Gunsmithing the Revolver 3

A while back I reported that the forcing cone on my revolver seemed to be a bit sub standard.

O.K. a lot sub standard. Some research suggested that this sometimes happens, even on brand name firearms, but once the problem is diagnosed, it's relatively easy to fix. The original "forcing cone" seemed to be a badly cut chamfer of 45 degrees. What should be there is a smoothly cut taper of 11 degrees although this can vary from 7 to 15 depending on who made the gun or who worked on it last. Brownells sells the reamer for this, so I invested in one and tried my hand.

The taper should be between 1/8" and 3/16" deep when finished although it's difficult to get anyone to come out and say this. I wish I had gotten some before pictures of this showing really heavy copper and lead fouling in the barrel and all over the top strap where the debris stuck. I also got a lot of testimony from the R.O. at the previous pin match that enough debris was escaping the sides of the gun to drop pins in the adjacent firing lane. I'll testify that it would occasionally spit back and hit me.

Anyway here the result after some 70-80 rounds at the last pin match.
The gun had not yet been cleaned. There's a bit of copper on the upper surface of the barrel, and essentially no deposits on the top strap, which is toward the lower right in these pictures. The residue above the barrel, between the barrel and the top strap looks like legacy residue as it is not repeated anywhere else.

I also got no complaints about side spray, so I'll call that problem fixed.