Cylinder movement

[cdoc42]

I have a Taurus "The Judge" with a 3-inch barrel that I bought in 2011. For a time, I kept it as a home defense weapon with the first 2 shots being Winchester's PDX1 .410 Defender followed by 3- 250gr Hornady XTP cartridges.
When I shot it from 10 yards at an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper I found none of the 4 discs and only 2 of the 16 BBs in the paper. The XTPs hit the paper but a 3-shot group measured over 5 inches. I'm not as confident as I want to be for my intended use, so it stays in the safe.

However, when I first bought it I sensed there was more cylinder movement in the uncocked position than I expected, but it became almost imperceptible once cocked. I wrote to Taurus about it but never received a reply.

Today I decided to measure it. With an empty cylinder, I closed it and turned it until it locked. I marked a spot on the cylinder, then turned it as much as it would move and marked the spot. The space was about 0.052 - 0.063 inches as best I could determine. When I cocked it, that space movement was 0.04."

I inserted a 0.375" shotgun cleaning rod into the muzzle and it passed into the uncocked cylinder. But if I turned the cylinder to its maximum movement, I could feel the rod slightly bumping into the face of the cylinder if I held the rod against the inside of the barrel. After I cocked it, there was no similar obstruction, no matter how I turned it.

So the question becomes, how much movement is acceptable in this .45 caliber piece, and does that movement tend to affect accuracy?

[Dfariswheel]

Movement of the cylinder when not cocked is not any kind of problem, unless it's so bad the cylinder can be rotated out of the locked position.
All revolvers will have some free movement when the action is at rest, and there's no standard for how much.

The only thing that counts is chamber-cylinder alignment at the moment of ignition and proper timing.

Most all modern revolver are deliberately not tightly locked at ignition, and the cylinder will have some free rotational movement, by design.
This is to allow the bullet passing from the chamber to the barrel to force the chamber into alignment.
About the only revolvers that are tightly locked at ignition (trigger pulled) are the older Colt revolvers like the original Python, Detective Special etc, and the very new Colt's like the 2020 Python.

Timing is the process of the cylinder unlocking, rotating to the next chamber, and re-locking.

So, movement of the cylinder when not cocked is not an issue, but is usually a sign of a less expensive gun where hand fitting is limited.

[cdoc42]

THANK you, Dfariswheel, that relieves my discomfort and essentially, although not entirely, alleviates the failure of Taurus to respond to my original inquiry.

[lee n. field]

Originally Posted by cdoc42

I have a Taurus "The Judge" with a 3-inch barrel that I bought in 2011. For a time, I kept it as a home defense weapon with the first 2 shots being Winchester's PDX1 .410 Defender followed by 3- 250gr Hornady XTP cartridges.
When I shot it from 10 yards at an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper I found none of the 4 discs and only 2 of the 16 BBs in the paper. The XTPs hit the paper but a 3-shot group measured over 5 inches. I'm not as confident as I want to be for my intended use, so it stays in the safe.

However, when I first bought it I sensed there was more cylinder movement in the uncocked position than I expected, but it became almost imperceptible once cocked. I wrote to Taurus about it but never received a reply.

Today I decided to measure it. With an empty cylinder, I closed it and turned it until it locked. I marked a spot on the cylinder, then turned it as much as it would move and marked the spot. The space was about 0.052 - 0.063 inches as best I could determine. When I cocked it, that space movement was 0.04."

Get a set of feeler gauges to check it. Cheap set from Walmart automotive department should be fine.

Then read this: https://www.triggershims.com/cylinder_shims.php

You need some cylinder gap. Cylinder endshake should be minimal.

I inserted a 0.375" shotgun cleaning rod into the muzzle and it passed into the uncocked cylinder. But if I turned the cylinder to its maximum movement, I could feel the rod slightly bumping into the face of the cylinder if I held the rod against the inside of the barrel. After I cocked it, there was no similar obstruction, no matter how I turned it.

So the question becomes, how much movement is acceptable in this .45 caliber piece, and does that movement tend to affect accuracy?

