range session) as to whether to ask Ruger to straighten the barrel. They might come back and say the degree of cant is within acceptaed tolerances.
I bought a new 3" GP100 about a year ago and was not aware of what a canted barrel was at that time. Read about the issue on some forums about 3 months ago and immediately grabbed all my revolvers and checked the barrels. They all looked good except for my 3" GP100. It was overclocked by about 1 degree.
I measured the distance from the top of the frame to the barrel rib on both the right and left sides of the barrel. Right side was .041" and the left was .048". So the difference is .007" which is equivalent to 1/143 of an inch.
Does not sound like much, but it is visible when looking down the barrel from the muzzle end.
Pictures are better than words, so the attached pics show the degree of cant. Kind of hard to see it until you zoom in and draw the yellow lines parallel to the barrel ribs vs the top of frame.
I contacted Ruger and they told me to take it to the range and shoot it at 15 yards and send them a picture of the target. My range only has 11-yard and 25-yard range lines to bracket that distance. I shot with my hands on a sandbag. At 11-yards, I had about a 6.5" group, with holes to both the right & left of the bullseye. At 25-yards, the grouping was about 7", but I only got 8 of 13 rounds on an 8" target.
I had a real problem with the black front sight blade against the black target background, very difficult to get a good sight picture. To compound the problem, I shoot with bifocals, so you either see the target in focus or the front sight, not both at the same time.
I just painted the front sight blade red, so I will hit the range again and see if I can aim a little better and see if there is a consistant grouping trend.
From the forum postings that I have read there is a wide range of opinions on canted barrels, i.e., some folks say anything less than a perfectly clocked barrel is unacceptable and the gun should go back, while others say if it shoots straight don't worry about it. Esthetics & symmetry are a little bit of an issue with me (probably because I am an engineer), but this barrel is not grossly canted. I am a little undecided at this point (even it it shoots straight during the next range session) as to whether to ask Ruger to straighten the barrel. They might come back and say the degree of cant is within acceptaed tolerances.