I am working with an old Freedom .454 made when Baker SR was there. It is nice and has a tiny side play in the cylinder. The finish is no more then Scotch Brite rubbings on a Premier grade with a shiny cylinder. The BFR actually has a better finish.
It has been used with jacketed bullets so I had to clean out the copper. It took hours before I could shoot cast.
My first target at 50 yards was with the LBT 335 gr and the first shot was low from a clean bore so I ignore it. The rest were real good.
Then I tried my PB boolit and it was not real bad. Then the Lyman boolit but I reduced the charge for the weight but find this boolit needs more powder because of the drive band length.
THIS FREEDOM WILL SHOOT but the bad thing is the cases that use a SRM primer that needs max loads. I do not have any cut down .460 brass so I can work loads. Brass holds me back.

I love this gun and want it but my friend will not part with it. I am sure I can get down to 1/2" at 50 with it. At least I can borrow it if I want to kill a deer with it.

Here are the targets I shot today. All it would take is some load work If I could get away from the SR primers.

I dont know what to say!

by the way ive got about 500 454s loaded up half with small primers and the other have with large primer 460 cut down brass. I used a bunch of differnt bullets and primers and powders. Ive got a 45 colt project going right now that will take a couple weeks then im going to shoot those loads side by side and see if it really improves it across the board.

Now bfr, that Freedom looks like it has Pachmayers on it. I got a set with mine (475L) and they don't fit. Not only that but I wrecked 'em trying to get them to fit. What gives? Did they change frames?
Peter.

quote:

Posted 23 July 2010 16:53 Hide Post
Now bfr, that Freedom looks like it has Pachmayers on it. I got a set with mine (475L) and they don't fit. Not only that but I wrecked 'em trying to get them to fit. What gives? Did they change frames?
Peter.

Yeah, old Pachmeyer's. Laying my SRH on top shows them almost the same but the internal frame is a little different. It IS different then the new Freedom's. It is less of a Bisley and closer to the SBH. I really like the feel of this grip.
I wanted to load more today and shoot but the heat index is going to be 105*.
I will not have a chance to shoot the loads Whitworth has until he gets back from hunting.
I do not have the other Freedom .454 here but there is something that seems different about the whole gun. I don't know if the frame is thicker or not.
Here is a close up.

quote:

Posted 23 July 2010 15:43 Hide Post
by the way ive got about 500 454s loaded up half with small primers and the other have with large primer 460 cut down brass. I used a bunch of differnt bullets and primers and powders. Ive got a 45 colt project going right now that will take a couple weeks then im going to shoot those loads side by side and see if it really improves it across the board.

I found the .460 brass lets you work loads from starting to max using 296 so a sweet spot can be found. With SR primers, you are stuck with near or at max loads. The .454 is a one load case.

Its nice that your friend lets you play with his toys.Heck 75% of the fun for me is developing loads!!!

I have to mention this gun has a wonderful trigger at about 2# from the factory.
My friends let me work on their guns since I have done gunsmithing for a long time. Not like my gunsmith friend though, he remembers every gun when I might get a certain gun once in 5 years and forget. I even forget how to put a Ruger together now and then and if I have a gun like a 94 Winchester apart for a long time waiting for parts, I start all over. It has just been a side job.
I work loads for them too. My Ruger loads or BFR loads work in every Ruger or BFR so it is little actual work on my part but they all want to use my boolits and load here or they copy me.
Right now I only have three guns here that are not mine. Sometimes I have 10 or more. I take great care of them and they always go back better and cleaner.

How early is it? How many digits is the serial number? curious, dvnv.

I had an early 454 too and it did alomost seem bigger or at least blockier.

The serial is D 13xxx. I can't remember when he bought it, might be 24 or 25 years ago.

Problems today. Groups got no better so I cleaned the gun and got the throats to bare steel with M-Pro 7 and a bristle brush. I oiled the throats and slugged them at .4524", GREAT! So I cleaned the bore but there is stuff that nothing will remove even JB bore paste. It is not lead. Sweets will not touch it either. One groove has chatter marks about 3/4" long. I found there is almost no forcing cone and some rifling comes 1/8" from the end and others come right to the end so all I could do was clean it up a little with a forcing cone cutter, only enough so the gage does not go in far. The start is more even. I have no idea what the angle is because an 11* cutter only touches less then 1/8", all I would touch. Even the front of that cut is rippled but it is even now.
Anyway I slugged the bore but did not upset the slug, I just got it started and forced it through. It came out .453". This is not good so I reamed the throats to .453".
Each throat had a small area that did not cut. Not large but in a different place in each throat. Maybe 3/16" by 1/8". Metal cut each side of these spots. They are like little holes here and there. Never seen this before.
My Lyman boolit has a .453" front band so it should shoot. I had to size it to fit before.
My friend said to do what is needed but there are limits to what I will cut.
Even with this old of a gun the bore is oversize. It should be .452" not .453". Maybe more if I upset a slug.
My best group today was 2-1/2" at 50 yards.
Now to try the Lyman again.

I know what the problem is. This gun has only shot jacketed for it's life. The marks in the throats are from chambers out of line. The bullets have been jammed hard to the side trying to enter the bore. This is also the reason rifling shows wear. It is not even wear.
Throat wear marks vary for each chamber, some on the side, one to the outside and one towards the center. This caused the uneven wear at the rifling.
I tried to get a good picture.

sounds like some repair at the FA shop is in order. you obviously know more about gunsmithing in one finger than i do. good work. sounds like a new cylinder and a new barrel/forcing cone would fix things, should be about $600 bucks if they wouldn't fix it under warranty. let us know how this plays out.

Let me show you the improvement. I also put a few ten thousandths more play in the lock but should have gone to .001".
The left was before and the right is after the work. I now can get 1" at 50 with a PB 330 gr and might be able to better it.
The gun has too slow a twist for the big Lyman but even it shot better.
I don't have any jacketed but I would say it is good to go.

dang, nice fix!!!!

Amazing how a copper jacketed bullet will erode a stainless steel cylinder!

quote:

Originally posted by Doubless:
Amazing how a copper jacketed bullet will erode a stainless steel cylinder!

Not really. Water is a bit softer then rock, but think about how over time, water carves out a deep rut in solid rock. The copper just wears faster then does stainless steel.

Great job BFRshooter!

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I found there is almost no forcing cone and some rifling comes 1/8" from the end and others come right to the end so all I could do was clean it up a little with a forcing cone cutter, only enough so the gage does not go in far.

When I bought mine I opted for the hardened replaceable forcing cone bushing. I purchased it almost 20 years ago. I got the 2# action/trigger job as well on my Premier Grade. I really like it with cast 360s around 1200. I know I could and have pushed them much faster, but the slower speed is much easier to shoot and they penetrate enough that I don't recover them. The cast bullets I am shooting are from my friend JR at Hunter's Supply. I have shot some jacketed stuff but the cast just seems to fill the bill.

Andy

What worries me is that almost every Freedom I have slugged has larger bores and smaller throats.
Is it because the line boring is not precise enough for alignment?

Have you ever played with the Taylor style throats? It seems like that would help with any minor alignment issues.

I have heard bad things about Taylor throating. The boolit needs to go farther to engage rifling and is going faster. More prone to skid. I never heard of great accuracy with them.