Smaug
Member
I have an older Redhawk; 7.5" barrel in 44 Mag.
One day, the barrel broke off and tumbled downrange. I was shooting a light handload, I think 185 gr. bullet over a 44 Special level of powder. Doing some research at the time, I found that Ruger had a production problem when they changed barrel lubes. Some guns were left at the end of the shift overnight with the barrel lube on, and the next morning, it was dried up. So when they torqued the barrels into the frames of those guns, they stressed the metal at the threads so that the barrel would eventually break off. That was the story.
I think it was someone here who told me that. ↑
Fast forward to today. I noticed on Ruger's site, the current 7.5" barreled Redhawk has no longer got the cutouts on top of the barrel for the Ruger scope rings:
https://ruger.com/products/redhawk/specSheets/5041.html
Super Redhawk of course has them on top of the beefed-up frame:
https://ruger.com/products/superRedhawkStandard/specSheets/5501.html
I guess that's stronger, and I've read other people say that Ruger went to that design for the strength.
That has me wondering if it really was a barrel lube issue or if it was the scope putting extra stress on the barrel under recoil.
Thoughts? Experiences?
One day, the barrel broke off and tumbled downrange. I was shooting a light handload, I think 185 gr. bullet over a 44 Special level of powder. Doing some research at the time, I found that Ruger had a production problem when they changed barrel lubes. Some guns were left at the end of the shift overnight with the barrel lube on, and the next morning, it was dried up. So when they torqued the barrels into the frames of those guns, they stressed the metal at the threads so that the barrel would eventually break off. That was the story.
I think it was someone here who told me that. ↑
Fast forward to today. I noticed on Ruger's site, the current 7.5" barreled Redhawk has no longer got the cutouts on top of the barrel for the Ruger scope rings:
https://ruger.com/products/redhawk/specSheets/5041.html
Super Redhawk of course has them on top of the beefed-up frame:
https://ruger.com/products/superRedhawkStandard/specSheets/5501.html
I guess that's stronger, and I've read other people say that Ruger went to that design for the strength.
That has me wondering if it really was a barrel lube issue or if it was the scope putting extra stress on the barrel under recoil.
Thoughts? Experiences?
