David Bradshaw Photos - Vol. XXXIII

[bradshaw]

paulg.... your questions hardly derail the train. The Ruger Blackhawk Convertible .45 Colt/.45 ACP is one of the great sleepers. Of course, I hoped my Ruger 03 would reach production status, as did Service Manager Dick Beaulieu. Nowhere does the convertible concept work better than in a single action, as rimless brass needn't play the Rube Goldberg extraction caper associated with simultaneous ejection. the .45 ACP is not good round in the single action; it is a great round.

My all-cosmic visualization of the production line says the OVER TIGHTENED BARREL is a victim of PREMATURE THREAD TIMING. And Gorilla Monsoon in the barrel fitting department. I sometimes think we raised a generation of industrialists who don't grasp thread timing. Does anyone believe that thread timing is purely as matter of luck? That Gorilla Monsoon's great great grandfather, slaving away in the 1870's at Colt's, or Smith & Wesson's, could crush-fit the barrel without twisting the frame? No, I think the Jungle Drums are here to keep old lessons alive, to continue old school techniques like Common Sense. To refine an answer to your question, I am forced to consider today's thread timing as arbitrary. Hit or Miss.

If the price is right, buy the gun. Clean it. Oil it. Dry fired it to death. Then tell us how you like it, and anything you perceive wrong. If you ask me to define a Ruger in four words, I am likely to say, "Hammer with moving parts."
David Bradshaw

[paulg]

Thank you sir. If its still there tomorrow I'll give it a respectable home.

[cmh]

As always a great post Mr Bradshaw

[Fowler]

I am curious how this barrel throat is any better/different than a Taylor throat?

Great photo essay as always, thanks for taking the time to do it for us...

[bradshaw]

Fowler.... have shot revolvers with the so-called Taylor throating. Lee Martin and I discussed it shortly after I found this forum. The great Jim Stroh has applied it to many revolvers, and he mentioned Taylor Throating to me when I had him rebarrel a Freedom Arms to my specifications with a Shilen Barrel. I bent Stroh's arm to finish the barrel with a very short 11-degree forcing cone. I would not have allowed Taylor Throating----nor any other gradual forcing cone----on that revolver. Cannot give you a scientific answer, as I have not conducted a test, either true or faux. I harbor a severe aversion to permitting a bullet room to wander between chamber exit and bore.

I stand ready to see the benefit of Taylor Throating demonstrated. Properly done, I expect it has to be better than a cocked or rough regular cone. Can you tell me exactly what the angle is?
David Bradshaw

[squawberryman]

Fowler if you will allow me sir, this is a post from here five years ago

From Jim Stroh's Alpha Precision website:

www.alphaprecisioninc.com/revolver/default.htm

"Essentially, the barrel throat is lengthened one and one half to two calibers, and enlarged to slightly over groove diameter. The throat serves as the throat in a rifle barrel, enabling the bullet to become perfectly aligned with the bore before engaging the rifling. The "choking" effect present from tightening the barrel into the frame is removed as well. The rifling leade is a very gentle 1 ½ degrees. On average, when tested before and after using a Ransom Rest, 50 yard groups have been reduced 40 to 50%. The improvement is there using both cast and jacket bullets. I have not detected a change in velocity using cast bullets. Before and after chronographing is within standard deviation of each test. Using jacket bullets, there is a slight loss, less than 50 fps in all the tests I’ve conducted. If the barrel cylinder gap is adjusted to minimum at the same time the Taylor Throating is done, there will not be a velocity loss with jacket bullets, usually a gain of 25 to 50 fps.

I am convinced Taylor Throating produces the greatest accuracy improvement value available. Line-bore chambering will produce the most accurate revolvers, but the cost is prohibitive for many. When the barrel is accurately recrowned; the forcing cone recut concentric to the bore; Taylor Throating is almost as accurate as line-bore chambering with a savings of several hundred dollars."

[Fowler]

Thank you Strawberry and David, let me make sure I have this in my head correct, Taylor throating enlarges the barrel greater than bullet diameter until the bullet gets past the dreaded "thread choke" then does a taper back to the standard barrel. Whereas what Mr. Bradshaw has had done is essentially extended the cylinder throats into that barrel roughly an equal distance so the bullet is supported past the threads where it then engages the rifling?

I haven't looked at the technical neuances of the Taylor throating but I have read and been told it was often very effective at shrinking groups. I know Seyfried 20 years ago, when he was in search of a wheelgun that would shoot honest 1" groups, tested several barrels and found the Taylor throat to be the barrel that achieved his 1" goal in his Bowen 5 shot 45 colt Bisley. I also remember he did or had a 44sp Flat Top Bisley Taylor throated and compared it to another similar gun that he fire lapped extensively and the Taylor throated gun again proved most accurate.

