Seems to match perfectly (at looking at the photos). Hope you are happy with it now.

__________________
No life story has happy end.

Proof is in the shooting. We'll see about that tomorrow.
Keith

Yep, looking good!

For the most part very satisfied with how the gun shoots using my standard 45 Colt load: 250 grain Laser Cast RN FP over 8.5 grains of Unique, Starline brass and Federal Lg Pistol primer. I shot this gun side by side with my 625-6 Mountain Gun which seems to be my most accurate 45 Colt revolver. Just a touch more accurate than the 625-5 Classic I own. This same load out of the Mountain Gun went into a little under 4" at 50 yards.

The improvement in accuracy for the 25-5 now gives me confidence that doing some experimentation with bullets and loads will be successful. Oh, and in strong sunlight the color match of the new cylinder is extremely close to the original finish. Under normal circumstances rebluing the gun to get a matching finish will not be necessary.

Keith

I thought you folks that have been following this project might be interested in what load I'm focusing on.

On a previous post I mentioned that using my standard load (250 grain RNFP by Laser Cast over 8.5 grains of Unique, the new and improved 25-5 shot a 2" group at 25 yards and a 4" group (2" wide) at 50 yards. But at home I have had a quantity of 247 grain Keith SWCs sized .451" that I could never get to shoot in any gun I owned. They just seemed too small for either the various Mountain Guns I've owned (to include the one I have now) or the 45 Colt Model 625-5 Classic. But Model 25 barrels I've had and seen in the past have had very tight bores (.4510"-.4515" were common) and wondered if this gun might be able to handle them. The throats seem to measure right at .452" and the bore seems a smidge tighter than either the Classic or the MG.

I loaded some up (again, with 8.5 grains of Unique) and tried some today in all three guns. As before the 625s both rejected the loads. Groups were fairly concentric 4"-5" at 25 yards. But the 25-5 shot a 2" wide by 4" tall group at that distance. What disturbed me was the variation I felt in recoil and the commensurate vertical stringing, something I'd never seen before in my pistol shooting. I recalled that with this bullet I seated and crimped in one operation and was not at the time satisfied with the quality of the crimp. As you can see in the pic below the crimp groove on this bullet is very small and you need to get the crimp just right. I don't think I did. Oh, and for those of you wondering, that is Beeswax bullet lube. Yup, the real deal.

I just finished up loading another test batch, this time seating at a very consistent 1.600" and then crimping as a separate operation. The results were far, far superior. All the crimps felt identical, and the lip of the case is exactly on the forward shoulder of the crimp groove. Next step is to shoot them and see if this addresses my vertical stringing.

BTW, for those of you thinking my charge weights might be the cause that is not it. I check charge weights before and after each 20 rounds and my Redding Bench Rest Powder Measure throws Unique within 1/2 a 10th grain.

Keith

Keith, the vertical stringing is most likely the usual culprit - in other words, difficulty in resolving the perfect match of front and rear sight in elevation. I always have trouble with this in bench shooting a revolver and changed to prone years ago when I discovered that somehow prone worked better.

I would encourage you to try the biggest bullet you can stuff in that new cylinder. If a .453 bullet can be pushed through I would try a .454. If the loaded round will drop into the chambers I think it's no risk and might serve to get you a little more accuracy.

I'm glad things have worked out for you with this gun. Staying on the project paid off, didn't it?

I would agree except I was running side by side comparisons with both my Mountain Gun and my Classic and with neither did I have anything except concentric groups. Not tight but at least concentric. No, the recoil variance I think had something to do with it and possibly the smooth grips not giving me sufficient purchase. Now, admittedly I'll get vertical stringing at 50 yards due I'm sure to what you describe; but at 25 yards I'm not normally that sloppy. Tomorrow I'll try my new loads which were VERY carefully assembled, and the new grips from John Culina, a pair of Ziricote checkered Classics, paying particular attention to how consistent the recoil feels. If I'm still plagued by it, it may be that the .451" bullets are not consistent in their sizing, and the smaller ones are letting some gas bleed past. I'm not sold on this explanation since in my experience lead bullets normally upset enough to create a very good seal with the bore. Oh, and I agree with using a larger diameter bullet, but what I'm trying to do is see if the bullets I do have (about 2000) can be salvaged. They don't shoot worth **** in any gun I've ever tried them in.

Keith

I expect that you'll find seating and crimping in separate stages will resolve our vertical stringing. It it doesn't the next thing I would suggest is shimming the Strain Screw by about 0.010 inch. Because I found with my model 620 that a mainspring running just above the reliable ignition borderline will produce vertical stringing. BTW, my 620 is equipped with a reflex sight for accuracy testing loads so sight alignment doesn't factor in.

I also hope that you intend to keep those Ahrends grips, because that is about the prettiest set of Walnut grips I've ever seen. I also much prefer a matte finish over a gloss finish.

