Toolguy

That would work fine. Most of the commercial case lubes are alcohol and lanolin.

The L frame is probably the most versatile revolver there is. I have a moonclip one and it works great. If the conversion is done right you can still use speedloaders or loose rounds interchangeably. Ranch Products and T K Custom are 2 of the big moonclip places. If you use Starline brass you will need clips sized just for those. Regular clips fit most other brass.

Has anyone heard anything about the Big Dogs match in Iowa? It should be over today.

It's a simple matter to turn it on a manual lathe. For the CNC mill, just program a 1/4 inch end mill to cut a circle .015 larger than the O.D. of the moon clips and another circle as small as possible without hitting the ratchets. Make the depth the thickness of the moonclips +.005 with rough and finish passes. You will need a way to hold the star in the cylinder so the end mill doesn't lift it up and closely fitted brass plugs in each chamber to keep it from turning.

If a spring is properly tempered it will hold the new shape indefinitely. I would assume Ruger knows how to temper springs. It's worth a try. It wouldn't hurt to get a new one for a spare too.

You can stretch the original spring and it will have more tension when re-installed.

The fast easy way to clean lead out of the chambers is with a chamber reamer. Brownell's has special ones just for that purpose, or you can use a regular finishing reamer, being careful not to make the chamber deeper.

You can use a flat ended steel punch and gently and carefully peen that one ratchet (make very sure you do the right one) so the hand will push that chamber on around a few thou. Try it with empty cases and range rod first. You will not need to do anything if it times up that way.

I wasn't being critical, just trying to understand. I don't believe in or feel the need to make someone else feel small in order to feel bigger by comparison. I try to treat the other person as equal. Please accept my respect and best regards.

If you use a round nose bullet seater on an exposed lead hollow point, it rounds off the corners of the flat part and helps a little bit.

What are you saying? During this whole dissertation about barrels and forcing cones you really meant chamber throats?

The plug gauges are for the chamber throats, not the barrel.

You need to check the holes with gauge pins. A hole gauge and calipers is not accurate enough. The main problem with commercial cast bullets is the lube. The commercial guys use hard lube that has to be heated up to go on the bullets. They do that so they can bulk pack them for shipping. The lube that works is soft sticky Alox type lube. With that lube you can't just dump them in a box or they turn into one big ball of crap. You have to make trays and set them neatly in rows on the base of the bullet with the nose pointing up. There is a carnuba wax lube that works very well for this. If you don't want to cast your own, you can get commercial bullets, put them in the freezer for a day or two, dump them in a pan and shake them up. The hard lube will break up and fall off. Then you can run them through a lubri-sizer and put your own choice of lube on them and make them the size you want.

The 38 Short Colt is almost exactly the same length as 9mm. It also has almost exactly the same case volume, meaning 9mm loading data works for SC also. I've loaded and shot about 1000 rounds so far. Everything is going smoothly in the loading press and in the gun. I'm using these on moon clips in a 627.

I'm using Starline 38 Short Colt brass and Dillon 9mm dies and powder funnel on a Dillon 550B with 38/357 shell plate and pins. That setup works great!

If the strain screw isn't tightened down good, it will gradually back out more and more as you shoot. The best way to fix that is to put blue Loctite on the screw and then thread it into the grip frame. Make sure to clean the screw and hole it goes into with solvent first. After the Loctite sets, you can adjust it with a screwdriver and it will stay put. Do not use red or green Loctite. Then it won't move at all. You can get the parts from Smith & Wesson, Brownell's gunsmith supply, or Gun Parts Corp.

Great job Darren! That is exactly what I was talking about. I didn't know if it would work - luckily it did. You're getting to be a good machinist and prototyper!

Try milling 2 places, top and bottom, that let the guide rod show through, about 1/3 of tube dia. on each side.

For the Barrel/Cylinder gap I like .003 to .004 for jacketed bullets only or .005 to .006 for lead or jacketed. Lead bullets need a wider gap.

You could drill and tap a hole in the front end of the guide rod and make a sleeve or tube the right length to keep the spring compressed and hold it in place with a washer and cap screw on the end.

About the best you can do on a Ruger is stone or polish the mating parts and put in a spring kit.

Hi Mike- The 7 shot hand is thinner on the nose part where it pushes on the ratchets. You can file down a regular hand with a diamond file using the file and try method. Go a little at a time because the difference between too much and not enough is 1 to 2 thousandths.

S&W grips don't fit Rossi, but a lot of times you can find used Rossi grips at gun shows.

What kind of gun are you asking about?

The 8 shot guns are 627s not 686s. There is no 8 shot 686. A 686 is an L frame, a 627 is an N frame. N frame is the next size bigger than L frame. The N frame guns are what the 625 .45, 629 .44 and 657 .41 are built on. There is just enough room on a N frame cylinder to squeeze in 8 rounds of .357 or .38 Super. All the other calibers are 6 shots only