Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots Modifying / rebarrel Ruger #3 in 45-70 to 6mm BR ?

Anyone know a good gunsmith who knows how to accurize Ruger #1 / #3's to get the most out of a BR cartridge? I know the front forearm is problematic as designed, but I am curious if some Guru has the information to make changing my gun to make it a benchrest gun, expecting 1/2" groups out of it. Mine has a #1 buttstock installed.

I have always thought a drop gate gun for Vermin and long range shooting would be cool vs my Single shot bolt guns, sort of dislike the break barrel contender due to too much resetting on the bags.


Thanks for any suggestions or gunsmith recommendations


Allen

Allen,

Back in the early inception of the Sgl Shot forum, Someone (And I think it might have been VaNimrod) started a thread on gunsmiths who specialize in Ruger #1's. If you could manage to go back and find it, I'm sure you would find an answer to your question...

GH

I get 1/2" groups out of my .45-70 which is exactly like it left the factory. It's a shame to booger up a #3 as they are getting expensive.

Swampman, just got mine back form a friend, I have not shot it in 15 years, Back then I may have tuned it a bit with the info back then but forgot, and I agree, the #3 are getting up there, I think I paid $175 for a 76 edition with my FFL in 45-70 but i buggered it up with Mag Na Porting and a Lyman reciever sight, cut the stock but flat and put on a recoil pad, but sure need the pad and a bit of LOP increase. Any info on tuning it up would be appreciated. Wish I bought one in 22 hornet tooooooo!!!!\Bob

Just barely snugging the forearm screw or a rubber o-ring between the barrel and the forearm will help.

Mark Penrod dba Penrod Precision in North Manchester, Indiana. I can vouch for him personally; he does good work, his prices are fair, and his turnaround is reasonable. He's also a known quantity and others will vouch for him as well. Second in my experience would be McGowen. I've also heard favorable things about Carolina Precision Rifles, though I have no firsthand experience with them.

Swampman,
do you lay the oring in the forearm groove or but it on the barrel in the forend area, Also do you put it close to the forend screw or near the end of the forend? What about the forend band? Is there anything to change on that?
Thanks,
Bob

Allen,
+1 on Mark Penrod for Ruger #1's and #3's. He has rebarreled three for me since 07 and I have a #3 with him now to be rebarreled with a Shilen .224 8" twist. It's taken an average of about 5 months to get them rebarreled.I'll post some pics of what he has done for me.



Both of these rifles are chambered for my .204 Wasp wildcat which uses a 30-30 case shortened and necked down. The #1 has a Krieger #18 contour 11" twist barrel and the #3 has a Pac-nor Target Weight 11" twist.

This #1 has a Shilen #7 contour 14" twist barrel chambered in another wildcat of mine. It uses 30-30 brass shortened to 1.900 and a 35 degree shoulder.
The Krieger and Pac-nor barrels are 1.200 dia for 5" on the chamber end. This allows me to use Weaver #85 bases for front and rear. The Shilen is 1.250 for 4",but after he turns it down it has at least 5" of 1.200 dia. Mark has installed Kepplinger set triggers in my rifles. The last one he did broke at 1 1/4 lb unset and 8 oz. set. He heats and bends the forend hanger down a little to clear the 1.200 straight portion of the barrel. I have floated my forends by opening up the channel with 60 grit sandpaper wrapped around various sizes of 1/2 inch drive sockets.
If you are going to shoot high volume such as PD shooting, you will probably want to put some #1 wood on that #3.
Dave

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll have to make some phone calls.

Nice rigs, I purchased a barreled action when I was 14 from a "garage sale" where a Nephew was selling his uncles benchrest stuff, action was a sporterized enfield with a 26" medium bull barrel, stamped 219 Donaldson Wasp. More searching found a few asparagus crates of hand made bullets, formed cases based on 220 swift brass, forming dies, loading dies ( thread dies) the chamber reamer, and an old wood benchrest stock with the barrel channel stamped for the action, and a complete set of bottom metal to put the old gun together.