You're asking about accuracy, on a Judge?

[44 AMP]

The OP isn't about barrel cylinder gap, its about rotational movement of the cylinder when locked up.

One point I would make about being able to feel a miniscule amount of movement at full lockup is, that you have to try and turn the cylinder to detect it. IN other words, yes, you found a tiny bit of movement when the gun was locked up but you only found it because you were TURNING the cylinder, in other words, doing something that doesn't happen during normal firing.

If everything was working fine, until you pushed one it (or twisted it, or whatever) then simply don't do that....

[Hawg]

As was stated as long as it locks up tight when cocked any cylinder movement uncocked is a nonissue. A judge with it's shallow rifling and long bullet jump isn't intended to be accurate.

[2damnold4this]

I'm not sure what sort of accuracy is typical of the Judge but it sounds like it doesn't like that Winchester ammo with the disks. Have you tried other ammo besides the PDX and the XTP?

[44 AMP]

Having both .45 Colt revolvers and T/C .45 Colt/.410 barrels before the Judge existed, I never got excited about it, OR bought into the hype.

The one thing I did like about the Judge when I handled one was the grip. The ribbed rubber reminded me of the handgrips on certain motorcycles I've had.

Other than that there was nothing about the gun that appealed to me, and I didn't (and won't) purchase one.

The only good thing about the hype was enough interest was generated that the factories finally began making some "better" .410 ammo though again, its not for me. I use birdshot for pests (and rarely birds) and slugs for serious matters, when I'm shooting my .410s.

A Judge with sloppy fit cylinder? Astounding!! And here I was thinking their crap couldn't get any worse!!

[CajunBass]

I've never even looked at a Judge (or a Governor) any closer than seeing one in a display case, but I've had pretty good luck with Taurus revolvers over the years. With one exception they were all purchased used, and I was able to give them a good checking over before purchase, but they've always been good, serviceable handguns. I especially liked a Model 65 (357) and 431 (44 Special) I had. I wish I'd held onto both of those, but I'm one who was always looking for the "next gun" back in those days.

Oh, that one exception to used, was a NIB, Model 82 IIRC. Basically a heavy barrel Model 10 clone, my second handgun. I shot the snot out of that gun using 38 wadcutters I loaded with a Lee Loader many years ago. That was a fun gun. Finish wasn't as nice, but I shot thousands of those wadcutters through it. Good memories. I've still got the Lee Loader in it's cardboard box.

[Aguila Blanca]

10 yards is 30 feet. I wouldn't consider a Judge to be intended for any sort of accuracy at 30 feet.

[BandeauRouge]

and in the advertisement program Taurus ran, it was pretty much done at less then 15 feet

[totaldla]

Off the top of my head 40 thousandths carryup seems a little sloppy. But it isn't trivial to measure.

[cdoc42]

"I'm not sure what sort of accuracy is typical of the Judge but it sounds like it doesn't like that Winchester ammo with the disks. Have you tried other ammo besides the PDX and the XTP?"

Re: .410s, I just recently fired a Federal 3", standard 7-1/2" shotshell and a Federal 2-1/2" Handgun with #4 from 7 yards and I was very much impressed with the pattern covering a 8-1/2 x 14 sheet of paper.

I will re-evaluate the Winchester product.

[44 AMP]

Remember that you are shooting a shot charge intended for a .41 through a .45 caliber rifled bore.

The rifling can impart a degree of spin on the gas sealing part of the shot cup, not as much as it would on a .45 bullet, but some.

Every gun and load combination can be different, some guns produce "donut" patterns with significant holes in them, some don't, or not as much.

I understand that the Judge has rather shallow rifling, so combined with the long jump from the chamber to the rifling, I wouldn't expect .45 Colt ammo to be as accurate as it can be in "conventional" guns.

No matter the reason, 10yds (30 feet) is not a great distance in firearm terms and if you only got 2 pellets on a piece of paper at that distance, then that combination of gun and ammo is crap. And a 5 inch group at that distance is also unsatisfactory by my standards.

