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Post by Lee Martin on May 17, 2013 10:57:05 GMT -5
 Factory one-of-a-kind Ruger 03 (2003), with reworked KS411N "Silver Hornpipe" silhouette SBH.  KS411N SBH .44 silhouette shortened from 10-1/2" to 5-3/4", SRH front sight, Bisley grip. TINMAN from 100 yards: Sierra 240 JHC; 23.4/H110; Fed 155 GM; Fed brass.  Shortened KS411N "Silver Hornpipe" with Bisley Hunter. Long ejector first used on prototype SRM .357 Maximums in 1981; was then made in stainless for KS411N silhouette model; more recently on SBH Hunter and Bisley Hunter.  KS411N 5-3/4" .44 with 5 shots from sandbag at somewhere between 50 and 100 yards. TINMAN target is 1/4" hot rolled   Factory Ruger 03 .45 and custom KS411N .44 sit down for breakfast. Pancakes with yogurt, Louisiana mulberries   -Lee www.singleactions.com"Building carpal tunnel one round at a time" |
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Post by bradshaw on May 17, 2013 19:41:51 GMT -5
The Ruger KS411N Super Blackhawk is a stainless .44 magnum with untapered 10-1/2" barrel, a screw-on target front sight, and the long .357 Maximum ejector assembly. Barrel on this one is shortened to 5-3/4", with a Super Redhawk sight. Ruger Bisley grip added.
David Bradshaw
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Post by edwardyoung on May 17, 2013 21:46:32 GMT -5
I'd be curious to see the top of the front sight on that KS411N, if you have one. Thanks
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Post by maxcactus on May 18, 2013 5:31:01 GMT -5
Mr. Bradshaw, I'm curious to know if you have done any custom/accurizing work to Ruger 03? Or has this been used as "from the factory" revolver since you received it?
Thank you,
Max.
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Post by bradshaw on May 18, 2013 15:18:45 GMT -5
Edward Young.... the KS411N was spectacularly accurate in silhouette trim with 10-1/2" barrel. Remained spectacularly accurate after trimming to 5-3/4". A Super Redhawk front sight is used. I filed various inserts to the same height for interchangeability with preservation of ZERO. The black insert is from the original Redhawk batch of solid steel inserts.
I made the Bisley grip scales from mahogany, or what a woodsman tells me probably is a mahogany substitute, as the mahogany forests are plundered. The wood stock was old, don't know how old. I finished 'em on a belt sander, 50 grit, coarse, and rubbed 'em with Danish oil. Oil oil, not the water junk. Left 'em rough for the grab.
Maxcactus.... the Ruger 03 came beautiful, except the barrel had a compression ring from Gorilla Monsoon. I bought a .452" reamer from Dave Manson. Then had Mike Brazda of Bayou Teche Guns perform work to my specifications: lathe ream .452" x .800" freebore; face barrel shoulder to hand-tighten 10-degrees BTDC. (As removed, barrel would hand tighten about 30-degrees BTDC----guaranteed to produce a compression ring.) Chamber throats are .451-inch for both Colt and ACP cylinders. May someday open them to .452" or .4525".
The subject of what dimensions one may get away with and what dimensions one may NOT get away with for an accurate revolver still holds mystery. Much BULLROAR has been published on the subject. Fortunately, there is room for literate discussion on this forum. There have always been serious students of revolver accuracy----going back to Sam Colt. Important lessons are as often forgotten in manufacturing as in history itself. The more of us who grasp revolver accuracy, the better chance we have of shooting accurate revolvers.
