deadin
Member
Has anybody inspected the tolerances and lock-up on a Korth?
For their price they should be pretty good.......
For their price they should be pretty good.......
I find myself perturbed by revolvers
- Thread starter CoRoMo
- Start date
- Status
I know… And now there is a huge mob at my door with torches and pitchforks, and think a few of them are carrying a rope… Woe is me.
But they all have one thing in common – I don’t believe that any of them has ever read a Smith & Wesson, Colt or Ruger shop manual, and most of them may not even know what such a thing is.
Of course there are revolvers that come close to the ideal perfection, but they are made, assembled or modified by a handful of custom gunsmiths, and “perfection” does not come cheap.
What most of us have to settle for is affordable perfection rather then perfect perfection, and even my most non-perfect Smith & Wesson, Colt or Ruger revolvers will group shots tighter then I can hold.
One time Bill Ruger came down from Prescott to see me and talk shop. At the time he was having trouble with the U.S. Army, to whom he had sold a bunch of Security Six .38 revolvers. Now they wanted to widen the ball on the cylinder latch so that it would fit tighter in the cylinder notches, and “take out the slop.”
He pointed out that if he did what they wanted there was a good chance that if the notch became fouled the ball wouldn’t enter the notch, and skip locking the cylinder. As might be expected the military and/or civilian bureaucrats continued to demand less slop even if it resulted in a gun that might not work. Bill was totally disgusted, and I agreed with him, having had some experience with the same kind of people. I never did find out how things came out.
Smith & Wesson makes (or at least used to make) a cylinder stop with an extra wide ball. Maybe my detractors should buy a supply of them…
Waywatcher
Member
CoRoMo, you are not completely alone. I identify with a lot of what you wrote. The things that I absolutely have to check on a revolver:
--Carry-up. I slowly cock the hammer on each chamber to verify it locks up. I slowly pull the trigger DA on every chamber to see that it locks up before the hammer falls (I catch the hammer so the owner doesn't get annoyed.) I've seen enough revolvers, even new ones, fail this simple test on a chamber or two. I also shine a light like Jim March's check to check for chamber alignment.
--I watch the cylinder gap to make sure the cylinder doesn't scrape as it turns. I also watch the gap when pushing out and pushing in the cylinder to make sure it doesn't scrape then.
--I check the muzzle crown. (I was pretty close to buying an otherwise marvelous blued S&W .44 Special, Mod 24 I believe, until I looked at the muzzle. It looked oblong, like it was crowned at an angle--disappointing. From personal experience, I can tell you that messed up crowns will be inaccurate, keyholing, pieces of garbage.)
--I don't get hung up on cylinder gap thousandths, as long as it looks reasonable to the eye.
--I don't get hung up on end-shake, as long as its reasonable.
--I don't get hung up on lock-up tightness, as long as its reasonable.
--I also don't get hung up on trigger lightness or smoothness, as long as its reasonable with no major stops or grit.
--Carry-up. I slowly cock the hammer on each chamber to verify it locks up. I slowly pull the trigger DA on every chamber to see that it locks up before the hammer falls (I catch the hammer so the owner doesn't get annoyed.) I've seen enough revolvers, even new ones, fail this simple test on a chamber or two. I also shine a light like Jim March's check to check for chamber alignment.
--I watch the cylinder gap to make sure the cylinder doesn't scrape as it turns. I also watch the gap when pushing out and pushing in the cylinder to make sure it doesn't scrape then.
--I check the muzzle crown. (I was pretty close to buying an otherwise marvelous blued S&W .44 Special, Mod 24 I believe, until I looked at the muzzle. It looked oblong, like it was crowned at an angle--disappointing. From personal experience, I can tell you that messed up crowns will be inaccurate, keyholing, pieces of garbage.)
--I don't get hung up on cylinder gap thousandths, as long as it looks reasonable to the eye.
--I don't get hung up on end-shake, as long as its reasonable.
--I don't get hung up on lock-up tightness, as long as its reasonable.
--I also don't get hung up on trigger lightness or smoothness, as long as its reasonable with no major stops or grit.
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OP
OP
CoRoMo
Member
Okay, okay, okay.
I repent.
Big JJ nailed this one, and I confess; I am a cursed perfectionist, but there is hope. What I'm learning through this very thread is moderation in my ways!
Perfection: seek after it, settle for less than it, be satisfied with your proximity to it.
I am cured... uh... well... maybe.
I'm sure I can't stop nitpicking every gun I intend to plop my green down for, but what I need to do is accept what I've got and be satisfied that it is what it is.
I want to be that guy, the other customer who bought a random LCR that I spoke about in my OP.