I have never had a gun Taylor throated but the concept does intrigue me, may need try is one of these days.

[squawberryman]

Here is a photo of a Taylor throated Ruger done by Mr. Bowen back when he subscribed to the theory, no longer.

[bradshaw]

squawberryman.... thank you for passing along the observations of Jim Stroh, and for the excellent photo of bullets in and out of taylor Throating. Permit me to add that the Freedom Arms .44 with Shilen barrel has recorded off the bag five shot groups under one inch @ 100 yards, with a couple measuring 0.7". Five shot groups of 0.9" @ 100 yards have arrived from the Stroh-Bradshaw-Shilen-Freedom Arms with the following scopes: Bausch & Lomb Elite 3200 2-6x32mm; Nikon 2x, Weaver Quick Point electrical red dot; and Leupold 2.5-8x with dot reticle. It is difficult to shoot an inch----let alone sub-inch----with a revolver. Basic requirement, an absence of wind. A near perfect revolver still requires a near perfect bullet. Zero parallax scope. Zero nerves on trigger.

Not many revolvers up to the task. By contrast, you could fill a boxcar with 2-inch revolvers, a gymnasium with 4-inch revolvers, and Grand Central Station with 6-to-8" revolvers. Perhaps my Stroh Freedom Arms would shoot tighter with Taylor Throating. I could send it back and have Jim throat it. But I ain't.

Deduce from your photo the Taylor Throating version of a forcing cone is very narrow at the barrel face. This is GOOD. Your photo does more to allay my fears than a mouthful of gibberish. Stroh says the throating cuts a 1.5-degree leade----exactly the leade favored by bench resters.

Fowler.... thank squawberryman, not me, for providing the Stroh dope.
David Bradshaw

[bradshaw]

squawberryman.... second look at your photo of the Hamilton Bowen job on your hogleg reveals a dark ring at the back of the barrel. Is that the forcing cone? Perhaps a very short 11-degree cone leading into the 1.5-degree throating?
David Bradshaw

[squawberryman]

That'd be the cone sir. The gun is a joy to shoot. I'll post some pics in another thread. Some guns are prettier than others due to simplicity.

[bradshaw]

The target is the final arbiter of accuracy. The target records accuracy----accuracy of revolver, accuracy of bullet. How to differentiate is not always easy. Independent of one another----a dimensionally correct revolver, a dynamically balanced bullet----accuracy on target becomes marriage of the two. THE REVOLVER COMES FIRST, since the best bullet cannot fly straight without the revolver. I prefer a fine revolver to a fine bullet. Armed with the revolver, we can look for a bullet. Not all bullets conceived equal, nor are all bullets created equal. Inequality at conception primarily means dynamic balance, wherein a bullet which pushes Center of Gravity apart from Center of Form tends to stability. Whereas, the bullet in which CoG and CoF share the same spot tends to wobble, its cone of dispersion widening downrange. Bob Hayden of Sierra Bullets told me years ago that I was reporting accuracy from his bullets far tighter than he tested for and, of course, he was pleased his bullets performed so well. Especially so, stated Hayden, since tolerances were looser for handgun bullets than for rifle bullets, with Matchking jackets and cores held tightest of all. This is not to suggest slop in the production of handgun bullets. Rather, it infers potential for bullet made without the uniformity requirement of a jacket to fly straighter. I said "potential."

In theory the homogenous cast bullet should possess the best accuracy, but it still sugars off to dynamic balance.

Compared to a sleek rifle bullet, the revolver bullet has the ballistic coefficient of a barn door. Its sluggish shape makes the revolver bullet less sensitive than a rifle bullet to the indignity of schlepping from EXIT HOLE across BARREL/CYLINDER GAP, through FORCING CONE, into RIFLING.

It is good to see attention paid this subject on this forum.
David Bradshaw

[Markbo]

BTW if you click on the photo above it takes you to the source where a couple of magnifying glass clicks in the lower right of the frame will net you a great close up.

[contender]

It is SERIOUS discussions like this that make these posts so good. EXCELLENT info with details allows someone to truly study things that affect accuracy in revolvers. Keep this kind of posting going!

[bradshaw]

.... Vol. 33 (XXXIII) shows hammer & trigger set via hammer & trigger pins on Bisley Blackhawk frame, This allows tactile as well as visual observation of engagement as trigger is squeezed. When doing this, I set paper or cloth over pins to protect frame, especially on blued guns.
David Bradshaw