The only thing I can see that the Judge does well is give you a (largish) .410 repeater that is a legal handgun under US Federal law. Compared to other guns, reports of inadequate or barely adequate performance are common, reports of good or excellent performance are not.

I've got a .45/410 barrel Contender. 10" barrel with the "straightener" tube for shot. Great rat/snake wrecker and pest gun with bird shot. Accuracy with .45 Colt ammo was underwhelming, and I got a .45 Colt (only) barrel which is consistently more accurate.

The truth is, the belief of the effectiveness of shotguns for personal defense is based on the performance of 20ga and larger guns, particularly the 12 ga, And while valid, it is the mass of the shot charge, not its "spread" that does the work in a self defense situation.

The comparatively small shot charge (weight) of a .410 is not the same thing
and while it can work its not in the same class as a 12ga, not even close.

Chop the velocity down in a pistol barrel, and especially in a short pistol barrel and the already limited effectiveness goes down. As a personal defense gun, the Judge is not for me.

[cdoc42]

44AMP, I agree that a general consensus agrees with you regarding the personal defense value. As I stated in past posts, I've hunted pheasants and chukars with a TC Contender 14-inch bbl with choke and conventional .410 shot capsules, as well as with a 7-1/2" Ruger .44 Mag Super Blackhawk and hand-loaded Speer shotshells in #6 and #7-1/2. The Judge is truly worthless in comparison to either one. I just added accuracy because I wondered if the cylinder movement may have played a role.

[44 AMP]

Here's a suggestion, if you want to pursue the matter further, use paint, tape, or some other removable marking, to make witness marks, one on the frame and one over each chamber, install the cylinder marks so they are lined up with the frame mark (so you can see a misalignment of couple thousandths if it happens) when the cylinder is locked up (full cock).

Don't twist or try to move the cylinder, just let it lock up where it does, then carefully mark it without moving it. Then cycle the action at different speeds, or even shoot it, and note if each chamber stays lined up or if it locks into a slightly different spot due to the slop in the action.

That should give you a visual reference so you can see if the slop you can feel is actually affecting anything, or not.

Good Luck.

[cdoc42]

Thanks, 44AMP, I will try that. I only made one mark on the frame and cylinder and manually moved it and made another mark, then measured it. It was much less obvious in the full cock position, but very difficult to measure because I needed a magnifying glass, flashlight, and three hands to do it because these old eyes ain't what they used to be.

Your suggestion is a much better idea.

[44 AMP]

Not sure if I was clear enough before, and if I'm restating what you already understand, bear with me, your eyes aren't the only old thing on TFL

My point, isn't about trying to measure the play, (right now) but to try and figure out if the play in the system is active when the system operates, or if its just something that you can feel when you wiggle things, which is something that doesn't happen when the system runs "itself".

One is a problem, the other, not so much. In simpler terms, "its out of tolerance" all the time is an issue. Being out of tolerance when you push on it, or twist it, but not when you leave it alone isn't so much an issue, and i think the method I described will give an indication of which condition is most likely.

Might not, but until you try, you never know, right??

[Hanshi]

A little bit of cylinder movement in the uncocked position has rarely ever bothered me at all as long as the revolver performed well. At ignition you can pretty much count on the cylinder being held steady.

[cdoc42]

I just did it. Twice, with the first cylinder markings erased and #2 trial marked elsewhere on the cylinder, all in the cocked condition (gun empty, of course). I dropped the cylinder to open position, spun it around, and manually closed it (not "snapping" it shut.) I then cocked it and each time, I checked the 5 marks in rotation. Every one of them lined up.

So it looks like the uncocked movement is nothing to worry about.

Hanshi, I like your advice about young guys paying attention to old guys. It reminds me of the advice I gave our first child - a daughter - when she was a terrible 14 with me waiting for sweet 16 - I discussed the 80-year-old Indian who could no longer hunt or fish but sat in front of his tent, available for advice to the young braves running around not knowing what they're doing. I asked her if it made sense to ignore him when they could quickly learn what he experienced, saving themselves time to discover even newer things that had not been around when the aged Indian was growing up. She got the message and saved herself a spanking or two.