David Bradshaw
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rvolvr
.30 Stingray
Posts: 298 
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Post by rvolvr on Jan 1, 2019 21:34:00 GMT -5
.... the Ruger 03 came beautiful, except the barrel had a compression ring from Gorilla Monsoon. I bought a .452" reamer from Dave Manson. Then had Mike Brazda of Bayou Teche Guns perform work to my specifications: lathe ream .452" x .800" freebore.... David B, While perusing older threads, I stumbled on this interesting post. I have a 7-1/2 in. SBH which I purchased new in 1978. It has a freebore which I would estimate is close to your specified 0.800, with a bore very slightly less than groove diameter, leaving vestiges of the lands. This freebore ends fairly abruptly, but I've never done a cast in order to see how sharp the transition is. I have several other Ruger SAs, but none have this feature - although varying degrees of thread choke is pretty common. Also, I've not run across this concept anywhere before now. Have you ever been aware of the factory "doctoring" thread choke with a freebore? And how did you become comfortable enough with the principle that you were willing to go that route with "03"? Thank you for your thoughts. Dale |
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Post by bradshaw on Jan 1, 2019 22:59:02 GMT -5
Dale.... Roy Weatherby freebored rifle chambers to burn more powder while trying to keep a hat on pressure. Warren Center did the same on his T/C Contender for the same reason. Rod Sward introduced freebore on the Virginian Silhouette Dragoon on the theory it improved accuracy. Perhaps it helps the revolver when there is more than .006-inch OFFSET in CHAMBER-to-BORE ALIGNMENT. I shot enough sub-3” groups @ 100 yards and 100 meters with the Virginian Silhouette Dragoon in .357 and .44 Mag to agree it does little or no harm in the sixgun. Freebore will not save a barrel with a crooked, rough, or excessively deep FORCING CONE. Which is why accuracy from the best barrel is destroyed by a lousy forcing cone.
The threads of a revolver barrel must be timed to the threads in the frame (barrel socket). A torque wrench really has no place on a revolver barrel----unless a round barrel without sight or drilled holes, etc., is installed. An overtightened barrel compresses the bore at the junction of barrel shoulder and frame. To ream freebore before installing barrel does not prevent compression from over tightening. Curious, how some refer to “torquing” the barrel without supplying a torque measurement! If freebore is used to remove a compression ring----for which I think it was Ross Seyfried coined the term “thread choke----to complete the job the barrel shoulder must turned in a lathe, so as to not repeat the same compression when the barrel is re-installed. My rule calls for the barrel to hand-tighten to 10 or 12-degrees Before Top Dead Center (BTDC). It is then wrenched to Top Dead Center (TDC).
Threads per inch (TPI) must be known, along with degrees BTDC to which the barrel tightens. Example----if the barrel stops at 30-degrees BTDC, 20-degrees worth must be trimmed from the shoulder before the barrel hand-tightens 10-degrees BTDC. Calculate 20-degrees in .000-inch and adjust cut. Lastly, trim the BARREL FACE for desired BARREL/CYLINDER GAP. Do not touch the forcing cone without cause.
I cannot speculate on the origin of freebore in your Super Blackhawk made in 1978. If it ends abruptly, it may tear the bullet as projectile seats rifling, to the detriment of accuracy. Many SBH’s of that era are very accurate. The barrels were made by George Wilson Barrel Co., in Connecticut, broach rifled 1:20”. (Wilson barrels for the Blackhawk .357 Mag are button rifled 1:16”, in .45 Colt broached 1:16”. Don’t know how Blackhawk .41 Mag barrels were rifled; I suspect 1:20” by broach.) I don’t know when Gorilla Monsoon got hired to crush-fit barrels, but he wasn’t there when your revolver was made. Back then, both Sturm, Ruger and Smith & Wesson knew the meaning of THREAD TIMING.
David Bradshaw
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edk
.375 Atomic
Posts: 1,162
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Post by edk on Jan 2, 2019 7:29:48 GMT -5
Interesting to read that despite your long-standing relationship with the Ruger family your special '03 revolver was given the "Gorilla" treatment. Perhaps even the Ruger's themselves were beneficiaries of this special treatment. Wondering if Mr. Gorilla was ignorant or perhaps a disgruntled employee delivering a special "take that" to each and every revolver coming down the line for years? I really do believe that at least over the long haul the Ruger company has been quite customer oriented and it seems odd that persistent issues such as this and cylinder diameter remain at least partly unsolved for so long.
