Best chamber in a cylinder?

[MDS]

Talking guns with an acquaintance. We get to revolvers and he tells me about his revolver guru buddy, who has a ritual for every new revolver. He shoots a series of groups, each group shot out of the same chamber in the cylinder, and then puts a scratch next to the best-grouping chamber. Apparently his buddy shoots cast lead reloads, which I guess are more impacted by slight misalignments between cylinder and cone.

Any truth to that? Either way I'll probably do the routine with my 617 next time I'm out, just for gits and shiggles...

[TR675]

In my experience, yes. Some chambers will shoot better than others. I've noticed it in some of my revo's. For instance, my grandfathers old Colt has three cylinders which group together just fine and three which are all over the map.

I've heard tell - and I don't recall where so take this with a grain of salt - that this sometimes happened with old competition guns - not sure which competitions - where the shooter would only use the three best shooting chambers and never use the others. Folks buying those guns second hand supposedly got frustrated because they'd have three worn out cylinders and three basically brand new ones and the guns shot completely inconsistently.

[LSP972]

I've heard tell - and I don't recall where so take this with a grain of salt - that this sometimes happened with old competition guns - not sure which competitions - where the shooter would only use the three best shooting chambers and never use the others. Folks buying those guns second hand supposedly got frustrated because they'd have three worn out cylinders and three basically brand new ones and the guns shot completely inconsistently.

That would be a bit difficult to pull off, since bullseye (conventional pistol) has five shot strings and just about every other competitive discipline I can think of where revolvers are/were prevalent has six shot strings. I suppose you could do it in the bullseye slow fire stage (10 shots in 10 minutes), but it might get a bit dicey in timed (five shots in 20 seconds) and rapid (five shots in 10 seconds) fire...;)

.

[HCM]

Talking guns with an acquaintance. We get to revolvers and he tells me about his revolver guru buddy, who has a ritual for every new revolver. He shoots a series of groups, each group shot out of the same chamber in the cylinder, and then puts a scratch next to the best-grouping chamber. Apparently his buddy shoots cast lead reloads, which I guess are more impacted by slight misalignments between cylinder and cone.

Any truth to that? Either way I'll probably do the routine with my 617 next time I'm out, just for gits and shiggles...

I once owned a fixed sight GP-100 which routinely grouped 5 / 1 and determined the flyer was consistently coming from the same "bad" chamber.

[John Ralston]

Yup...this is why some of the custom shops like Bowen Line-Bore the pilot holes for new cylinders through the frame, to make sure each chamber is as close to concentric with the bore, while locked up, as possible.

[peterb]

That would be a bit difficult to pull off, since bullseye (conventional pistol) has five shot strings and just about every other competitive discipline I can think of where revolvers are/were prevalent has six shot strings. I suppose you could do it in the bullseye slow fire stage (10 shots in 10 minutes), but it might get a bit dicey in timed (five shots in 20 seconds) and rapid (five shots in 10 seconds) fire...;)

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"The Art of Handgun Shooting"(Charles Askins, 1941) recommends using the best chamber for slow fire, and the other five for timed and rapid fire.

This was when you shot bullseye with one hand in your pocket, wearing a fedora and necktie.