[Unclenick]

You still may want to check the registration of the timing and the uniformity of the chamber sizes. For the former, you are checking to see if the chambers are coaxial withe the bore when the hammer is cocked. When I bought a Ruger Redhawk in the 1980s, I was lucky that the shop had three of them in stock. One failed the thumb drag test. With the other two, I put a strip of white paper between the cylinder and recoil shield, and got enough light on it that I could see from the muzzle that one of the two remaining guns had its chambers center in the bore perfectly, while the other gun's chambers overshot the bore a little. I bought the former, put a Burris pistol scope on it, and proceeded to put six rounds of cheap American Eagle 240 grain SPs into under an inch at 50 yards off bags. However five holes overlapped and just one at five o'clock opened the group to that final size. I repeated the shooting with close to the same result, especially the one hole away from the rest at about five o''clock. Later, with a small hole gauge, I found a spread of chamber mouth sizes of about 0.002". The tightest of these was the one throwing the fliers. I've never bought a reamer to fix it. I just don't use that chamber.

Anyway, the point is that good bore and chamber registration is helpful. Uniform chamber mouths are helpful. Both seem to matter more with lead bullets. And while I have no clue how much difference these factors might make in the Judge, at least it gives you something to look for, and maybe ideas for how to participate in one of my favorite pastimes, trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

The other comments have me curious about the Judge's rifling and bore dimensions. I remember Elmer Keith commenting in one of his books that a lot of nineteenth century 45 Colts had rifling that was just a couple of thousandths deep, like a 22. He said some of the old time gunfighters liked the fact the bullets would often tumble coming out of them (think: gun with shallow rifling never fully cleaned of accumulated lead fouling), as a sideways bullet would stop a man faster than a straight-through hole did. Of course, they were talking short ranges, such as across a card table. Longer ranges typically involved a lot of misses back then, and tumbling would exacerbate that.

[tangolima]

The alignment between the bore and the chambers is called ranging. To do the ranging test, you need a ranging rod for the caliber. Basically all chambers need to pass. Some manufacturers may allow one or two chambers marginally pass.

To correct ranging errors... You don't want to know. Gunsmiths don't want to do repairs while the customer is watching, especially this one.

https://www.shootingillustrated.com/...der-alignment/

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[cdoc42]

I just checked Midway USA, Brownells, and Pacific Tool Co for prices. No luck on Midway but the multi-tool kit is $200 at Brownells and a single .45 Cal Pacific tool is almost $100.
Looks like I'll skip that experiment.

"Gunsmiths don't want to do repairs while the customer is watching, especially this one."
That sounds like a colonoscopy.

[tangolima]

Worse.

If you know the land diameter of your bore, you can make your own ranging rod with pin gauge. Replacement pins are available for about $20. Land diameter - 0.003" is about right. Epoxy a long and smaller rod to the pin, and you are in business.

I made this one for .38 spl and .357.

Now you have venture into the dark domain of revolver smithing. Turn around while you still can.

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[Ricklin]

Cabela's sold me a broken wallhanger. I might suggest they employ more knowledgeable folks to evaluate guns since it cost me the princely sum of 19 dollars and 99 cents. They deemed it broken.
The "wallhanger"? A Colt New Navy double action, sold at Monkey Wards in Chicago 1899. Around 85-90%, however the cylinder will rotate out of battery when at rest. Colt did add a retracting cylinder lock bolt as the military rejected the New Navy due to the out of battery issue when holstered. Colt sold the model for several years with and without the locking bolt. Mine has the frame cut for the bolt, but no notches in the cylinder. The old girl is quite loose at rest, even after 120 years she is still tight and locked up with the trigger fully depressed. I'd not ever steal a gun at a low price from someone's widow, however I will be glad to go do it again tomorrow at Cabela's should they be that foolish, they should know better, the books to tell them what they had were there on the gun library shelves, but one must read them. EVen a blind squirrel gets an acorn every now and again.