I'm thinking about firelapping

[happyhunter]

I have a Ruger 50th Anniversary 357 Magnum. I am not too impressed with the accuracy. I run about 6 inch groups at 50 yds. I've tried Speer 158 GDHP and Hornady 158 XTPs. Also tried some Keith bullets. I shoot mostly jacketed for deer hunting. But, nothing groups well in that gun. I think my 2.25 inch SP101 is about as accurate.

I have heard firelapping helps with cast bullets. Does it help with jacketed bullets also? Thinking about it, it seems like it should improve jacketed accuracy too. Any experience?

Thanks,
HH

[Frank V]

I firelapped two guns & saw an improvement in both. The first was a Ruger Vaquero .45 Colt. The Vaquero shot really well, but I could see some tooling marks in the bore. After firelapping it was smooth as glass. I couldn't really tell it shot better, it was a good shooter as it was, but it was really easy to clean after that.
The other was a Taurus Tracker .44 mag. & I could see chatter marks in the bore. It shot ok, but leaded with cast bullets. After the firelapping it didn't lead, & shot a little tighter groups.
It really improved the Taurus, & improved the Ruger a little.
Frank

[texagun]

I'd be pretty happy with 6" groups at 50 yds. That half the length of a football field.

[jimmarch]

Well...thing is, the Rugers in 357 like that one or my NewVaq are less likely to have the infamous barrel constriction at the rear where it screws into the frame. The barrel wall is thicker and it resists this problem. The same type of gun in 44 or 45 is more likely to see it and it's those guns that benefit the most from fire lapping. Mind you, an over-torqued 357 barrel is *possible*, just not near as common.

It's an interesting problem to me because I have a NewVaq357 of exactly the same vintage, 2005 production, which is basically the same gun as yours. Barrel is likely of exactly the same type 'cept for the sights, cylinder probably came off the same production line. And mine shoots better than yours - with decent factory jacketed I can do 2" at 25yds so that's 1/3rd tighter than you describe and from everything I can gather, mine's about as good as can be expected without handloading some quality lead. I've not firelapped it or tuned anything related to mechanical accuracy except for a spring kit. My barrel is the same length as yours, 4.68".

Hand-tuned heavy hardcast loads (gas-checke preferred on 357s) can generally beat 2" in these guns...one and a quarter maybe, at best (again, 25yds). Mine probably can, I just haven't gone there yet. Soon I hope.

Hmmm. Stupid question maybe, but...is the rear slight wiggling just a little? I know that happens sometimes with the standard frames, dunno about the flattops. Have you examined the barrel-to-cylinder gap and alignment?

Try running "the checkout" on it:

thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57816

Also...look at the rear of the barrel with the cylinder pulled. Is the forcing cone cut evenly all the way around? Use a flashlight on it. Next, look at the muzzle carefully (either with the gun unloaded or better yet cylinder still out). Any "dings"? Look at the cylinder's throats - any dings or malformations there? Do the alignment tests in the link above, make sure the barrel and cylinder are lining up perfectly or very close to it on all cylinders, and if it's off, can you manually rotate the cylinder slightly to get a solid alignment? Also check the cylinder bolt stop notches all the way around - are any visibly dinged or funky looking that would make the alignment weird on one or more chambers? Is there crud in the bottom of one or more notches? With the cylinder out, does the bolt on the bottom of the frame window look funky? Look down the barrel with a bright light behind it - any odd nicks, discolored areas, weirdness in general? If there's a constriction it won't be visible to the naked eye, at least not usually. Push a lead bullet through with a wooden dowel rod, that will tell you about constrictions.

I'm assuming you know not to use a steel cleaning rod, right? Brass or aluminum (or heavy plastic) only? A steel rod can ding the muzzle, requiring a fresh crown job.

As Texagun points out, what you have isn't "horrible" but it's not great either...mid-frame Ruger SAs like ours can do a bit better at least. I would be trying to hunt down the cause.

[Mountaineer]

Sage advice from Jim March!

