Crown on 3 screw Super Blackhawk

F

FoghornLeghorn

New member
I recently had the barrel shortened on an old model Super Blackhawk.

I subsequently took it to a different gunsmith for an opinion about the front sight. He said the shortened barrel had no crown and that it needed a crown.

I took it back to the original gunsmith, the guy who shortened the barrel and mentioned that to him. He said it had the same crown as all Ruger revolvers. (It's a very shallow crown.)

Now, I assume he meant early Ruger single actions, because I'm looking at my very recent production SP101, and it's got a very pronounced crown.

Is he correct? Did the early Ruger single actions have a similarly shallow crown, almost what could be construed as no crown, compared to other handguns?
 
What did the original crown look like before you sawed it off?

The only Ruger SA in the house has been considerably breathed upon and cannot be taken as standard. But it has a flat muzzle with a 45 deg countersink into the rifling and a bevel on the outer diameter.
So does my factory 10-22 barrel, only the countersink and bevel are much shallower.
They do not have the convex crown of a S&W.
 
Blackhawks did have a very shallow crown.

In my experience the quality and accuracy of the crown matter more than the depth.
 
Howdy

On the left in this photo is a fairly recent 'original model' Vaquero chambered for 45 Colt. On the right is an old Flat Top 44 Mag Blackhawk from the 1950s. The two muzzles are not perfectly scaled to each other, they should both be roughly the same outer diameter. But you can see how much more pronounced the Vaquero crown is than the old Flat Top's crown.

44magflattop45coltvaqueromuzzles_zpsf10de8aa.jpg


Now having said that, depth of crown is not as important as some may think. The real purpose of a crown is to protect the rifling at the muzzle from accidental damage if the muzzle is struck by something hard. It protects the forward edge of the rifling. Of course, a ragged crown will contribute more to inaccuracy than a smooth one will. Early Winchesters had no crown at all, the muzzles were completely flat.
 
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DJ they can't both be on the left
I'm guessing the Blackhawk is right
Click to expand...
Of course the Blackhawk is what is "left" after defining the 1st "left".
And it is"right" for it to be "left" after the first "left" and on the "right".
This not to be confused with the old maxim that while two wrongs don't make a right...
Three lefts do!
 
Thanks Driftwood. The picture on the right (that's, the right picture vs the left picture; the picture of the muzzle with the most visible front sight) is what my SBH looks like.

I'm glad my gunsmith was right (as in, "correct", not as in right vs left).
 
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