Cylinder Size

[1Riot1Ranger]

Can anyone tell me if there's any merit to the information contained in this individual's offering; http://www.alaskais.com/45Cylinderdoctor/

My wife and I just puchased 4 new "Old Model" Vaqueros and while we'll be participating in mounted shooting with CMSA, we'll also be firing live rounds as well. We just had action jobs done on all 4 and had the barrels reduced to 3 3/4" from 4 5/8" because both of us like the feel of the Sheriff's model which is impossible to find. Your help is well-appreciated.
Jonathan

[Marshal Will Wingam]

What the man is saying makes sense. I might send him a cylinder if I had an inaccurate one to try this, but not on one of my match guns until I had more information. I can sure see how this could account for inaccuracy from the throat being a smaller diameter than needed to properly engage the rifling. It might be a good idea to set up six targets and mark your chambers so you can carefully shoot each target with only one chamber. After 5 or 6 cylinders, you'd know if one or more of the chambers was inaccurate and exactly which one(s) they are. You could then measure that with an inside caliper to see if he was right.

[1Riot1Ranger]

Great minds think alike. I checked the inside bores of the 4 cylinders and darned if he isn't right. So I'm going to do exactly what you proposed tomorrow on the range and see what happens. We just got these and I'd hate to screw them up before we even have an opportunity to actually shoot them.

Thanks so much for your thoughts.

Riot

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[Marshal Will Wingam]

Please post the results so we, too, can benefit from your testing. Thanks.

[1Riot1Ranger]

Of course. Let's start with the facts. The guns, four in number, are brand new "Old" style Vaueros w/ serial numbers in the  58-XXXXXXX series manufactured in June of 2002 that my wife and I bought kast week.  They were speced this week when the action jobs were done on them and the barrels shortened to 3 3/4 for the feel of the Sheriff's models which are impossible for us to find. The cylinders all speced out at .482 at the butt end and .450 at the bbl. end. I checked these numbers with my own inside micrometer at home and came up with the same numbers. I e-mailed Annie, the Moderator of RATS to see if she had any recommendations because I always like to get as much intel as I can before engaging in irreversible action and my guns are no exception. With that said and pending Annies response and any others which may come my way by virtue of this board, I'm planning on delivering them to the man on Monday for a a return on Friday, both ways Fed Ex Priority Mail Overnight. So I'll post to this on Saturday after I've had a chance to fire them and compare the groups with the ones I'm shooting this wekend.

Thanks again to all for your contributions to this board. It's a valuable resourse and appreciated by all, I'm sure.
1Riot1Ranger

[Hemlock Mike]

When my pard & I got our RV's about 9 years ago, we noticed that the recovered slugs didn't have much rifling on them.  I read an article somewhere covering the stated problem and I did some measuring and found the throats to be about .451".  The guns also sounded like they had a bang different than other similar guns.
I hogged mine to .453" and it did make a difference on sound and accuracy.  I also did my pard's gun and he was pleased.  BUT, I've also found many postings that pards had no problem or found no improvement after the "fix".  Go figure    Look at all the posts provided and make your own decision.

Mike