I have every intention of keeping them, in fact they may go on my 28-2, though the current Culina Classics are a thing of beauty. These are the first Ahrends I've really liked and they fit my hand very well. Also, I think they are Rosewood and not Walnut. Can't be sure since I'm a dullard when it comes to wood.
Keith

Keith, I live not too far from you, near Richmond, have the same gun with 8-3/8 bbl with same problem, and am looking for a good pistolsmith in central VA that isn't booked for two years and will take new work.
If I might ask, who is your smith?
PM me and I may be able to help you with a taller front sight. I have some .323 Patridge for pinned installation.

My gunsmith is my lawyer, who lives in central Maryland. We get together once or twice a month. As far as I know he doesn't take any outside work except that from close friends. Ex-cop and S&W trained armorer, he's very good.

As for the front sight, I have a gold-bead patridge front sight .250" tall, or .040" taller than the current one. It's an SDM pin-in front sight and very nicely made. Thanks very much for the offer however. I've got a local gunsmith that is going to install it in a week or two. I'll post the results on this discussion thread and you can reach out to me then if you want him to do yours as well. His name is Dale Woolum and he is in Charlottesville, VA.

Keith

Ameridaddy:

cprher had his new cylinder installed by Smith & Wesson. That seemed to be the source of improvement. I'd give them a shout to see about yours.

Not to be the naysayer but I'd say two targets and two unexplained flyers suggest the need for a bit more testing. I wouldn't load all 2000 just yet. Keep us posted.

Yup. I agree. I'm going to load up 100 tomorrow and do a long term test. If at the end I just have an occasional flyer, then as a practice round it will suffice. I'm already on the hunt for a vendor that can provide a high quality honest to God 250-260 grain Keith with a flat base, a square cut grease groove, a broad meplate and consistency in both weight and diameter (.452").

Keith

.451" bullets are too small for 45 Colt. I get my best results with .452" SWC bullets and RNFP bullets work almost as well.
I have not tried larger sized bullets.

Brian is a noted custom bullet manufacturer, mostly 45 cal and mostly for single actions. Brian listened to what I had loaded and its performance on paper. In his opinion, my load is too LIGHT. He says to up the load to 9-10 grains of Unique to help upset the bullet more, or more rapidly which might settle things down. I'll try 9 grains of Unique to start, then might try magnum primers to give the load a kick in the butt.

Keith

Maybe I just missed it, but what was the bore diameter?
The basic problem is the discrepancy between the bore and throat diameters.
Veral Smith of LBT bullets developed a barrel lapping approach which can help in these situations. His intent was to eliminate the choked throat effect that can occur when the barrel is threaded onto the frame. The result is an increase in accuracy, but also a controllable increase in bore diameter by .001-.003".
So, it can effectively reduce or eliminate the discrepancy caused by oversized throats.
Of course, you pretty much have to use matching oversized bullets to reap the full benefit.

Jim

cprher - Before this thread closes, I wanted to thank you for letting me know Smith could replace my 25-5 overbored (.4575"-.458" measured with Starrett small hole gages) cylinder, while my bore slugged .451". I called them several times over the past few years asking if they had any blued cylinders, and the answer was always no, and, paraphrasing, "We're not going to make any, because we make more money selling guns than making parts." I reminded them there were thousands of overbored 25-2 and 25-5 cylinders out there, but I was dismissed.
After seeing your tale, I talked to Smith and they now have my gun, with the same work ordered for it you specified for yours. I'm looking forward to a Smith 45 Colt that patterns better than my shotgun, and I really enjoyed reading your load testing chronicle with it. Many thanks again.

Jim,
The bore is not choked at the frame but in fact is a very consistent .4515"-.4520" from front to back. All the throats measure right at .452". I've had S&Ws (Model 625-7s and PC made Model 627 8-times) that were choked as you describe and I've had Ruger single actions with that malady as well. But not on this gun. With proper size bullets and the correct load it consistently prints concentric 2" groups at 25 yards. By fiddling with the load, maybe better. The problem is the very slightly undersized bullets I'm trying to salvage.
Keith

As I stated earlier in this thread, the gun's original front sight is .210" tall. To be perfectly zero's using the .136" rear sight blade, the front sight should ideally be .250". With the .210"/.136" sight combination it shot 8 inches high at 50 yards. Well, I just got the new front sight installed. S&W didn't sell a serrated ramp .250" tall. The closest they had was a .243" so that's what I got and had Dale Woolum of Charlottesville, VA install it for me today. Dale is a nationally ranked bench rest shooter and a fine gunsmith. Here is what the new sight looks like.





Keith

PLEEEEEEEASE tell us that you are going to blue the ends of that front sight pin! You are getting close to perfection.

Did the old sight blade need to be milled off or was it pinned, too?

Buff,
Sorry to disappoint but no, I'm not going to blue the pin. It's stainless and won't take a cold blue. My approach to this project was to not incur any cost I didn't need to. So when I got the gun back from S&W and found the new cylinder to be such a good match and that they'd taken great care not to disturb the blue in any area they didn't need to, I decided that I wouldn't have the gun reblued. Anyway, the stainless pin looks OK to me. It draws the eye to the modified front sight which I think is cool. In my opinion, Dale's work is perfection. He had to mill off the existing front sight and not disturb any bluing in the process. That area has not been touched up with cold blue. The machining is so precise the front sight is actually inletted into the base .002" to close up a gap at the back of the blade. I'll shoot the gun in next couple of weeks (hand is still healing) and I'm REALLY eager to see how it now performs. And my new Keith bullets from Bryan Reece (sized .452") just arrived and will be loaded for testing as well.

