forcing cone

[strong eagle]

if you own a blackpowder revolver, percussion or black powder cartridge, and you are not aware of what a forcing cone is, this tip is for you. the forcing cone on a revolver is the beveled entry part of the back of the barrel next to the cylinder. this allows a lead bullet leaving the cylinder to align it self with the bore and squeeze, swage down to bore size. if the forcing cone is poorly cut, really rough, or almost non their the accuracy of the revolver will suffer. i have 6 uberti cowboy revolvers. the forcing cones on each one was fair only. they would have give good accuracy but not the one hole accuracy i require. the 1875 remington had a terrible forcing cone. accuracy was poor with that gun. after i did a really good 11 and /12 degree forcing cone job on it it drives tacks now. you may be satisfied with you revolver but if you are not then consider a good forcing cone job on it. the cutting set up can be rented off of the internet and you tube shows how to do the job. it is the easiest thing that you could ever do for your revolver. the next thing to insure accuracy. where the bullet comes out of the cylinder, each hole has to be the very same size. again one cylinder on my 1875 uberti remington was tighter than the other five. this resulted in that cylinder shooting off from the rest of the group. i too a 6 inch length of wooden dowel somewhat smaller than the 430 size of the bore. i cut a slot down the middle of the wooden dowel for a couple of inches. i inserted a small piece of 220 grit emery paper in the slot and rapped it around the wooden dowel. using my small 3/8th drill motor i lapped out the front of the tight cylinder until a 44/40 bullet passed through it as it did with the other 5 cylinder exit holes. now all 6 shots hit the same. my other uberti colt had good cylinder but even so i sent the ssa to a fellow who does that work just to make that gun really tuned. now if your revolver has good cylinders and a good forcing cone and still shoots bad groups. this may be the problem. rugers are noted for this problem. when they screwed the barrel to the frame the hole and threads were too tight for the barrel. they put it together but the bore becomes slightly undersized at the back of the barrel from being squeezed down. this will undersized the bullet at that point and it isnt tight the rest of the way down the barrel and accuracy suffers. if thats the problem, send it back to ruger or find a good gunsmith. it will never shoot good that way. their is nothing better than a percussion or cartridge revolver that shoots tight good groups. all 6 of mine needed some work to do so to my standards. some more than others. the remington was the worse. now it is as good as the rest. the main spring was way way too heavy. the one i ordered for less tension was way too light. i sat in my big chair watching tv for two days honing it down to the right tension with a good knife sharpening stone. now it has the same feel as my colts. just because their is a high quality name on a gun doesnt mean it left the factory as it should have. hope i helped some one figure out their revolver to make it better for them. im just passing on what someone a couple of years ago taught me. have fun and cut center every time.

 

[patocazador]

Good advice. Thanks.

I bought a ClassicBallistx cylinder for my Ruger Old Army. The cylinder mouths were all uniform unlike the stock cylinder from Ruger. The Ruger cylinder had 3 tight chambers, 1 just right and 3 loose ones. The new cylinder also held 5 grains more black powder which makes it better for hunting.

 

[strong eagle]

ruger builds a solid revover of many diff kinds. they just dont fine tune them. its a crap shoot if you get a accurate one. however, they can be tuned with little effort. you may even want to try a better forcing cone on that ruger old army. it may even tighten the groups better. i had a ruger old army and a howell 45 long colt cylinder for it. i tuned it every way i could. sold it to a fellow in penn. he emailed me it was the most accurate of all his ruger revolvers and he had several of them. he said it was main squeeze went he went into the woods for a day. i did every thing to that old army, including wolf springs. the reason i sold it as i wanted guns that were more traditional which im one by one getting now. the old army when tuned is a really good work horse that can drive tacks.

 

[Old No71]

Good post!

1st post here for me -- I thought some images might be helpful for others...

Here's the forcing cone of my Ruger Old Army, as it came from the factory:

And here it is again, after carefully cutting it with a Brownell's 11-degree forcing cone cutter, and then polishing it:

Tight groups!

Old No7

 

[strong eagle]

as i can see, now it is perfect. it is really interesting that a quick and easy job with easy to use tools can make a big difference in accuracy. thanks for posting that. others will learn and benefit from your post.

 

[Buck Conner1]

Nice job and pictures too. Thanks

 

[Hylander]

I have done this on one of my 1858's using the Brownell cutter.
Works very well, better accuracy and no leading issues.

 

[strong eagle]

thanks for that post reply. its not rocket science and it really works