New Bearcat heavy leading

[alinct]

A few weeks ago, Ruger sent me a new Bearcat to replace an old model that was beyond repair. I took it out yesterday to put through it's paces, when after about 50 rounds the cylinder started to bind up pretty good. I figured that the gun was just real tight and the fouling was accumulating pretty quick.

Back home I took it apart to give it a good cleaning and noticed a lot of splashed lead on both sides of the forcing cone, the sides of the frame and underneath the top strap along with the face of the cylinder. The ammo was standard Federal bulk.

Before that, I had some copper washed ammo, CCI I think, and put only two cylinder fulls through it and didn't notice anything. Granted, it was only 12 rounds (all the time I had during work lunch).

What do you think might be causing it? Thank you.

[Boge Quinn]

How big is the barrel/cylinder gap?

[alinct]

Hey Boge, I ran home during lunch and brought the bearcat into work. My gap gauges seem to be just a hair wide to fit through, hits the the part of the cylinder where the basepin goes through, I can only get the gauge in part way. The gauges are .50 inches in width.

On the ejector side, I can partially fit .003, but not .004. One the other side, I can almost get .010 in. I'm wondering now if the basepin hole in the cylinder was bored off....

I'm going to see if I can snip my gap gauges a bit to get them in all the way.

[dmize]

WOW!!!!! Someone was asleep on the assembly line.

[alinct]

I'm going to send Ruger an email and see what they say. They've always been really good with taking care of me with other things.

Now that I think about it, I think it might be the forcing cone that's off. I've checked each chamber and they are all off on the same side.