I have shot a few groups around half an inch ( 30 years ago) before Dad gave me a ruger tang safety 25-06 in trade. One oddity to the old girl is about 23" ahead of the throat is a spot where a tight patch becomes loose for a short section, the rest of the bore seems uniformly tight. Never did scope it to see why, but it still shoots small groups.


I have never seen another 220 swift based 219 Donaldson wasp.


Allen

BT,

I've heard many good things about Mark Penrod, also. I, at one time, even owned a #1 in .416 Taylor that he did. I tried to call him many times, but could never get him to answer the phone.

I personally know of one other poster here who had lets say, a less than stellar experience with Carolina Precision. Ugly enough, that I wouldn't recommend him...

GH

Allen,

If memory serves me right, (and it sometimes does...) that .220 Swift based wildcat is called a .224 Donaldson Ace

I have a set of dies for a .25 Donaldson Ace, but was never able to figure out what case it was based on...

GH

I ran across this thread while searching for information about .220 Swift based wildcats and would like to add some information if anyone is still interested.

Allen the modified .220 Swift cases/cartridges and the bench rest gun marked .219 DW was probably a .219 that was modified to what is sometimes referred to as a .220 Donaldson Ace. I have several of Harvey Donaldson's articles and his book "Yours Truly" and cannot find any evidence that this was something he developed, although he did a lot of experimentation so it is possible. CH4D does have loading and forming dies for this cartridge and they are the only ones that list it. I have a print from them showing a shortened .220 Swift case with 32 degree shoulders. The case length from head to shoulder is 1.363" which is the same as the Wasp, however the Swift case is 0.022" larger diameter so there is an increase of around 16 to 17% case capacity.

The .25 or .250 Donaldson Ace was a cartridge Donaldson developed in the early 50s. It is a .25 Cal based on the .250-3000 Savage case. Sam Clark Jr. set a 300 yard world record with this cartridge in 1954.

The .224 Donaldson Ace was Donaldson's last effort. It was based on the .225 Winchester. It was shortened to 1.375 from head to shoulder so was bit larger than the .219 Wasp and gave excellent accuracy with 3,700 fps with 30 gr. IMR 4064. The overall diameter of the case was very slightly more than the Wasp but the head to shoulder and smaller head thickness gave it about 10% more case capacity. This is in comparison to the original length Wasp at 1.75" not the later longer 1.813" case.

There was a full writeup on the .224 DA in the Nov/Dec. 1972 Rifle magazine which I have a copy. Sadly, Donaldson passed away in Nov of that year and apparently along with him any promotion of the cartridge went with him as you hardly see any information about this cartridge.

Dan

Dan,

Thank you for your insightful post. And welcome to the 'fire. Do stick around.

I was greatly interested in you comments on the .250 Donaldson Ace. At one time, I had intent on building one, I formed a couple of cases, but that's about as far as I got. At my age, it doesn't make a lot of sense to be building a bunch of wildcats. After all, All I hunt is Deer, and every single one I've taken has been shy of 150 yds. Thus a long-range hunter I am not!

If you should ever run across an article or loading data on the .250 DA, I'd sure be interested, tho'...

GH

The first part of this very old thread asked about improving the accuracy of the Ruger #1 due to the forearm issues. I had this done to my Ruger #1 220 Swift by E. A Brown adding the Hick's Accurizer.

https://eabco.com/HicksAccurizer1.html

Yes it works.

Hem, I had Jim Dubel (Delta Gun Shop)rebarrel my #3 45-70 to 220 Swift several years ago and when I shot it out had him rebore it to 6mm/Swift. Love that gun and still have the factory 47-70 bbl. I use 6mm Rem dies to reload and a Swift body die when I need to FL size-Mudy

Interesting that the Swift parent cartridge started out as a 6mm (Lee Navy).