I feel a little happier just for saying so.
One side note though. I measured the gap on a LCR-22 just last night that was .009" and I wonder if this is at all excessive for a .22lr revolver. Your thoughts?
I repent.
Big JJ nailed this one, and I confess; I am a cursed perfectionist, but there is hope. What I'm learning through this very thread is moderation in my ways!
Perfection: seek after it, settle for less than it, be satisfied with your proximity to it.
I am cured... uh... well... maybe.
I'm sure I can't stop nitpicking every gun I intend to plop my green down for, but what I need to do is accept what I've got and be satisfied that it is what it is.
I want to be that guy, the other customer who bought a random LCR that I spoke about in my OP.
I feel a little happier just for saying so.
One side note though. I measured the gap on a LCR-22 just last night that was .009" and I wonder if this is at all excessive for a .22lr revolver. Your thoughts?
Standing Wolf
Member in memoriam
Yeah, that's what I've heard from several people, bergmen. It's good to know some companies still uphold standards in a serious way.
Good news for you and bad, btg3: Colt revolver stocks don't fit lots of hands and never did. Only one of my Colts wears factory stocks, and it's got a Tyler T Grip that makes a huge difference. Colt revolvers actually aren't any less robust than others, but when one does develop a timing problem, it's more expensive to fix for two reasons: 1.) parts are harder to find and more expensive, and 2.) competent gunsmiths are harder to find and generally more expensive. I've never encountered a timing problem, but if I ever do, I'll send the gun to Cylider & Slide in Nebraska.
One and two at a time, I've restocked all my Colts with Herrett's and Nill stocks. Cheap? No. Readily and quickly available? No. Good? Yes.
shooting4life
Member
Just buy freedom arms and you'll be happy
sugarmaker
Member
Old fuff, I think some of the disagreement on what is too loose or too tight may be the definition of the terms and not the guns. Mine all have free play with the trigger foreward. I think about .005"-ish give or take. The play is completely loose. When they are cocked, the cylinder can still be rotated with light finger pressure but it is definitely biased counter clockwise. Not tight, but definitely not totally loose, just lightly seated ccw. A couple that have been shot a bunch have a little looseness this way. I gave up finding a perfect 500 (yes, I laugh at myself as I know I'm overly concerned about some things that may or may not affect accuracy...tough to be me...). It's got horrible play with the trigger foreward and I'm guessing it had .005" loose play cocked when it was brand new. I think it's actually a bit tighter now than it was when i bought it. Hopefully when I get more range time I'll find it shoots well and I may forever change my thinking.
MtnSpur
Member
Colt stocks not fitting hands, yeah well not all hands are created equal. I'm not switching out the stocks on my Troopers or Pythons. The Official Police came with a set of Herretts and I might switch out the '76 DS stocks to some combat style, maybe. All the above are within tolerance and shoot jest dandy thank you fer askin
Loosedhorse
member
FA is not upholding standards--it works at an entirely different standard.
At FA they line-bore: they fit the barrel, then fit an unbored cylinder with VERY tight lock-up...and then they mark the cylinder by starting a bore through the barrel. The machining of the charge holes is finished with the cylinder removed from the gun. That is the only way to get a tight rotational lock-up and KNOW that each hole is concentric with the barrel, the importance of which Old Fuff pointed out.
And it is expensive. Pick up a Model 83 price tag sometime if you're not sure.
Expecting that type of tight lock-up out of a more affordable revolver is not expecting "standards"; it is expecting the undesirable.
CoRoMo.
If you want perfection, at least as much as can be obtained, you can have it, at least to the degree that it's obtainable. The down side is it's costly...
Freedom Arms has been mentioned, and there are a handful of custom gunsmiths that will completely rebuild an S&W, Colt or Ruger to the point it where should meet any reasonable expectations. You won't get this directly from the factories as a regular product for the simple reason that if they made everything that way only a small percentage of they're current customers could afford to buy them.
It is also true that manufacturers go through good and bad times. Smith & Wesson for example saw some bad ones during the Viet Nam War era when demand far outstripped supply. At the time they expanded the plant several times and set it up with new machinery. This was somewhat difficult, but nothing like trying to find competent workers, and then train them to do things, "The S&W way." Did Quality suffer? Of course it did, but still the majority of the production was fine.
Another negative is when a privately held firearms company is bought up by a large conglomerate that proceeds to bring in a new top management, and it turns out that they know nothing about firearms, but think that since they have an MBA from a famous university they can run any business. I even met a company president once who proudly told me, "That he'd never fired a gun, and didn't intend to!" With management like that attention soon turned away from quality and focused on cost improvement.
