Howdy Again
Since we are talking about Long Flute cylinders, here is an interesting story.
I bought this 2nd Gen SAA a number of years ago. It was made in 1973. It came with two cylinders. The dealer labeled one of them as a 'long flute' cylinder. No, it is not an old Model 1878 cylinder, you can see the flutes on the second cylinder are not that long, but if you look closely you can see they are a tad longer than the flutes on the cylinder in the gun.
I had the gun lettered soon after I bought it. Can't place my hands on the letter right now, but I do recall that the gun originally left the factory with a much longer barrel, either 10" or 12", I can't recall right now. Shortly after the gun was purchased in 1973 it was returned to the factory and emerged with the present 7 1/2" barrel. Somewhere along the line, it aquired the second cylinder. I seem to recall the dealer said he bought the gun with the extra cylinder from an old Colt employee and the dealer seemed to think the employee made up the second long flute cylinder for it. The last three digits of the SN are stamped on the front of the cylinder. Colt had no record of extra cylinders when I lettered the gun, so some of this is supposition.
The other thing is, the 'long flute' cylinder has the Black Powder bevel on the front. In this photo, the 'long flute' cylinder is on the right and the 'standard' cylinder is on the left. That is a New Vaquero cylinder in the center with Ruger's idea of a 'black powder' bevel. Yoiu can clearly see the Colt Black Powder bevel on the 'long flute' cylinder. When I first tried the gun out, it turned out that the 'standard' cylinder shot better than the 'long flute' cylinder, so that is the cylinder that lives in it, other than the kind of cool 'long flute' cylinder
