The evil wheels are turning once again and I'm planning on making a new, different revolver of course starting with a Ruger, Vaquero this time. Changing the caliber, but keeping the same bore. My Parent case is not what the gun was originally chambered for, so the question of head-space came up. The new cartridge has less need for head-space than the original chambered round so I currently have a gun with too much head-space. Now I've talked with a couple of pros and they said that the seven thousandths extra is not enough to worry about and go ahead a fire on, but I think that it may be. So I went to the safe to check some head-space play that I have in other Ruger revolvers and what I've found over the years in measuring Ruger gun parts is that two guns of the same make and model: Shoot could even be consecutive serial numbers made by the same employee and all of the castings coming off of the same tree and sure enough there will be variations between guns on just about any measurement you want to choose. What I found was that the closest gun to the one I'm going to do my project on had between 13 thousandths for most of the firewall and down to 7 thousandths at the area of ignition. Made sense for there to be a difference between the two different areas, but the seven thousandths seemed a little large. As a check on that I went to the barrel cylinder gap expecting to see something a lot smaller like 4 to 5 thousandths like you hear most folk reporting they'd like and have on their guns. Well I had 13 thousandths. WOW! If I was shooting black powder (as I did in SASS) that gun must be a hoot shot at nighttime! Flames spouting everywhere.
I first learned the measurement differences when I was converting two ROA's into 45LC SASS service. The cylinders bought at different times, from different distributors had the exact same dementions, both internally and externally. So the first gun came up for work and it was determined that the firewall of the Howell cylinder had the spot for removal of material so that the cylinder could fit into the frame. Two thousandths is what it took (now mind you I was told that seven thousandths was okey dokey). I then check it with the second gun to see that we had figured out the magical number and nope it would not fit into the second gun. Turns out that that gun needed seven thousandths removed from the fire plate to fit. That's when I started checking all of my Ruger's and sure enough they all varied just a bit from gun to gun of a same model. No doubt still within company tolerances, but still different.
So, my thoughts were to purchase some quality and consistent moon clips for the gun and open up the constricted portion, the part that holds the round into the clip. That way I could just drop the round into the clip from the back and no extra expense would be incurred as far as head-space is concerned. I was then told by the Moon Clip folks that several of their customers have them do machining on single actions to utilize moon clips. I'm not talking the second semi-auto cartridge cylinder in a dual cylinder gun. I'm talking about taking a 45LC and turning back the cylinder to accept moon clips which hold the 45LC rounds. One thing nifty about TC Machining (I think was their name) was that the cylinder was only cut on the portion that the moon clip would need to take up. What that means is that the inside of the cylinder is cut deep enough for rim and moon clip to head-space while the outside of the cylinder is left alone so without the moon clips, the gun can be loaded as usual. So that got me to thinking.
Just how many of you all have, or have ever thought of having a Moon Clipped Single Action revolver? It requires cylinder removal for loading each time, but the owner said that those customers still say it's a drastic improvement in loading times. It must be for a fellow using a single action for defensive purposes though, because I know that SASS for one, would never allow such a thing. Where would this be used? And does anyone know of anyone currently using a moon clipped single action?
Sorry I got off track: To the OP: Is 13 and 7 thousandths too much spare play in single action head-space? And while I'm at it, certainly most would thing that a barrel cylinder gap of 13 thousandths is way too much, correct? Smithy.
I first learned the measurement differences when I was converting two ROA's into 45LC SASS service. The cylinders bought at different times, from different distributors had the exact same dementions, both internally and externally. So the first gun came up for work and it was determined that the firewall of the Howell cylinder had the spot for removal of material so that the cylinder could fit into the frame. Two thousandths is what it took (now mind you I was told that seven thousandths was okey dokey). I then check it with the second gun to see that we had figured out the magical number and nope it would not fit into the second gun. Turns out that that gun needed seven thousandths removed from the fire plate to fit. That's when I started checking all of my Ruger's and sure enough they all varied just a bit from gun to gun of a same model. No doubt still within company tolerances, but still different.
So, my thoughts were to purchase some quality and consistent moon clips for the gun and open up the constricted portion, the part that holds the round into the clip. That way I could just drop the round into the clip from the back and no extra expense would be incurred as far as head-space is concerned. I was then told by the Moon Clip folks that several of their customers have them do machining on single actions to utilize moon clips. I'm not talking the second semi-auto cartridge cylinder in a dual cylinder gun. I'm talking about taking a 45LC and turning back the cylinder to accept moon clips which hold the 45LC rounds. One thing nifty about TC Machining (I think was their name) was that the cylinder was only cut on the portion that the moon clip would need to take up. What that means is that the inside of the cylinder is cut deep enough for rim and moon clip to head-space while the outside of the cylinder is left alone so without the moon clips, the gun can be loaded as usual. So that got me to thinking.
Just how many of you all have, or have ever thought of having a Moon Clipped Single Action revolver? It requires cylinder removal for loading each time, but the owner said that those customers still say it's a drastic improvement in loading times. It must be for a fellow using a single action for defensive purposes though, because I know that SASS for one, would never allow such a thing. Where would this be used? And does anyone know of anyone currently using a moon clipped single action?
Sorry I got off track: To the OP: Is 13 and 7 thousandths too much spare play in single action head-space? And while I'm at it, certainly most would thing that a barrel cylinder gap of 13 thousandths is way too much, correct? Smithy.
