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Post by Alaskan454 on Dec 22, 2015 16:56:40 GMT -5
Your best bet is likely buying one of the factory guns and having Gallagher work it over, he'll be able to do far more than the factory would authorize. You'd have a really nice gun at much less cost than going the full custom route or even buying a used Freedom Arms.
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Post by tek4260 on Dec 22, 2015 19:23:45 GMT -5
I shot my 454 this afternoon as the sun was setting at 25 yards with some Cor Bon 300gr 45 Colt +P loads I've had laying around for several years. I was glad to see that the poi was right as far as windage is concerned and the reason the front sight "looks off" is due to the topstrap being unevenly polished. I think I will call Ruger and cancel the RMA tomorrow and see if they will send me some new screws for the grip frame. As mad as I was about most everything about the revolver, now that I have it running, it seems like too much of a gamble to send it back and take the chance of getting a worse one. My BC gap is good along with the throats and forcing cone. The sight is straight, albeit the soldering looks atrocious since the radius of the sight bottom doesn't match the barrel. The timing is right now with no binding. To fix the finish issues, Ruger would have to replace the revolver, and unless I could hand pick the replacement, the gamble is simply too great.
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Post by tek4260 on Dec 22, 2015 19:26:22 GMT -5
Of course if I don't send it in, I'll get pissed every time I look at it.... Decisions, decisions.
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Post by theoldredneck on Dec 22, 2015 21:28:36 GMT -5
Sir, your gun is one of the reasons I was asking. It may sound crazy to some. Sometimes I would rather do the work myself or pay someone like Gallagher than deal with shipping something to a factory. When I'm going to have him do somethings to the gun anyway why fool with a trip to the factory if there is a question about what they will or will not do. So unless someone says something to change my mind, it will be buy the gun and pay to have it fixed while having other things done. Then decide custom or factory on the 480 by cost and performance of 454.
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Post by Alaskan454 on Dec 23, 2015 15:59:34 GMT -5
So today was interesting, I should have slugged the barrel before ordering bullets but of course I didn't. The groove is .476-.4765, which is great for the .477 throats but all of my bullets are sized to .475 and some are slightly under .475. I should also mentioned it's got a big loose spot in the center portion of the barrel, tight at the muzzle and thread section but very loose everywhere else. I had about 2 or 3 key holes per cylinder so I am going to load the rest of these bullets near max pressure and see if I can get them to bump up in size a bit. It was still accurate enough to hit 12" steel plates at 30 yards or so, that was plenty of fun. I'll post some pictures later but almost every target had bullets completely sideways. On the bright side I shot my FA M83 today and for the first time experienced max loads of H4227 with 300 and 350 grain bullets, had lots of fun with those and blew up a water bottle in the process.
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Post by Markbo on Dec 23, 2015 18:57:00 GMT -5
Why dont you try some .477-.478 bullets?
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Post by tek4260 on Dec 23, 2015 19:27:01 GMT -5
Wouldn't it be best to have a proper barrel, without constriction, rather than trying to come up with a work around?
How loose is the loose spot? Or rather is the loose spot actually right and just loose compared to the tight spot? Is it something you could firelapp the the frame constriction out of? Or would the best bet be to have it rebarreled?
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Post by Alaskan454 on Dec 23, 2015 20:26:53 GMT -5
I've got a few hundred of the .475s and no other gun to shoot them in so I'll try those for the time being and order some .477s for the next go around.
As for the tight and loose dimensions in the gun I'm not terribly concerned with that until I've tried properly sized bullets. I can always lap the barrel If need be. I can't really estimate the size difference since I slug from the muzzle and go all the way through.
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Paden
.375 Atomic
Lower Goldstream Creek
Posts: 1,132
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Post by Paden on Dec 23, 2015 20:41:11 GMT -5
As for the tight and loose dimensions in the gun I'm not terribly concerned with that until I've tried properly sized bullets. Yup. Using bullets sized snug for your throats will be your first step towards happy fliers. Of course it's your time and money, but a few hundred undersized rounds seems like a lot of wasted time, money, barrel leading and inaccurate groups, just for the sake of shooting them up. I'd call it a lesson learned, throw them in the scrap bucket and get some properly sized bullets.
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Post by Alaskan454 on Dec 24, 2015 9:19:58 GMT -5
Paden, you current post count is 429. That's got to be lucky!
As for the bullets they didn't lead much at all after the first 128 rounds which surprised me. When I slugged the bore the first time I used a sized bullet as-is at ~.475 to get a feel for what I was actually shooting at the range. That barely left a measurable rifling mark so I had to use the old hammer and concrete swaging approach to bump up another slug in size and get proper dimensions of the bore. I'll still have fun shooting reactive targets with these since they didn't lead much. The Dillon is already set-up so I'm only out the money I already spent and about 20 minutes of my time to load the rest of them, not a big deal from my perspective. I'm also kind of curious since I've run into this situation in the past with a different gun and running higher pressures solved the problem. When you're talking 40-50k psi it can do some interesting things to a cast bullet. Anyway, do you guys know where I can find commercial .477 bullets? The largest I've run across are .476 so far.
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Post by bulasteve on Dec 24, 2015 10:15:14 GMT -5
My solution to bullets bought before the gun showed up, is to powder coat'em. Leading goes away, and for the first 3 cylinders full, no fliers. Did go two coats of PC..
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Post by chsparkman on Dec 27, 2015 12:26:08 GMT -5
I finally picked mine up yesterday at my LGS. Very happy to get it. The fit of the grip is really quite atrocious, but I picked up a nice piece of bocote in anticipation of such an occurrence. It looks like I'll also have to remove a small amount of metal to get a good fit, but I'll post pictures and pick your brains when the time comes to tackle it.
In the meantime, I'll get it out to the range and put it through some trials. It really is a beautiful piece.
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Post by Encore64 on Dec 27, 2015 12:28:25 GMT -5
That's great. A good review is past due.
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Post by flattopdan on Dec 27, 2015 13:39:27 GMT -5
[img src="http://i67.tinypic.com/3038ylw.jpg" src="http:// " alt=" "] Sorry! Can't get the pic to post! Metal work is pretty good however the grips are not fit very well which seems common. Also my rear sight was screwed almost all the way to the left. I hope that's not how far off the gun shoots!
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Post by nolongcolt on Dec 27, 2015 14:23:46 GMT -5
No link there.
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