revolver

[inkspot]

sence we are on the subject of guns I just bought a ruger single six new model stainless revolver it should have 2 cylinders 22LR and 22 magnum i only got the magnum would like to get the LR ruger wants as high as $200.them installing it. have to ship them the gun wont sell cylinder any other way. any one have experience on this why cant i get one on ebay or other source I cant believe every cylinder is hand fitted .

 

[THE-MAN]

Ive seen them at gun shows for sale individually. Id thing all the hassle is just a way to make up for liability.

Owning several single sixes myself, I have never tried cylinder interchangability..

 

[PJH]

Must be because of some law or something - I have one of those Rugers, and the cylinder pops in and out in a matter of seconds with no tools required. I can't imagine any machining that would individualize the cylinder to a specific revolver, altho I've never tried swapping a cylinder to another frame. Nice little revolver.

 

[gatcchelguy]

The cylinder MUST be fitted to the revolver. Do not shoot it with just any old cylinder. It could be messy.

 

[PJH]

Thanks for the warning - I learned something today.

 

[JohnDeereJimOhio]

They also put a serial number on them so they know they math. We bought a ruger black hawk with a 9mm and 357 cylinder and the numbers didn't math up. Called them and they payed for shipping both ways and sent us hats and shirts for the mix up, it said right in the book to check the numbers.

 

[D beatty]

If you bought the Ruger single six stainless steel combo it should have came with the extra cylinder thats the only way they sell it. Was this gun new or used? The Ruger single nine comes in only 22Mag. You will find that the single six combo will be more accurate useing the 22 mag cylinder.

 

[Ronald Anderson]

I have found that they shoot 22 magnums accurately but will not shoot regular 22 shells accurately. So the best advice is just shoot 22 magnums and forget about spending that money for a different cylinder.

 

[Dick2]

Reminds me that many years ago my cousin bought a used .22 revolver somewhere that looked like someone had changed the cylinder.

It was about as dangerous to stand beside it as it was to stand in front of it. The holes in the cylinder did not line up with the hole in the barrel and it spit a lot of lead out the side when fired!

 

[PJH]

I have an old Owl Head revolver that I inherited from a great aunt. Just by looking at it you can tell it's a lead shaver. I don't know if it was that sloppy when it was new, or if it's been shot so much that it's worn out. I kinda think it was sloppy when new, but it's older than I am so who knows. . .

 

[Mike M]

I have one of those for many many years now. I don't remember if I ever checked that out or not ?
Now your got me thinkking I'd better recheck it.

 

[Bret4207]

(quoted from post at 08:31:04 10/10/13) Must be because of some law or something - I have one of those Rugers, and the cylinder pops in and out in a matter of seconds with no tools required. I can't imagine any machining that would individualize the cylinder to a specific revolver, altho I've never tried swapping a cylinder to another frame. Nice little revolver.

Almost all the quality revolvers I've seen pictures of being manufactured show the cylinders being at least marked for the chamber boring with the cylinder in the specific gun the cylinder goes to. After boring and chambering the cylinder line up is further checked with a go-no go type gauge too. The high dollar revolvers use a line boring set up where the clearances are even tighter. After everything is done they hand fit them for perfect alignment. So yes, there is machining that individualizes the cylinder to the specific gun with any decent quality revolver.

Every once ins a while someone will swap cylinders between frames or pickup a spare cylinder and find it shoots light crazy. That's luck of the draw. Don't count on it working every time.

You guys with the Mag cylinders- see if you can scare up some 22 WRF and try that in the Mag cylinder. Works like a 22 short in a LR chamber. My Smith M48 22 Mag LOVES it! Much better small game bullet than the mags or a LR.

 

[MarkB_MI]

Knowing Ruger, I suspect the cylinders are pretty much interchangeable. If there's anything Ruger knows how to do, it's how to shave manufacturing costs. Hand-fitting parts costs time and money.

I imagine there are a couple of reasons why they require you to return the gun to the factory: First is the obvious liability of selling a cylinder without knowing whether the buyer is a competent gunsmith. The second should be obvious, if you just ask the question: "Why is the 22LR cylinder missing?". Nine times out of ten the answer is "Because it's a stolen gun."

 

[M-MAN]

I"ll guarantee you if you ever get hold of a lead shaver you"ll never think about swapping a cylinder again.

 

[Ken Macfarlane]

We had a single with the mag and lr cylinders, the mag was so loud and so much lead came out we only shot it as a lr after. Often would shoot cb caps you didn't need earplugs.

Just because of certain rules up here I can't say for sure but my friend told me cci shotshells work well shooting pigeons and squirrels with this revolver inside as the shot won't break steel.

