Yet more Taurus LBR modification

[chrismetallica1]

Well,
As you know, I have already had the wrist brace on my .45 acp converted to a rod by SYSS and a nice set of houge grips added. The gun is booked to go into my local RFD's in a couple of weeks to get the cylinder reworked to take the Smith and Wesson moon clips as the Taurus stella clips are way too thin. Well on top of all of that I saw a .357 LBR that had been heavily modified by Alan Westlake the other day so I have dropped him an email to enquire about cost. I havent had a reply yet but it looks like I will have to get some overtime in. The .357 I saw had had the barrel made thinner on a lathe and was sleeved with a new aluminium cover and ported. It takes about 3/4 of the weight off the front making the gun about the same weight at a 6" barrel version and keeping it at the full 12" legal legnth barrel. As soon as I have the cash im getting this one done. When I have pictures I will post them.

This is a clip of the Alan Westlake modified one doing a speed shoot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M_h5QjiFW0

I have orderd a scope rail and cant decided between a Armson O.E.G or a Aimpoint Micro T1 as a red dot. Im going to go all out on this LBR as my PP1 turning target and steel plate challange gun

Still not got round to fitting my wolf spring trigger and hammer reduction kit . Think I will do that when I get some spare time . Hopefully it will vastly reduce single and double action pull

Chris

[chrismetallica1]

Got a reply. Alan isnt doing any more wieght reductions on Taurus barrels as the metal on them is a bit hit and miss However he said he might be able to get a .45 barrel blank and designe a whole new light weight ported barrel. It would cost me more but is an idea, might even be more accurate than the one thats on it . I have emailed him back to get a rough idea of price. I might just go ahead with it anyway , I best get the overtime in then

[Mark II]

Hi Chris

sounds like a good gun if anyone can do the mod it will be alan westlake he does very good work from what I have seen. I quite like the look for his nitro muzzle loading taurus.

Mark

[Corrado]

I wouldn't bother with a nitro conversion. The only advantage over black powder is the fact that the nitro is not corrosive and you don't need to take the gun apart and wash it after every shoot session.

I've had two, from different converters and they are just a PITA as far as I'm concerned.

The lightened barrel on the Taurus sounds like an interesting idea though.

[Mark II]

Thanks for the heads up on the converstion I will give them a miss.

Mark

[chrismetallica1]

Was talking to a few US revolver shooters last night about reducing the weight on the LBR further and an intresting idea / concept came up. Basically major manufacturers make the cylinder legnth of all there large frame revolvers the same. This is to save cost when machining. As the .45 acp cylinder on the Taurus is basically the same cylinder as the .44 mag except its machined in .45 acp. The .45 acp round only goes 2/3 of the full legnth of the cylinder. This means the last 1/3 is there for no reason. It was pointed out to me that some of the seriouse custom guys in the US replace the revolver barrel with on that has a much longer force cone and they then turn the cylinder down in a lathe. This cuts a huge amount of metal away and vastly reduces weight. They emailed me a few examples. I wonder if an RFD in the UK could do this? I might discuss this with Alan when I next speek to him !!

Examples

.45 cylinder before and after the mod. New barrel longer force cone


Nother example



Close up of the modification on a smith and wesson


Im also probably going to order a Cylinder chamfering kit and mod it for speed reload. By Cylinder chamfering it makes the moonclips fall in place better as there are no straight sharp edges on the cylinder

Example of chamfering

[Corrado]

Interesting, the cylinder would need reproofing, as would the lightened barrel. I wonder what the weight savings would be? Also, how would the balance of the gun change?

[chrismetallica1]

I knew it would require a re proofing job. Once I have discussed all the possible changes I might go ahead with it. At the end of the day all the weight would be off the front end. From what the lads who own custom revolvers have said is it shifts the weight back and makes it easier to handle. I always have my .44 to use while the .45 is being worked on. As I have already started customising with the rod conversion I might aswell go the whole hog

[Mark II]

Now thats looks very interesting I wouldn't think it would take to much to do. while talking about mods have you ever tried polishing the stainless to a mirror finish instead of matt.

Mark

[Ace]

That would be a lot of machining and fitting involved. I am sure with what you guys over there spend on guns it would be worth for you, but over here it would take a $300 gun and turn it into a $1000 dollar one.