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Post by bradshaw on Jan 2, 2019 8:36:17 GMT -5
Interesting to read that despite your long-standing relationship with the Ruger family your special '03 revolver was given the "Gorilla" treatment. Perhaps even the Ruger's themselves were beneficiaries of this special treatment. Wondering if Mr. Gorilla was ignorant or perhaps a disgruntled employee delivering a special "take that" to each and every revolver coming down the line for years? I really do believe that at least over the long haul the Ruger company has been quite customer oriented and it seems odd that persistent issues such as this and cylinder diameter remain at least partly unsolved for so long. ***** I walked from one office to an adjacent office at a major gun manufacturer, and mentioned some process or change connected to making revolvers. The manager in the office I’d just walked into had no idea of the change, he got the news from me. I was startled. There have been knee-jerk reactions in manufacturing, just as there are around a dinner table. I am intimately aware of the response, both by Sturm, Ruger and Smith & Wesson, to accelerated FORCING CONE EROSION found on revolvers shot in tournaments of the International Handgun Silhouette Association (IHMSA, pronounced “im-Sah). S&W and Ruger set back barrels on my guns to eliminate BARREL FACE EROSION, which we called “forcing cone erosion.” I directed other shooters to have the same treatment when necessary. The point is, you want to keep shooting a barrel that really sings, not replace it. A revolver barrel doesn’t cook the way a high power rifle barrel cooks. Good revolver barrels are tough, but one which is super accurate doesn’t guarantee the next one will be as accurate. I have sixguns which have been shot and set back, and they are in no hurry to be changed. Would not on a whim swap out a beautiful barrel. Somewhere a few minds at Ruger and S&W decided the cure for barrel face erosion was to cut the forcing cone deeper. A case of putting theory into practice without proof. Yes, it slows barrel face erosion----somewhat----doing so at the expense off accuracy. Once implemented, the practice spread like a prairie fire, and the disease has yet to be eradicated. But the problem wasn’t just barrel face erosion. The problem extended to poor CHAMBER-to-BORE ALIGNMENT. Once again, a deeper----therefore wider----forcing cone was seen as the cure. Smith & Wesson, long known for spectacular chamber-to-bore alignment in high volume production, fell into some real slop. Bangor-Punta owned S&W and took a cold-blooded hand to the milking of profit; quality and morale on the shop floor suffered. (Still astounds me that beautiful guns continued to come from S&W under Bangor-Punta. Bangor-Punta put a vice president who did’t know the first thing about firearms manufacture in charge of Smith & Wesson. The result was not pretty.) David Bradshaw |
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rvolvr
.30 Stingray
Posts: 298
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Post by rvolvr on Jan 2, 2019 11:17:34 GMT -5
...I cannot speculate on the origin of freebore in your Super Blackhawk made in 1978. If it ends abruptly, it may tear the bullet as projectile seats rifling, to the detriment of accuracy. Many SBH’s of that era are very accurate. This .44 Mag has served me very well through several thousand jacketed bullet rounds - definitely full house, but not Rocks and Dynamite. I've never experienced any accuracy issues which I would not ascribe to my own skills, or lack thereof. For many years, I would look through the bore from the muzzle, while shining a light up the barrel after cleaning. The freebore was not apparent from this perspective. Even now that I know it's there, I can't see it from the muzzle. The transition to full depth about .750 forward is very crisp, but apparently not too sharp, as any failures in performance out to 200m did not point to anything but me. My reason for thinking this is a factory-created feature (no judgement here on good or bad) is that the gun has only been out of my possession once, for a trigger job by a TX gunsmith and fellow competitor named Mike Stimson. The resultant trigger was, and still is amazing, but definitely takes the gun out of the hunter's realm - target safe, but a bit too light for cold fingers, and definitely too light for gloved fingers. The goal then was to match the feel of my Contender 7R as closely as possible, and Stimson accomplished that in spades. Again, thank you for your comments, David. |
