Driftwood Johnson":2d6c7z7b said:
A friend of mine took a tour of the factory a few years ago and witnessed the little slots being cut. Ruger was paying by piece work at the time, and my friend was not impressed with how quickly the threaded barrels were slammed into a jig and the little slot was cut. It would be impractical to cut the little slot after the barrel was threaded in, the key is to not pay by piece work, and take some care when cutting the little slot. When the little slot is cut, it is important that it be precisely aligned with the start of the thread, so that when the barrel is torqued in just enough for the thread shoulder to stop against the frame, the sight is vertical. This is true with all single action barrels that are simple tubes, Colts too. It is also true for the alignment of the stud that holds the extractor housing in place.
Double Action barrels that have various profiles like underlugs and sights or sight ramps integral with the barrel are a completely different story. You only get one chance, since it ain't a simple tube. If the barrel thread and the frame thread are not precisely aligned, the whole thing will tilt. I have bunches of old Smiths made long before CNC equipment existed. I would love to see the tooling they used to get it just right, but the sights on old Smiths never tilt, they are always got it right and the sights are perfectly vertical. When the barrel was screwed in, it stopped on the shoulder of the thread and everything lined up perfectly. Then they drilled the barrel and frame for the pin. Remember pinned barrels?
OK, great info!! So the "little slot" you are talking about is the "alignment means" for the front sight base when it is installed (which has a corresponding "male" key) to fit in that slot?
So, the barrels have that slot cut before being seated to the frame.
If that's the case, then Ruger should be milling that slot on their round barrels after the barrel is seated to the frame in order to stop their canted front sight issue.
But from your information I presume Ruger does that slot procedure as a timing mark, in order to "perfectly cut those threads on the rear of the barrel the same way every time", to begin threading into the frame the same way every time and to seat to the frame the same every time. I note that Ruger machines their cylinders the same way. They start by milling one of the cylinder stop notches in the cylinder as a timing mark. Then every milling operation after that is "timed" into perfect alignment by using that original cylinder stop notch. I will also note that by doing the barrels in this manner, it also makes it much easier to fit a new barrel to a gun that has been returned for service. You would not be stopping normal production at all the many different workstations in order to "fix" one gun that has barrel issues. Can you imagine the quagmire of having one gun every so often stop regular production at all of thise individual work stations? and then to re-jig the fixtures to fit that one barrel and/or frame, then re-jig back again to get going again with what they were working on beforehand?
There has been some information in the past that the sights on Ruger's "round" barrels are only put on after the barrel has been seated to the frame. Of course, a company can always do it this way...with the extra jigs and fixtures needed to hold the barreled cylinder frame in place (extra costs involved!), but it has always made more sense to me if everything is done to that barrel first (including rollmarking), installing the front sight, drilling the ejector housing screw and final polishing before seating it to the frame. Maybe Ruger has had everything on the barrel done before being seated to the frame...then they solder the front sight on. But with all the canted front sights, it wouldn't seem they have been doing it this way.
And hey, here's something for all you collectors to think about that may also get you to thinking this way. How many of you out there have noticed the Super Blackhawk (high polish examples, which is 99.9 percent of production) that show the barrel rollmark as being kind of blurred as if the polishing was done after that barrel was rollmarked...yet you know that gun has an original Ruger blue? Well, in order for this to happen, that barrel has to be completely polished with Ruger's special Super Blackhawk finish....
after the rollmark has been put on the barrel!! The only way to get the polish up to the rear corner of the barrel, the part that butts up to the cylinder frame, is to polish that barrel before the barrel is seated to the frame....
and after that rollmark has been applied! Check out the book pictures...those Super Blackhawk barrel rollmarks look a little "smeared" (All OM high polish S47's look this way), and that can only happen
before the barrel is seated to the frame!
Everybody know what I'm saying here? This can help to explain why the transition from a non-Inc. to Inc. Single-Six barrel took two years to complete. If that non-INC die was worn out (the purpose for ordering new rollmarking dies in the first place!), then why is it those non-inc addresses keep showing up much later? Maybe because those aready finished and rollmarked barrels were sitting in a crate ready to be used? This now makes more sense than ever before to me.
This also explains how Ruger can have non-logo barrels (meant for the flattop) being installed on the Super Blackhawk, and logo barrels mean't for the Super Blackhawk installed on the .44 flattop instead (somebody grabbed the wrong box of barrels!!).
It would also sorta explain how Ruger got the barrels polished all the way up to the frame on those early high-polish .357 flattops. Ruger would had to take the barrels off in order to get them match polished all the way back to the corner of the barrel that meets up with the frame. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't all those barrels have to have exactly the same barrel threads on them so that any of those barrels would go back on any of those guns?
Something else, what's the easiest way to guarantee the minimal headspace between the rear barrel cone and the front of the cylinder? You make the threads identical every time, so that when the barrel is squeezed up tight to the frame, you don't have to go back in with some sort of grinding/polishing equipment to take a little more off the rear of the barrel cone.
You know, Ruger has had the procedure of cutting those barrel threads perfectly (to seat up to the front face of the cylinder frame) for a long time. Their .22 pistol barrels have to be done this way because the front sight lug and feed ramp are all one integral unit with the barrel. I think Ruger got this idea from his WWII machine gun designing days because how else do you change an overheated MG barrel with any features it may already have on it (front sight or various other features) and have those items line up on it perfectly when re-assembled to the receiver? Its because those threads have to be cut on the rear of that barrel identically every time.
And it has also never made sense to me why Ruger would have two different procedures at the factory for cutting their barrel threads (one procedure so that they were timed...ala DA barrels, and a different procedure for the round barrels). Two different procedures means more equipment needed, more employees needed, less floor space, as well as whatever else problems that may have presented. Do we suppose Ruger would have had these two operational procedures in the cramped confines of the Red Barn complex???
OK, now I'm anxious to here some feedback on this!
Chet15
