Sorry. On closer inspection it appears to be a poorly stamped "S".View attachment 873859
Ah, I was ill informed then. Thanks.The blued cylinders start out in the white. They are carbon steel. So if in manufacturing blued and stainless are in the white they look the same. Hence S for Stainless.
S = stainless...
My blue Rugers have s's on the cylinders too.
There are different types of stainless steel, some of which will be attracted by a magnet, some of which will not. Somewhere on THR I posted the specifics...It has an 'S'. Then I tried a magnet on it. It stuck.
There are different types of stainless steel, some of which will be attracted by a magnet, some of which will not. Somewhere on THR I posted the specifics...
Edited:
Here it is:
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/what-the-hell-do-i-have.858125/#post-11272643
There are three main divisions* of stainless steel, austenitic, martensitic and ferritic. Two of them (ferritic and martensitic) are generally attracted to magnets, austenitic stainless is generally not.
*There are also duplex stainless steels, but they are just a mix of austenitic and ferritic--they are generally attracted to magnets, but not as strongly as a pure ferritic stainless.
https://www.metalsupermarkets.com/is-stainless-steel-magnetic/
As i mentioned the cylinder on my super redhawk has the same "s", the steel used on the cylinder of 454 & 480 super redhawks is unique to those 2 chamberings (465) yet it has the same mark as a gp100 which is not the same material, although both are stainless.I'm not going to pretend I knew all that, but I did know some stainless steels are magnetic. At this point I do wonder if the steel on blued Rugers and stainless Rugers is very different, or different at all. Especially the cylinders, which seem to be the most critical part of the firearm to get right regarding strength.
And if the steels were to be the same, maybe that would account for comments I've heard that the bluing on newer guns is not the same as older guns. Or perhaps that's not related at all.