This is part of the reason that most of my personal guns date from 1947 backwards. They aren't absolutely perfect, but they are more so than most of what's being made today.
No it's not, for good reason. .22 R.F. cartridges are loaded with soft lead bullets. When you fire them they tend to plate the face of both the cylinder and barrel with a coating of lead and carbon fouling. After a bit of shooting you'd find the cylinder was binding up if the gap was much tighter. If you think that gap is excessive you should look at some Civil War cap & ball revolvers.
If you want perfection, at least as much as can be obtained, you can have it, at least to the degree that it's obtainable. The down side is it's costly...
Freedom Arms has been mentioned, and there are a handful of custom gunsmiths that will completely rebuild an S&W, Colt or Ruger to the point it where should meet any reasonable expectations. You won't get this directly from the factories as a regular product for the simple reason that if they made everything that way only a small percentage of they're current customers could afford to buy them.
It is also true that manufacturers go through good and bad times. Smith & Wesson for example saw some bad ones during the Viet Nam War era when demand far outstripped supply. At the time they expanded the plant several times and set it up with new machinery. This was somewhat difficult, but nothing like trying to find competent workers, and then train them to do things, "The S&W way." Did Quality suffer? Of course it did, but still the majority of the production was fine.
Another negative is when a privately held firearms company is bought up by a large conglomerate that proceeds to bring in a new top management, and it turns out that they know nothing about firearms, but think that since they have an MBA from a famous university they can run any business. I even met a company president once who proudly told me, "That he'd never fired a gun, and didn't intend to!" With management like that attention soon turned away from quality and focused on cost improvement.
This is part of the reason that most of my personal guns date from 1947 backwards. They aren't absolutely perfect, but they are more so than most of what's being made today.
No it's not, for good reason. .22 R.F. cartridges are loaded with soft lead bullets. When you fire them they tend to plate the face of both the cylinder and barrel with a coating of lead and carbon fouling. After a bit of shooting you'd find the cylinder was binding up if the gap was much tighter. If you think that gap is excessive you should look at some Civil War cap & ball revolvers.
Coal Dragger
member
Just for grins I went through Jim March's test list and performed them with my Freedom Arms M83 Premier in .454 Casull.
Cylinder wiggle is basically non existent, no discernible front to back motion is possible. Three of the chambers line up in full lock and simply can't be wiggled from side to side with anything I would consider moderate to firm pressure, the other two if you grasp firmly enough can be made to wiggle just a tiny tiny little bit. Total play is not even visually detectable and this is all by feel; the cylinder also wants to return to the original position if you release the pressure. So basically in full battery everything is "welded" to the frame for all practical purposes.
A check of barrel cylinder gap is a bit inconclusive, all I can report is that the single feeler gauge I have at .006 will not fit. In fact it doesn't even seem close to being able to fit. So I can only report the gap is tighter than .006. Looks like (not that my eye ball is accurate enough) to be in the .002-.003 range, will buy some more feeler gauges in the future to further test this. At any rate it takes quite a bit of positioning against strong light to even see the gap by eye. Range testing of over 50 rounds per session hasn't resulted in any binding/drag issues though.
Timing also looks good, although I must note that between the very tight tolerances at the rear of the cylinder and the 6" barrel, light has to be introduced from the muzzle on this revolver. All cylinders appear to line up perfectly with the very bright shiny bore. On a side note fired brass indicates good alignment of chambers with the frame, as firing pin strikes are perfectly centered.
As noted above the bore looks good, although slugging it with a soft lead ball .490" did indicate a slight constriction near the forcing cone where the barrel is threaded into the frame. Oddly hammering a soft swagged .452" lead bullet down didn't seem to indicate any constriction, at least not by feel. I suppose the longer bearing surface of the bullet makes the pressure needed to push the slug down the bore feel more consistent and tighter. Big bore revolvers, I have read, are well known for this issue. I haven't noticed that it has affected accuracy in my hands, although I suppose I could try fire lapping in the future. The slugs measured with a caliper came out to .452" groves, and .444" on the lands if I recall correctly. Cylinder throats allow .451" jacketed bullets to pass freely in all chambers, and allow .452" jacketed bullets to pass without applying pressure but there is no play that I can discern. I also tried some Cast Performance 360gr WFN gas checked bullets, and they are finger tight in the throats and will pass with just a little nudge from a finger, my guess is the bullet lube is sticking just enough they won't pass freely. I also tried some wheel weight cast .452" truncated cone bullets from a Lee mold and they were also finger tight.
Checks of the hammer, and trigger indicate good sere contact. The trigger pull is a bit heavier than I would like but breaks cleanly with no creep, and a bit of over travel. Testing the firing pin was not needed since it clearly busts any primer I have tried.
