Dern it my 454 has problems

[Ranch Dog]

Somewhere around 55.0K to 56.0K PSI, my Starline brass starts to see the same mark. The mark I'm seeing is as light or lighter than that in your second photo. I have noticed no issue with the bolt but I did cut my range session very short as I was not able to record velocity data with my CED Chrony.

Found the culprit with that. The chrony was displaying various error messages concerning the start screen and when I wound the cord in I found where a mouse had chewed through the lining of the cable exposing the copper wire strands. I will get that corrected this weekend.

I had to shim both of my cartridge guides, left and right, to keep the next loaded round from popping up and out of the receiver during the reloading cycle. This was with my TLC454-290-RF. The TLC452-330-RF will not come up through the guides even though both bullets are sized the same (.452"), and seated to the same overall length. The difference is that my 45 Colt bullet is shorter and as it is seated causes the case to assume a ever so slight hourglass shape where my 454 bullet maintains the correct taper of the case. That is why I had such an issue with "high flying" cartridges and an empty chamber. This alone was going to cause me to take the rifle apart to start over and I will start a new post detailing this in the Cast Bullet forum on this site rather than take away from such an important topic.

[donhuff]

So while looking at it closer this morning I noticed something else that adds to the mess. A soft bolt would be bad enough, but add in this next item and it gets really bad.

Notice how much AND HOW LITTLE of the locking bolts are sticking out on these two samples. The stainless one is my 44 and the blued one is the 454. See how the locking bolt is sticking out (from the receiver) on the bottom of the guns? The 454 is "out" a lot more than the 454. Now looking at the top of the receiver, see how little is out on the 454. It actually is not even up to the top of the bolt, and you'll see later that this reduces the bearing surface of the locking system. It "looks" like maybe there is 1/16" difference between the two. Like they might have either drilled the hole for the locking bolt pin in a different location since the length of the two sets of locking bolts, looks about the same.


It does not look all that bad in the side by side, but wait till the next post and I'll show you why it's important. And for the guys going out to buy, while doing a prebuy inspection, I suggest that you pay close attention to how much locking bolt is sticking out the top and bottom of the receiver. RD please include this on the prebuy inspection page. Now that we know about it!

Please be sure to read the little sub titles to make more sense of my ramblings.

[donhuff]

See where the top, forward edge of the locking bolt cut is battered out, and you can see exactly where the top of the locking bolt stopped and was recessing forward into the bolt INCREASING THE HEADSPACE AT THE SAME TIME.. And note the shinny part in the next shots that show how much of that bearing surface is wasted. There's maybe 1/16 to 3/32" of metal that is still blue. When the whole thing aint but maybe 1/4" long, that's a lot not getting used. In the last pic you can see just how much it has flared out. This is what was kicking the bolt sideways and making it hit the hammer on the way back.

[donhuff]

Lastly is the bolt face. It's not going to sow up in a picture but I did some measuring and it looks like the middle of the bolt is .010-.011 deeper than the outer part. It's caving in to the ejector hole. That little bit of the face to the outside of the ejector hole is what was making the dimples in the brass. So the ejector had to be moving back too.

Last pic if where the bolt was hitting the hammer. This was while levering it with the hammer already cocked.

BTW I did hit the two bolts with a file and the 454 bolt is definitely softer.

[donhuff]

Somewhere around 55.0K to 56.0K PSI, my Starline brass starts to see the same mark. The mark I'm seeing is as light or lighter than that in your second photo. I have noticed no issue with the bolt but I did cut my range session very short as I was not able to record velocity data with my CED Chrony.

Have you ever noticed how thin the bolt face really is between the firing pin and the ejector cut?

For it to make that mark, seems like the ejector would have to be in the hole a little deep too, doesn't it?

[Ranch Dog]

Have you ever noticed how thin the bolt face really is between the firing pin and the ejector cut?

For it to make that mark, seems like the ejector would have to be in the hole a little deep too, doesn't it?

Yes to both counts...

[Ranch Dog]

Don, this is all great information and I will get the locking bolt visual inspection into the "pre-buy" suggestions in the next day or too.

What you should also do is include this topic in the material you send Rossi. You can print the topic buy clicking on the "PDF" icon in the post view menu bar above and to the right of the topic title. Icon will download the topic as a PDF and then you can open it and print.

[donhuff]

Well hold on a little, cause I was wrong when i said that the hole in the locking lugs must be different. I'ts not. I took the bolt and lugs out of my 45c and tried them in the 454, they worked fine but the lugs went up to the same position as the 454 lugs. So I took them out and measured both sets and they are identical. Then looking further into it, the lever is totally different in the 454. I tried the colt lever along with the colt lugs and bolt, but it would not work in the 454.

[pricedo]

If I was not privy to the metallurgical observations (soft bolt metal ? ) the two words that would pop into my mind after viewing these pictures and the noticeable deformation of metal parts would be EXCESSIVE PRESSURE.

**I'm chomping at the bit in anticipation of Rossis response to this situation.

[ironhead7544]

That doesnt look safe to me. Time to send it back IMHO.