Keith

Keep posting the results. That gun looks great, it's turned out very well. Your photographs are excellent.

This discussion thread (and others like it) have addressed to one degree or another how the problem of big throats was addressed by S&W at some point in the last part of the production run: probably by N8XXXXX or N9XXXXX, but most certainly by the time the numbering system had changed to ABCXXXX. I didn't doubt this was true but I was suspicious that changing throat size was the only product improvement. To satisfy my curiosity I bought the following gun - BAN63XX, made approximately in 1988 (date on grips). BTW, I checked my records and in November 2006 I sold my three Model 25-5s (N8022xx, N9000xx and AJJ92xx). Unfortunately, I have no detailed records of the accuracy of these guns. Another lost opportunity.





I picked it up today and plan on shooting it tomorrow; but, let me just share what I've learned so far.

a. Throats are between .451" and .452" using a .451" diameter lead bullet as a guide. However, fired cases from the pinned gun slide neatly into the chambers of the non-pinned gun, telling me the chambers are cut very much to the same dimensions.
b. Front sight height is .235" above the base compared to .210" of the original pinned front sight. However, the barrel diameters are slightly different between the two guns (.740" pinned vs .770" non-pinned). From the picture you can see that the barrel is a bit chunkier than the pinned barrel. After running the numbers the two turn out to be remarkably similar. The height of the front blades to the center of bore on both guns is: .893" for the non-pinned gun and .900" for the pinned gun.
c. Both guns came with .126" rear sight blades.
d. The fit and finish of both guns are similarly superb. Both guns lock up solidly with no rotational slack; end-shake is virtually zero on both; DA and SA actions are superb; bluing on both is first rate, though the pinned gun's finish is just a hint deeper blue and a bit glossier.

A cursory examination I know but this tells me that S&W went a bit deeper than just correcting the obvious throat size mistake. I'm doing a side by side test with the same ammos with both guns tomorrow and will submit a report on the results.

Keith

Lucky you! Nice looking .45, and with a "good" cylinder, too. Congrats on finding that one.

I have a similar 25-9 with proper cylinder dimensions for us cast bullet shooters, and it is a fine shooter as far as that goes, but it is desperately in need of a taller front sight. I was so happy to finally find a decent S&W .45 that would have every possibility to be a good shooter - only to be quickly confounded by the silly sight problem.

I think I am done with fighting to get something in .45-caliber that I can actually use, but I do give you credit for putting your money where your mouth is. Be interested in the comparison of your two guns.

Went to the range today to test both 25-5s side by side with the same ammo. I had a variety of ammo available: my standard RNFP 250 grain (.452") over 8.5 Unique with a Federal 150 primer; a Keith 250 grain (.451") over 8.5 Unique and 9.0 Unique, with the latter loaded with three types of primers: Fed 150, Rem 2.5 and CCI Large Pistol.

This gun is my newly acquired non-pinned 25-5 (BAN63XX). Gun is completely stock, apparently new and unfired based on the complete lack of finish wear on the recoil plate and front of cylinder.

The purpose of the test was to see how the two guns - one a highly modified older model and one a bone stock newer model - compared using the same ammo. I used 50 yards to make the differences in performance more obvious. What I found was that my efforts to correct the older model's performance (due mostly to oversized throats) brought it up to and slightly above the performance of the new model. Frankly, the project was well worth my efforts. It contributed to the community's knowledge base and produced a gun that I will treasure the rest of my life.

On another note, the side by side test allowed me to compare the Culina grips to the factory target grips. The Culinas absorbed recoil far more effectively than the factory grips and made the gun far more comfortable to shoot.

Keith

I use hollow base Berry plated bullet with good results. I started by ordering .455 cast bullets but the Berry hollow base works better

Presume you mean an R2-1/2 primer... ? Anyway, good looking targets - and guns, too. I'd bet there is a load that would make both of them shoot better, possibly with a good hollow-base bullet, but I understand your purpose it to burn up the smaller diameter bullets you already have.

You're right. Remington 2.5. Made the change. But since all the throats on both guns are the proper size, hollow base bullets would not help. My future experiments will focus on loads that work with the 250 grain Keith bullets I just bought. They're sized .452" and have a square base. If I can't get Unique to work I'll expand my search to other powders that work in large volume cases.
Keith

Just a final pitch for 800X if you don't get the results you want from Unique. I have had great luck with it in several S&W .45 Colt revolvers. It is a nuisance as far as metering goes but if you use an electronic dispenser it might work very well for you. Good luck!

I have W-231 with 260 grain home-cast SWC's sized to .454" the last time I loaded .45 Colt. Shot them in a pin-barreled 4" M-25-5 and a 7-1/2" Colt SAA. I can't find my notes right now, but it was the charge weight Winchester listed in their published data for duplicating their factory traditional load, and it sure felt like it.