This revolver was costly, but appears to be well made.
Cylinder wiggle is basically non existent, no discernible front to back motion is possible. Three of the chambers line up in full lock and simply can't be wiggled from side to side with anything I would consider moderate to firm pressure, the other two if you grasp firmly enough can be made to wiggle just a tiny tiny little bit. Total play is not even visually detectable and this is all by feel; the cylinder also wants to return to the original position if you release the pressure. So basically in full battery everything is "welded" to the frame for all practical purposes.
A check of barrel cylinder gap is a bit inconclusive, all I can report is that the single feeler gauge I have at .006 will not fit. In fact it doesn't even seem close to being able to fit. So I can only report the gap is tighter than .006. Looks like (not that my eye ball is accurate enough) to be in the .002-.003 range, will buy some more feeler gauges in the future to further test this. At any rate it takes quite a bit of positioning against strong light to even see the gap by eye. Range testing of over 50 rounds per session hasn't resulted in any binding/drag issues though.
Timing also looks good, although I must note that between the very tight tolerances at the rear of the cylinder and the 6" barrel, light has to be introduced from the muzzle on this revolver. All cylinders appear to line up perfectly with the very bright shiny bore. On a side note fired brass indicates good alignment of chambers with the frame, as firing pin strikes are perfectly centered.
As noted above the bore looks good, although slugging it with a soft lead ball .490" did indicate a slight constriction near the forcing cone where the barrel is threaded into the frame. Oddly hammering a soft swagged .452" lead bullet down didn't seem to indicate any constriction, at least not by feel. I suppose the longer bearing surface of the bullet makes the pressure needed to push the slug down the bore feel more consistent and tighter. Big bore revolvers, I have read, are well known for this issue. I haven't noticed that it has affected accuracy in my hands, although I suppose I could try fire lapping in the future. The slugs measured with a caliper came out to .452" groves, and .444" on the lands if I recall correctly. Cylinder throats allow .451" jacketed bullets to pass freely in all chambers, and allow .452" jacketed bullets to pass without applying pressure but there is no play that I can discern. I also tried some Cast Performance 360gr WFN gas checked bullets, and they are finger tight in the throats and will pass with just a little nudge from a finger, my guess is the bullet lube is sticking just enough they won't pass freely. I also tried some wheel weight cast .452" truncated cone bullets from a Lee mold and they were also finger tight.
Checks of the hammer, and trigger indicate good sere contact. The trigger pull is a bit heavier than I would like but breaks cleanly with no creep, and a bit of over travel. Testing the firing pin was not needed since it clearly busts any primer I have tried.
This revolver was costly, but appears to be well made.
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Cop Bob
Member
That type of perfection is an illusion... as a general rule...
You have gone past over thinking it. Far past.
You might need a Colt. Pull the trigger, hold it and drop the hammer soft with your thumb. Most of them lockup like a bank vault.
Now go! Find a pile of Colts, I bet every one locks up tight.
I'm sorry for joking.
You might need a Colt. Pull the trigger, hold it and drop the hammer soft with your thumb. Most of them lockup like a bank vault.
Now go! Find a pile of Colts, I bet every one locks up tight.
I'm sorry for joking.bergmen
Member.
I just measured mine. It is .0015 with the .454 Casull cylinder in place (all 5) and less than .001 with the .45 Colt cylinder in place (all 5).
Yes, expensive ($2,300.00 + $300.00 for the extra .45 Colt cylinder) and nine weeks ARO, but let me tell you it is absolutely worth every penny to me.
This revolver will outlast my grandkids.
Sorry about the hijack, now back to your regularly scheduled program...
Dan
dave in maine
Member
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2010
- Messages
- 3
go get a dan wesson and set your own cylinder gap..
Coal Dragger
member
I'll be sending mine in for a trigger job/over travel stop, and a spare cylinder in .45 ACP sometime this summer. Maybe have them install an octagonal barrel too, but only if I can get a deal on that work.
JRH6856
Member
Seek for perfection, find satisfaction with excellence.
GJgo
Member
If you want a tighter cylinder gap, just stop cleaning the carbon buildup off.
I know what you mean about obsessing over these things, I think it's best to just have a "good enough" threshold.
I know what you mean about obsessing over these things, I think it's best to just have a "good enough" threshold.
Coal Dragger
member
In a lame attempt to measure the barrel cylinder gap in my Freedom Arms, I measured the thickness of some printer paper at .004 and tried to work it into the gap. Wouldn't fit. So it is less than .004. Real scientific I know.
JRH6856
Member
^^^^Try plastic wrap.
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