 

[Bret4207]

(quoted from post at 18:32:54 10/10/13) Knowing Ruger, I suspect the cylinders are pretty much interchangeable."

From what I've seen, I think "pretty much" is about as close as they come.

 

[Gundoctor]

Just want to say that "Bret4207" is right on. They have to be "timed" to the bore of the barrel for each gun.

Untitled URL Link

 

[MarkB_MI]

In the case here, where you have two interchangeable cylinders, how does one time the new cylinder without affecting the timing of the old cylinder?

 

[Bret4207]

The traditional way to do it was to machine everything to a close a tolerance as you could. Then you patiently went at it with files and scrapers and worked the timing of the cylinder, hand, ratchet and a mess of other little parts I forget the name of until everything lines up right. As I said, the video I saw of the Ruger plant showed a lady with a go/no go gauge and a big bin full of cylinders. Looked to me like she kept trying them till she found one that fit within tolerance. Didn't appear to take her more than 20-30 seconds between the 2 bins. I imagine that's part of the reason the dual cylinder Single Sizes rarely are star performers in the accuracy dept.

 

[Gundoctor]

It is timing the new cylinder to the old revolver and it's pawl.

DEP

 

[Rich_WI]

Switching cylinders is the correct way to match multiple cylinders to a particular gun. If you think about it, you will realize its impossible to machine and time more than one cylinder to fit the gun, after that, its trial and error (read as luck) to find the second cylinder that fits. A cylinder is nothing more than a piece of flat stock that is wrapped so it starts over after the 6th hole. Think of the hole (chamber) and it has to match up with the notch on the cylinder, the difference is the tolerance. Eliminate all tolerance and you have a perfect cylinder but we dont live in that world so we time the gun so the cylinder that is in it will work weather the chamber is drilled a little ahead or behind perfect. Once we have timed the gun, we cant re-time it every day when we switch cylinders so when they make the gun, they find 2 cylinders from the bin that match (read that as real close).

Now, having said that, its just a .22 so most people never learn the above because they grab their buddies cylinder or buy one from ebay, shoot the gun and its fine. They are not tack drivers, not by a long shot (no pun intended). They excel at being minute of pop can guns, although people will argue otherwise. The 224 bore dont help anything either but run that at 222 and it wont make a world of difference, it would still be a pop can gun.

 

[MarkB_MI]

Bret, tht is my point: The only way Ruger can produce a revolver with interchangeable cylinders and sell it for a price that is really dirt cheap is to eliminate hand-fitting of parts. Either they have eliminated nearly all variability between parts, or else they deliberately introduce variability in their cylinders (something engineers call "dither") to ensure they produce a cylinder for each frame.

I wonder how old that video was? I'm sure Ruger would eliminate trial and error fitting if they could, and with modern manufacturing technology I'll bet they can.

 

[Bret4207]

(quoted from post at 18:21:57 10/12/13) Switching cylinders is the correct way to match multiple cylinders to a particular gun. If you think about it, you will realize its impossible to machine and time more than one cylinder to fit the gun, after that, its trial and error (read as luck) to find the second cylinder that fits. A cylinder is nothing more than a piece of flat stock that is wrapped so it starts over after the 6th hole. Think of the hole (chamber) and it has to match up with the notch on the cylinder, the difference is the tolerance. Eliminate all tolerance and you have a perfect cylinder but we dont live in that world so we time the gun so the cylinder that is in it will work weather the chamber is drilled a little ahead or behind perfect. Once we have timed the gun, we cant re-time it every day when we switch cylinders so when they make the gun, they find 2 cylinders from the bin that match (read that as real close).

Now, having said that, its just a .22 so most people never learn the above because they grab their buddies cylinder or buy one from ebay, shoot the gun and its fine. They are not tack drivers, not by a long shot (no pun intended). They excel at being minute of pop can guns, although people will argue otherwise. The 224 bore dont help anything either but run that at 222 and it wont make a world of difference, it would still be a pop can gun.

The high dollar Linbaughs and such have multiple cylinders line bored in the frame of the gun. You can have multiple, perfectly aligned cylinders, it just costs a lot more.

 

[Bret4207]

If Ruger isn't testing the fit with a gauge of some sort then that really would explain why they can produce good shooters like my Mk III 22/45 and what are normally mediocre shooters like the SS. OTOH, I have a Blackhawk Convertible 45ACP/45 Colt. It seems to be a tack driver with at least the 45 ACP cylinder, not so sure on the Colt simply because I haven't put the time into it. I'm pretty sure there is still gauging done. Get own the line into the Heritage Rough Riders and such and I imagine the tolerances are much wider, although most a decent shooters.