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Post by bradshaw on Jan 2, 2019 11:52:34 GMT -5
...I cannot speculate on the origin of freebore in your Super Blackhawk made in 1978. If it ends abruptly, it may tear the bullet as projectile seats rifling, to the detriment of accuracy. Many SBH’s of that era are very accurate. This .44 Mag has served me very well through several thousand jacketed bullet rounds - definitely full house, but not Rocks and Dynamite. I've never experienced any accuracy issues which I would not ascribe to my own skills, or lack thereof. For many years, I would look through the bore from the muzzle, while shining a light up the barrel after cleaning. The freebore was not apparent from this perspective. Even now that I know it's there, I can't see it from the muzzle. The transition to full depth about .750 forward is very crisp, but apparently not too sharp, as any failures in performance out to 200m did not point to anything but me. My reason for thinking this is a factory-created feature (no judgement here on good or bad) is that the gun has only been out of my possession once, for a trigger job by a TX gunsmith and fellow competitor named Mike Stimson. The resultant trigger was, and still is amazing, but definitely takes the gun out of the hunter's realm - target safe, but a bit too light for cold fingers, and definitely too light for gloved fingers. The goal then was to match the feel of my Contender 7R as closely as possible, and Stimson accomplished that in spades. Again, thank you for your comments, David. ***** Mike Stimson is no wilted lily on the firing line. Capable of letting another competitor know that he’s from Texas, especially when the rival is from Oklahoma. That you do not see freebore from the muzzle----or, have to look hard to see it----is no surprise. I suspect the LEADE ( the approach angle on LANDS) appears abrupt, when it may be a gradual ramp. And while your freebore may not be full GROOVE DIAMETER, you may be able to push a bullet past the forcing cone. Try it; you can tap it out with hardwood dowel. A clean-breaking silhouette trigger without take-up has a very narrow CONTACT PATCH. Obviously, Mike Stimson preserved the Ruger-designed REGAIN angle. Otherwise you would have a fugitive trigger job, which couldn’t possibly last long on the firing line. The only way to preserve REGAIN on a clean breaking trigger, while adjusting weight down to 1-pound, or under 2-pounds, is to incorporate a bit of dead-smooth take-up. "Creep” is the wrong word to describe smooth take-up, as creep implies a glitch or unevenness of pull. Disciplined practice overcomes smooth take-up. For a light trigger to survive holster use and fast draw, engagement of HAMMER DOG and TRIGGER SEAR must have a large enough contact patch to catch and hold on hard cocking. Elgin Gates’ son, Robert, fanned my KS411N “Silver Hornpipe” as I was about to go to the line in one of the championships, ruining it. Rather than pipe him, I tore down the sixgun to re-work both hammer & trigger. With 20 minutes before my relay, I worked and re-assembled the revolver three times before I was satisfied, then raced up on the line to throw lead. Ironic as it may sound, Robert Gates spotted me in Standing, did an excellent job of spotting, laced throughout with his shameless sense of humor, and I walked of the line with the Revolver Aggregate. I don’t think Robert Gates thought that he would blow my cool, but he tested it. David Bradshaw |
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Post by bradshaw on Aug 23, 2024 9:46:34 GMT -5
Lee.... check out SBH .44 Mag with 5-1/2” barrel and Maximum ejector. As compared with Ruger 03, on which Ruger shortened the Maximum ejector assembly by 1/4”.
David
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Post by Lee Martin on Aug 23, 2024 12:28:40 GMT -5
Lee.... check out SBH .44 Mag with 5-1/2” barrel and Maximum ejector. As compared with Ruger 03, on which Ruger shortened the Maximum ejector assembly by 1/4”. David Absolutely love both of those David. And that 5.5" .44 Magnum is exactly what I needed to see. And the '03 is priceless. I never get tired of seeing it. -Lee www.singleactions.com"Chasing perfection five shots at a time" |
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