The Gun Counter

I went shooting handguns tonight, and did quite well. I'm not the world's best shot, not by a long shot, but I did keep 'em tight tonight with the Trailside .22, CZ PO1, and the GP100. I took along the newer of my two .30 carbine Blackhawks for a little testing--it's never seemed quite as accurate as the older one, lots of flyers and such. Tonight I shot four sets of six at ten yards, as carefully as I could from off the bench. The result was a ragged hole about 2" across, with one flyer about 4 1/2" away at 8 o'clock. I talked about it with the gunsmith on duty at the range, he took a look at the gun. Two things he remarked on: 1) he noted a slight egging of the taper at the mouth of the forcing cone, between 9 and 12 o'clock. 2) He could induce a very slight wobble of the cylinder on the base pin. He did not think it excessive. I know that I need to mark the cylinder and see if it's one particular chamber... He suggested recutting the taper of the forcing cone, and maybe going with an oversize base pin. Your thoughts? I've considered sending the gun back to Ruger, never got around to it. I doubt they'd say there's anything wrong with the gun.

I had my 45 Colt Old Model Vaquero cylinder throats reamed by Cylindersmith. Tightened groups up for me on that piece. Ruger has a habit of making them a bit undersized. Course that round headspaces on the rim -- not sure if the effect/issue is different for a 30 Carbine cylinder.

A good place to start is to check the chamber mouths, and see if one is way over- or under-sized. Having them reamed to the same diameter will help, as will installing a Belt Mountain base pin (get them from Brownells or Midway).

If you shoot cast bullets, be sure and slug the bore, to make sure the bullets are the right size for your rifling.