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Ruger Old Army and Blackhawk barrels

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user 33697

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Hi guys,
I did as search in the forum and I did not find an answer that I've been curious about my ROA. Did Ruger use the same barrel from their Blackhawk when they made the Old Army? If different barrels, what are the groove and land dimensional differences between both barrels?
 
Hi guys,
I did as search in the forum and I did not find an answer that I've been curious about my ROA. Did Ruger use the same barrel from their Blackhawk when they made the Old Army? If different barrels, what are the groove and land dimensional differences between both barrels?
I’m sure they were bored and rifled with the same equipment. The finishing touches (threading primarily) would have been the only real difference.
 
I guess that’s why the riffling on the ROA‘s looks so shallow and just not deeply cut at a glance.
 
I have the Lee Six Cavity Round Ball Mold for the ROA just for that reason, A round ball will give excellent accuracy. But I am sure some will disagree with this.
 
My Ruger .45 Colt is bored .452.
Lyman 452-389 mold, I've this for 46 years, and it works pretty fine with the ROA... ;)
452-389.jpg
 
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My Stainless ROA factory box says "Blackhawk" on the label, but serial number is for the ROA. Don't really mean anything, I suppose and don't answer your question. Bought when they first came out, packing guy at factory maybe didn't have a label/box handy. Don't know. Stainless, long barrel ROA.
 
Unless someone else that has the cardboard type box there’s may say Black hawk also, so I take it if one would need a re barrel for there ROA Ruger would just use a BH Barrel then solder the ram catch on the end. I guess.
 
They work but I found the higher velocity with round balls gave more effective performance. IMHO there simply is no advantage to using conicals/bullets.
I have also found as of late that a ball to be more accurate with consistent velocity in my ROA. I've worked up loads with Dow & Johnston and Kaido bullets and the old .457 ball just is more accurate in my ROA. Maybe it's just the barrel I happen to have on my ROA as others have said they get incredible accuracy with a conical. :dunno:
 
All I have ever shot in any of my percussion guns competitively is balls and my tuned Pieta 58 has always out scored my ROA. I use .457 dia in the ROA and .451 in the Pieta Target gun.
One thing that should be mentioned is that there is a universe of difference in the accuracy requirements for target shooting and for Cowboy action shooting guns! Cowboy guns are tuned more for speed and hard use with plain sights but target guns precision accuracy.
With steel shooting all hit/ knock downs count which usually are synonymous (most any solid hit on rather large targets), in target shooting only the point totals matter and there had better be lots of tens and x's which many cowboy guns are incapable of.
 
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