465 carpenter steel.....

[cmh]

Now I remember Max explaining how the Ruger Super Redhawk was made with 465 carpenter steel for the 454 casull guns...... Is it just the cylinder made with that steel or the cylinder, frame etc? Thanks in advance

[Fowler]

Just the cylinder I believe...

[dougader]

THat's what I understood... for both 454 and 480.

[cmh]

Thank you gentlemen

[Snyd]

Carpenter Steel article

www.cartech.com/techarticles.aspx?id=1608

[cmh]

Thank you very interesting

[whitworth]

I believe the barrels of the .480 and .454 were also made from 465.

[bradshaw]

whitworth.... the cylinder is where the super alloy needs to be for six chambers to work. Barrel making is a whole nother caper.
David Bradshaw

[shorty500]

whitworth is remembering something though,i dont think is was 465 but i seem to recall an alloy change for the barrels also. plus have shortened and recrowned several for local shooters, lol, my machining experience says it aint a typical 410-series stainless in .454/.480 barrels

[whitworth]

Feb 13, 2015 0:02:14 GMT -5 bradshaw said:

whitworth.... the cylinder is where the super alloy needs to be for six chambers to work. Barrel making is a whole nother caper.
David Bradshaw

Yes, however, Ruger didn't use the standard (416 I believe) stainless steel for the barrels of the .454 and .480. I will confirm later in the morning.

[Encore64]

Jack Huntington told me something similar about the barrel steel. It's why he rebarrels the custom SRHs instead of reboring them.

[bradshaw]

Among the esoterica of stainless alloys beyond tensile and yield strengths are tooling techniques. To rifle a hole by whichever means is chosen requires a dimensionally uniform result. Thus a steel which may submit to the drilling of a uniform hole may intensely resist uniform rifling. A barrel which isn't uniform isn't accurate. Fortunately there are steels which submit to fine barrel making without need of heat treatment. Never understood a centerfire rifle in with barrel and receiver cut from the same piece of bar stock: the action cannot be properly heat treated and the barrel cannot be replaced.

Ruger heat treats revolver frames before machining. Presumably, Freedom Arms does the same. (The 17-4ph M83 frame is cast in the Ruger foundry).
David Bradshaw

[whitworth]

I know they have a devil of a time machining the cylinders. Where are you David? North or south?

[Snyd]

Here's what the above article says about the barrel...

The Barrel

Ruger had to deal with several increased power issues in designing the barrel for its new .454 Casull revolver. Designers were concerned with the throat erosion that might occur when the big cartridge would exit the chamber and slam into the interior surface of the barrel. They knew the higher velocity bullet would have greater impact force, causing high-velocity gas cutting and potential erosion problems. That potential could be magnified if the steel selected for the barrel did not have the correct microstructure for these new requirements.

The first material considered was stainless Type 410, the standard alloy used with great success for other revolvers in the Ruger line of revolvers. Ruger was able to gun drill a 0.480" dia. hole in a 1¼" OD x 19" long bar in 17.27 minutes at 1.1 IPM. However, the material was unable to meet the newer, more strenuous requirements for strength, ductility and corrosion resistance imposed by the higher pressure .454 Casull cartridge.

Ruger then tried 15Cr-5Ni stainless steel, which met all the design requirements but one. It was a "bear" to machine. It took 28 minutes to drill the same diameter hole through the same OD bar at the slower rate of 0.71 IPM. The company could not accept the much longer gun drilling cycle time.

Again, Ruger asked the same Carpenter metallurgist for assistance. He suggested trying Carpenter"s new Project 7000® 15Cr-5Ni stainless, which also has been used as an aerospace alloy, in place of the conventional 15-5 alloy.

Carpenter Project 7000 15Cr-5Ni stainless is designed to offer improved machinability and with it, the opportunity to reduce part costs, cut cycle time and increase productivity. It has been made available as a "drop-in" replacement for the conventional 15-5 alloy in applications where improved machining productivity is desired.

In its trial runs with the Carpenter alloy, Ruger found that it was able to reduce its gun drilling cycle time by 20%. The Project 7000 stainless grade from Carpenter, in fact, matched the cycle time of the stainless Type 410, while improving tool life significantly. The vacuum melted, PH stainless also has excellent transverse mechanical properties to resist the higher stresses produced by the new cartridge.

The hole in the barrel, with a diameter tolerance of 0.002", is obtained by a deep hole drilling operation. The gun drilling is followed by reaming to obtain a finish. Each blank, starting at 1¼" OD x 19" long, is hammer-forged over a mandrel to become 1.171 OD x 23-7/16" long. The rifling and final diameter is formed during the hammer-forging. The forged length is then cut into three 7½"-long gun barrels.

All barrels that had been made from the new Carpenter alloy passed Ruger's rigid endurance tests with flying colors.

Typical analysis of Project 7000 15Cr-5Ni stainless is: carbon 0.07 max., manganese 1.00% max., silicon 1.00% max., phosphorus

0.030% max., sulfur 0.015% max., chromium 14.00/15.50%, nickel 3.50/5.50%, copper 2.50/4.50%, molybdenum 0.50% max., columbium 5XC/0.45, tantalum 0.05% max., iron balance.

[whitworth]

Great info, Snyd!

I have an email inquiry out and am waiting for a reply.