Super blackhawk barrel unscrewing!

B

bull0117

Inactive
I was at the range today shooting my 7.5" super blackhawk in 44 mag. I noticed my groups were staring to shift to the left. I inspected my sights and found that the barrel of the gun was starting to unscrew which was messing with my sight picture. The ejector rod housing was flexing a bit too but doesn't seem to be bent. I can't turn the barrel by hand as it is still very tight but has obviously unscrewed by about 5 degrees.

Is this a send it back to Ruger type situation or can I fix this?
 
My understanding is that if you send a Ruger gun back to them with any part modified they replace it with a factory part to factory spec.
So they would probable keep your ported barrel
One thing you can do is to pean the shoulder of the barrel to set it back about .006 and then crush fit it back, and install an 8X32 set screw from the top like a scope mount screw.
I expect the man that did the porting took a few thousandths too much off the shoulder.
The very best way you can proceed is to have a smith set it back one full thread minus about .010" and then lathe fit it to .003" cylinder gap. Next you shorten the ejector housing the same amount as the thread so the screw hole will line up. Lastly you re-throat the barrel. That's a job for a good smith, but when you are done it's perfect.
 
I had a Ruger M-77R .338 Win Mag and I had a muzzle brake machined into the end of the barrel. Later on I found out that it shot like crap due to machining marks left in the barrel when Ruger made the rifle. They owned up to it and covered 50% of the cost of rebarreling (I bought the rifle used). I lost the muzzle brake, but in retrospect that was a good thing. Too damned loud!

Ruger has good customer service. They will take of you in some fashion, I'm sure of it.
 
My understanding is that if you send a Ruger gun back to them with any part modified they replace it with a factory part to factory spec.
So they would probable keep your ported barrel
One thing you can do is to pean the shoulder of the barrel to set it back about .006 and then crush fit it back, and install an 8X32 set screw from the top like a scope mount screw.
I expect the man that did the porting took a few thousandths too much off the shoulder.
The very best way you can proceed is to have a smith set it back one full thread minus about .010" and then lathe fit it to .003" cylinder gap. Next you shorten the ejector housing the same amount as the thread so the screw hole will line up. Lastly you re-throat the barrel. That's a job for a good smith, but when you are done it's perfect.
Click to expand...

The barrel lined up fine this morning so I don't know if any machining would be required, it just needs to be tightened back down.
 
Take it to a gunsmith and he can reset the barrel using a thin spacer. I had a barrel installed, the sight soldered and reblued for $75
 
A spacer is not a good idea and I would not use a gunsmith that wanted to do that. The barrel probably needs to be set back a thread and refitted. This is not as easy as it seems and needs to be done by a good `smith. Sending it back to Ruger is certainly a viable option. Their work will be the most affordable but be warned that they will replace the barrel at your expense.
 
this might be a bad idea but couldnt the barrel just be torqued back to the correct orientation and tack welded or silver soldered? You could do it somewhere inconspicuous like under the ejector rod housing.
 
The barrel should torque down with the front sight in alignment. If it does not, it should be set back a thread. No silver soldering or tack welding.
 
Send it back to whoever ported it.

It's a FrankenRuger. The number one rule of FrankenRugers is, we don't discuss FrankenRugers with RUGER!
 
I don't have the slightest idea who ported it. I have only had the gun for about two months and from the serial numbers it was built around 1999 I believe. From what I can tell, it looks like a magna-port job based off the four trapezoidal cuts.

I'll probably shot around a few smiths in the area and see what the going rate is for having the barrel set back a thread. Maybe someone can enlighten me but relying on threads with a hard stop to align a barrel perfectly and have enough torque to prevent turning under recoil seems a little iffy and difficult to do on a mass-production scale. I'm a mechanical engineer by trade and it it were my design I would lean towards pinning the barrel.
 
From the bench of a former 'Smith:


Remove the BBL completely.

Degrease the threads both in the frame and on the BBL with carburator cleaner.

Clamp the BBL in a vise between two pieces of wood, and crank the vise down HARD.

Put a few drops of good Loctite on the threads.

Screw the frame on, and at the end use a hammer handle put thru the cylinder opening to add enough torque to align the front sight to the frame. Torque does not need to be "bear-ish". You CAN distort the frame if you are a bull. DON'T BE A BULL... :rolleyes: Just torque it a little after it comes into position.


If the threads are correctly indexed, this will do the trick permanently.

If upon torquing, the front sight is not aligned, then we can discuss other remedies like peening and crushing, or using a lathe and removing a bit from the shoulder.


Willie

.
 
Maybe someone can enlighten me but relying on threads with a hard stop to align a barrel perfectly and have enough torque to prevent turning under recoil seems a little iffy and difficult to do on a mass-production scale.
Click to expand...
Barrels have been installed this way for many, many years.
 
Why not call Mag-na-port and see if it was there work? They may have the gun on file by SN and could look it up. If so mabye they would fix it, if not then they have a full custom shop and could fix it correctly by turning back the barrel a turn.
 
"Maybe someone can enlighten me but relying on threads with a hard stop to align a barrel perfectly and have enough torque to prevent turning under recoil seems a little iffy and difficult to do on a mass-production scale"

Maybe in theory... but:


"The difference between theory and practice is that in theory they are the same, but in practice they are different" :rolleyes:


Go look at any rack of revolvers and any rack of bolt action rifles and you'll see the way it's been practiced for over a century. They are thread indexed and torqued into place. The torque values are surprisingly low. A fairly high variation in torque is allowable in order to index the front sight to the frame. Bottom line is that anywhere between about 20 and 60 foot pounds is fine, and that allows plenty of adjustment while still keeping things tight.


Your revolver has not likely had any work done at the back end of the BBL, and as a result the dimensions and thread indexing there are exactly the same as what Ruger set up. The difference is that it was likely not torqued correctly when the BBL was removed and reinstalled. Use my directions above to reinstall it. Trust me here, it'll work fine. Don't over think it, just clean it up, put some thread lock on the threads, and tighten it until it aligns correctly. The thread locker is not even needed, and was never used at the factory. It's just a habit of mine.


As I said earlier, IF this does not work, then let us know and you can be talked thru the other possibilities of getting it to align correctly. Three ways to go: Facing off the BBL to get it to turn further (not likely), peening the mating surfaces of the BBL to get it to torque up earlier (IE screws in too far when torqued), and the VERY LAST and HIGHLY UNLIKELY need to index it in one complete thread by facing off the barrel mating surface in a lathe, torquing to set the sight straignt, and then resetting the BBl to cylinder gap. This is a not at all likely for a BBL that has already been set up once before.


Willie

.
 
Last edited:
Remove the BBL completely.

Degrease the threads both in the frame and on the BBL with carburator cleaner.

Clamp the BBL in a vise between two pieces of wood, and crank the vise down HARD.

Put a few drops of good Loctite on the threads.

Screw the frame on, and at the end use a hammer handle put thru the cylinder opening to add enough torque to align the front sight to the frame. Torque does not need to be "bear-ish". You CAN distort the frame if you are a bull. DON'T BE A BULL... Just torque it a little after it comes into position.


If the threads are correctly indexed, this will do the trick permanently.

If upon torquing, the front sight is not aligned, then we can discuss other remedies like peening and crushing, or using a lathe and removing a bit from the shoulder.
Click to expand...

I did exactly this and it was actually pretty easy. I'll have to shoot it a bit before I declare it to be a success.

Thanks for all the help everyone.
 
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