Also, refer to the following article by 2Dogs:

gunblast.com/FerminGarza-Firelapping.htm

[Bile]

Before you do anything, try shooting the gun at 25 yards and see how it groups. The sights on your gun will cover up more of the target at 50 yards than it does at 25 yards and this may be your margin of error. If it doesn't shoot well at 25 yards, have someone else (a better shot) shot it at 25 yards to make sure it's the gun and not you. If all this confirms you have a gun that will not print better than 3" at 25 yards, and you're not happy with that, then consider other fixes, beginning with ammo and working toward the gun.

All of my handguns shoot better than I do.

[happyhunter]

I read the article on gunblast the other week, that is what got me thinking about doing it. I have read of fire lapping for years. I read Marshal Stantons book and have slugged the bore of my 50th, there is a constriction at the frame end of the barrel. I forget just how much, it has been about 4 years since I played with it.

Jim, wow that is a list. I will get to work on checking those things out.

Thanks everyone for the input!
HH

[jimmarch]

HH, if you do indeed have a constriction then yes, firelapping starts to look like a good idea. Ditto if there's any roughness, discoloration or "nicks" in the barrel's innards.

A constriction in a 357 Ruger SA would be less common and should be at least less extreme than some of what's seen in the 45s and 44s but it's not at all impossible.

[jimmarch]

I'll add one more thing: as the author of that "checkout procedure" I used it when I bought mine new in 2005. On three guns the shop had. All three passed with flying colors, so I picked mine purely on the fake-case-color pattern (a "smoky gray" all over). Cosmetics was way down on my list of needs (way, WAY down) so...it appeared to me at the time that Ruger's QC on these mid-frame guns of that period was excellent. Yours should be in the same boat.

(In fact, Ruger later dropped the fake-case in favor of a very tasteful all-blue finish, which I heartily approve of. The all-blue started around early 2008, maybe late 2007.

BUT if I was at a gun show and saw two NewVaqs side by side, same price, both cherry condition, one fake-case and one all-blue, I'd grab the fake case even though I despise that finish! Why? Because to me, it proves that the gun was made before the "Obama gun rush" period when Ruger QC started to slip! As bad as the fake-case finish is, it marks the gun as otherwise coming from some of the best "vintage years" Ruger has ever had in their whole history - esp. for the mid-frame SAs.

Yours is also from that same era and like I said, basically the same gun. When running right, I suspect they're the most inherently accurate Ruger handguns ever made, of any type and timeframe, with the possible exception of some of the rimfire autos.

[cdcash]

About 200 rounds of jacketed ammo seemed to smooth my Ruger Super Blackhawk up fine, if you want to do it the old fashioned way.

[peacemaker]

Mar 25, 2011 0:52:59 GMT -5 cdcash said:

About 200 rounds of jacketed ammo seemed to smooth my Ruger Super Blackhawk up fine, if you want to do it the old fashioned way.

So, this really works?

I have a nice, old Colt Peacemaker that I recently had reblued , and now the barrel leads with the exact same loads that never used to lead it up before.

I am in the process of fire lapping a Great Western ll, but if the bluing process on the Colt just gave the bore a little bit of microscopic texture that needs to be smoothed out, the jacketed bullet idea sounds safer.

[Aggie01]

My 50th annniversary .357 was a helluva shooter.
That's why I only had a piloted rechamber done when I had it converted to .41 mag/spl.

[jwp475]

How about the cylinder throats, are they under sized?

[peacemaker]

I kind of butted in for a moment, so I'm not sure if that was directed toward me or the op. I should have stated my Peacemaker is a .45 Colt, and the throats are oversized. The point is, though, that the exact same loads didn't lead the bore before the reblue was done.

[cdcash]

Mar 25, 2011 17:46:27 GMT -5 peacemaker said:

Mar 25, 2011 0:52:59 GMT -5 cdcash said:

About 200 rounds of jacketed ammo seemed to smooth my Ruger Super Blackhawk up fine, if you want to do it the old fashioned way.

So, this really works?

Well, I might be understating. I'm a clean freak so there was a good bit of cotton going down the bore and some light lead loads in between as well for fun. I have noticed the trend over time with several guns, that they smooth out and foul less after shooting with jacketed for a while. It would probably happen with lead loads over a greater amount of time as well. Lots of carbon grit in there too doing the same job as lapping over time, I would think.