Ruger Blackhawk timing

[Badlands Bob #61228]

I've was rooting around in the safe today and I have 3 Ruger Blackhawks. Two are 4 5/8" barrels and the other is 6 1/2". The 6 1/2" and one of the 4 5/8" have 9mm inter-changable cylinders from the factory. I took the cylinder from the 6 1/2" and put it into the 4 5/8" and it cycles just fine and locks up like it's suppose to. Is there a way to check to make sure the cylinder is lined up with the barrel? Is this even a concern?

 

Yes, I have a large supply of lead 9mm bullets I'm looking to burn up and I want to see the expression of the Loading Table crowd when I dump the 9mm cartridges on the table. I don't mind goofing around but I certainly don't want to do anything dangerous.

 

Badlands Bob

[Guest Joe West, SASS#1532 L Regulator]

If it works it's good. Often they are just a little different from gun to gun, but sometimes the errors align and all is well.

With Rugers the alignment is rarely dangerous just off enough to cause some binding of the cylinder pin or cylinder to barrel forcing cone face. I use a range rod that checks the cylinder to barrel alignment.

You can fire a few primed 9mm and see if the hit is well centered during fast cycling. Be sure to drill out the pimer flash hole some [and then mark those cases so you don't use them for reloads] or the primers will back out when shooting primed cases. Measure the cylinder to barrel gap and see if it's the same as the gun it was fitted to.Don't file any metal off without talking to me about it though, you're too close by to have to do that.

Maybe see you Sunday,

Joe

[Badlands Bob #61228]

OK, I loaded up some primer only cases and only about 1/2 of them went off. According to my feeler gauges, I have a little over .010 clearance between the cylinder and the barrel. There seems to be too much movement of the cylinder front to back so I don't think this is going to work. That's probably the reason for the miss fires.

 

Not all Rugers are made the same.