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Ruger Vaquero cyliner throats


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Was wondering if the new style vaquero in 45 colt has the right cylinder throats, or are they undersize to. I have serveral old model vaquero's and the throats are undersized. Just curious if Ruger is still doing undersize throats or they up to speck, I know it could be a crap shoot, have heard of some throats on the old model having good throats, just curious to know if Ruger has fixed this or not, what is your answer on this, especially to the gunsmiths that work on them and do action jobs.

 

 

 

All for now JD Trampas

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Was wondering if the new style vaquero in 45 colt has the right cylinder throats, or are they undersize to. I have serveral old model vaquero's and the throats are undersized. Just curious if Ruger is still doing undersize throats or they up to speck, I know it could be a crap shoot, have heard of some throats on the old model having good throats, just curious to know if Ruger has fixed this or not, what is your answer on this, especially to the gunsmiths that work on them and do action jobs.

 

 

 

All for now JD Trampas

 

Just got a pair from Davidson with spair 45ACP cylinders. Both calibers have .452 throats and shoot fine.

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Mine were not. I was having all kinds of accuracy problems, leading issues, and fouling. Calipered them, and some were as small as .445". Rather than get a $65 reamer to do 12 holes, I found the right sized drill bit and chased the throats out, and followed up with a good polishing. Solved all the problems.

 

The easy test for checking chamber throat diameter is to drop a new cast bullet into the chamber. If it passes cleanly through or has just a slight amount of drag you're OK. If it hangs up and you really have to give it a good poke to get it through, they need reamed out.

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It's a crap shoot. A few come out OK but in all honesty, most do not. Ruger has a machine that "Gang Bores" all six holes in one shot and I don't know how often the boring bits are checked or are replaced after so many cuts as rote.

I also see the same results in their .357s. The throat diameters vary all over the place and have to be re-cut.

 

Coffinmaker

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I shoot salt-n-pepper sets of Rugers and Ubertis.

My stainless OMV is great and the bullets barely hang in the cylinders. My blued/cch OMV (within 300 in serial number range from the sstl model) has a an open 'pattern' and the bullets hang in various spots in the chambers.

Thanks for reminding me of this problem that I found this winter. I take summers off from cowboy-action and intend to have my guns worked. Addressing this one gun will certainly be on the list.

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The New Vaqueros are no longer gang-bored all-six-at-once. They built a new jig for the mid-frame series that does the cylinders one bore at a time, all with the same bit/reamer set. Variances between bores are a thing of the past. You can use reloading tools that don't do a full-length resize such as the Lee classic "whack a mole" loader. The chambers we do get are generally better than the original Vaqueros or most large-frame guns but yeah, we do still see undersize throats now and again. If so, a $50 trip to cylindersmith.com fixes 'em up.

 

The new cylinder making technique that started with the mid-frames migrated to the large frames circa 2007 or so. The easy way to ID a large-frame made the new way is to look for the "Ruger lawyer's warning billboard" - underbarrel marks the new system, side-barrel means old. The exception is the 2006 Blackhawk Flattop 44Mag, the one not marked "Super". This was the first large frame to get the new cylinder trick, but has a side-barrel warning label. None of the large-frame Vaqueros got the new cylinder trick, we don't think...it's barely possible some of the final cleanup runs got 'em if new cylinders were made for old frames they had laying around.

 

All the mid-frame Ruger SAs have the new cylinder, including the NewVaq, the 50th 357 Blackhawk Flattop of 2005, the new 44Spls, etc. Side-barrel or under-barrel warning doesn't matter.

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Thanks for the replies guys, figured as much, still a crap shoot, as for the 357 old model's I have several of them also, they are undersized to boot, but not as bad as the 45's.

 

Maybe I will buy the reamer and pilot kit or just send them off to cylindersmith, maybe, have been shooting these 45's since 05 so I may just keep shooting them, this isn't bulleye's shooting, but would like a little more accurancy

 

 

All for now JD Trampas

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