ANOTHER LOOK

There have been some posts of late on the Discussion Board asking about Taylor Throating. This has been covered in other articles and on other sites, but since I was involved in this I thought we might take another look at it.

The idea came about with us by accident. I had burned the throat out of my Linebaugh Ruger .45 in one year of shooting. I had been testing heavy cast bullet loads with WW-296 and fired about 5,000 of them in addition to several thousand with H-110 and another few thousand with Hercules 2400. The breech end of the barrel began to erode away in small area at about the 1 o'clock position. The erosion was about 004" deep, fan shaped toward the frame's topstrap, and the gas-blast had begun to etch the cylinder face. All this was done with cast bullets, no jacketed bullets had ever been fired through this barrel.

Dad and got together in his shop one day to try and fix the problem and decided to set the barrel back 2 threads, recut the forcing cone and as an experiment to see if it would lessen the gas-cutting or throat erosion we decided to put a freebore in the barrel.

Dad had done things similar in years past with several other revolvers and the results had always been intriguing... quite often the accuracy had improved remarkably. He had an old Webley service .45 that he carried as a "truck" gun. The rifling was eroded badly in the rear of the barrel so he removed the rifling totally for 2 1/2". It revitalized the old gun! In fact, it was a very accurate pistol after that.

Anyhow, we screwed the barrel out of my .45 Ruger and put a freebore in it that was about 1 caliber long. Then we turned the shoulder off the barrel and set it back 2 threads, fitted it up to the cylinder nice and tight and re-cut the forcing cone with a Brownell's 11° throating kit and the gun was back in service...BETTER than new. You can read about it by going HERE. Jim Stroh of Alpha Precision has written about it also. You can visit his site HERE.

The gun had originally been very touchy about bullet diameter but after the throating job I found it to be accurate with bullets of .450" or .452" or .454" diameter. With many loads velocity picked up also. I ran 25 5-shot groups with various bullets and powder charges through the gun to see how it would work.

Bullet Diameter	Average Group Size for all shots @ 25 yards
.450"	2.3"
.452"	1.8"
.454"	1.99"

Bullet (all sized .452")	Powder & Charge	Vel. Before	Vel. After
#454629GC 300 gr.	24 gr. WW-296	1259	1302
#457191 300 gr.	24 gr. WW-296	1268	1309
#454424 260 gr.	20 gr. 2400	1217	1303
	25 gr. WW-296	1249	1346
SSK 270-451 270 gr.	25 gr. WW-296	1274	1346

Note: The above loads were fired in a Linebaugh Custom .45 and may not be safe in your gun!
This data is for information and educational purposes only. If you use it your gun you are responsible.

There are others who have experimented more with the idea and found it to work. Wesson Arms liked the improvement very much. Some have tried using a throat 2 calibers long and it seems to work very well. I have several other guns that are so throated and they are very accurate. While it may not be as accurate as a custom line-bored cylinder and barrel, it can be a very good, economical improvement to many guns. It is especially helpful on those guns that have a tight area just where the barrel screws into the frame. I am not sure who all offers Taylor Throating other than Bowen Classic Arms, Alpha Precision and I think Clements Custom Guns. I am sure there are others who do but you will have to talk with them about it.

Another look back is at the SGB Tool that we have written about in the past. This tool is used to modify the nose of the .22 Long Rifle bullet so it resembles an LBT bullet. The tool is simplicity in itself, consisting of a small cylinder with a chamber in it for the .22 LR cartridge. Slip the loaded cartridge into it and you see the nose protrudes out the end.

I use a pair of flat cutters and nip the nose off, then finish with a couple strokes from a file. The tool is hardened so you won't wear it out with the file or change the overall length.

My Dad developed this back years ago when we used to hunt rabbits for meat. We wanted something that would anchor them quickly. Hollowpoints work fine, but were expensive and since our resources were limited at the time he decided to modify the old roundnose standard 22 bullet. After some experimenting with lengths he settled upon a standard length.

Friend Ed Wosika got involved and started marketing the tool to modify the bullets. It was he who came up with the name "SGB" which stands for Small Game Bullet. The tools are available through the HANNED LINE .

Over the years I have about quit using hollowpoints in favor of these. I can buy a 550 round carton of .22's at Wal-Mart for ten bucks and it sure makes shooting inexpensive. If I want some hunting ammo for the .22 I just get out my SGB Tool and go to work. On squirrels and rabbits they work like a charm. I have dropped coyotes with them, though you best hit them just right.

One winter back in the early 80's our old friend, the late Robert Smythe, shot over 110 jack rabbits on his Heart Bar Ranch that was located up in Saguache, Colorado. Robert kept track of the shooting and said he had just over 50 one-shot stops using the SGB bullets on the jacks. He was using a modified Stevens Favorite that Dad and I had built for him. The barrel was from a Model 52 Winchester and was very accurate. Robert made shots on the jacks out past 100 yards with the gun... shooting them as they would come out of his haystacks.

For those of you who love the .22 and use it a lot, the SGB Tool is definitely worth having. There are a number of readers of this site who have used the tool for quite a while now and can attest to it's performance on a variety of critters. To hear from them simply post a question about it on the Discussion Board. I am sure you will hear from them. Another article on the SGB can be found HERE.

Lee Precision is often known for their line of inexpensive loading tools and while they are looked down upon by some, the company has come up with a lot of innovative ideas over the years. One such tool that I find invaluable is their Factory Crimp Die. This tool is actually made in 2 different configurations and I find both of them very useful.

The "collet-type" is in my opinion THE BEST crimp die for some of the old calibers that use thin brass... .25-20, .32-20, .38-40, .44-40. It is also one of the best for leverguns, where the bullet must be crimped in order to keep the bullet from being driven back into the case while the cartridge is in the magazine. I use nothing else but the Lee die for the .30-30.

I also use the Factory Crimp Die for my hard-recoiling handguns. In the .454 I find it to be the best.. again that is my opinion and no, Lee does not give me anything for it. I am just telling you what I think. I find I can get a better crimp on the heavy .45's and .454's with the Lee die than I have been able to get with any other tool. And the addition of the carbide sizing ring in the crimp die is a great help. If you have ever buckled a case when trying to get a heavy crimp you know what a hassle that becomes. With the sizing ring in the Factory Crimp Die, if you do buckle a case, the wrinkles will be ironed out when you pull the cartridge out of the die! (The collet die does not have this feature)