My Taraus Thunder Bolt C-45 Came Home ...

[john boy]

Deadeye Dallas worked the innards of the Thunderbolt over doing many modifications.  He told me that he opened and closed the rifle about 30 times working on it.  Well it came home yesterday.  So today, ran 50 Ideal 454190 RNFP reloads through the rifle with several different COL's.  The rounds were magazine loaded in 5 and 10 round batches.  All rounds were shot Slam Fired with the rifle in a HORIZONTAL POSITION.  That means the rifle was not vertical, I turned it over on it's side
I had 4 rounds that stove piped when they went up against the top of the chamber.  I hand extracted them and put in my pocket.  ALL rounds stayed on the carrier, none dropped below the carrier and the 46 that were shot extracted perfectly.  The COL of the 4 rounds out of 50 were:
1.60 – can understand
1.595 – can understand
1.580 (2 rounds) ... ?

To have 4 rounds malfunction out of 50, being slam fired in a horizontal position, I believe it to be a NO Big Deal.  Have to understand, the 50 round box was multiples of other 1.60 -1.595 – 1.590 – 1.585 – 1.580 – 1.575 – 1.570 and 1.565 COL reloads.
So there were other rounds, the same length of the ones that stove piped ... that didn't.  And am sure if the 4 misfits were shot with the gun in a vertical position – all rounds would have chambered – fired and extracted

Dallas recommends that the COL should be 1.575

Now for the words of warning to the BP shooters:
If you plan on using PRS Big Lube bullets ... Forget it!  Because the bullets have a short ogive and large wide metplat, there is a good possibility they will jam up in the 'J' portion of the guides.  This 'J' part is 70 thousands long before the guides are completely straight.  I calculated that the COL of the PRS rounds would have to be in the neighborhood of 1.545 ... too short. I manually fed the Big Lubes with a COL of 1.570 - 1.590 and 1.60.  With out firing them, tried to extract them and they all jammed up in the 'J' part of the guides.  Had to dig them out with a screwdriver.
You need a bullet that has a longer tapered ogive and a small metplat like the Lyman 454190


Bottom Line – I am 100% Satisfied.  Dallas did a Great Job!  THANK YOU!

[litl rooster]

Good report, I have felt with the one here in our safe the OAL has been the key to a good day with it and a bad one

Is there one paticular length you felt fed best?

[Papa Irish]

I have a .357 version of the Thunderbolt.  Some questions.  Why did you fire it horizontal?  Was it to see if you could make it stovepipe?  Mine stovepipes when shot upright every time I try to hurry (not a good thing when shooting for speed).  I have tried several bullet types and OAL.  How much did it cost for the workover?  Do you shoot SASS or plan to with this?  You can email off-line if you would rather.

[john boy]

Is there one paticular length you felt fed best?

I have no idea of the 'best' because I shot multiple rounds of various lengths (see initial post).  They all chambered, fired and extracted except the 4 rounds.
Deadeye Dallas as stated ...

Dallas recommends that the COL should be 1.575

Why did you fire it horizontal?

Because no rifle with magazine fed rounds to the carrier were ever designed to be shot in a horizontal position, only vertical.  So this was an 'extreme' test to determine if the modifications that Dallas made: carrier - bolt modification - magazine modification worked to take a round from the magazine - lift it properly on the carrier - channel it to the chamber - extract the spent round and do the same process repeatedly  .... shooting it Slam Fire.  It worked flawlessly for 46 of the 50 rounds.  This proved that Dallas is a 'Master at Re-Engineering' a rifle that when produced by Taurus ... had many flaws that made the rifle NOT fire properly for the many CAS folks that bought one, to the extent that they discontinued production of it

How much did it cost for the workover?  

NADA.  Dallas does this for free to prove the Taurus Thunderbolts can be made to work.  He told me that my rifle was taken apart and put back together 30 times after the multiple fixes and test firings.
Now for the record, any man that spends a material amount of his personal time, to prove that a faulty designed rifle can be made to shoot flawlessly and does it for free ... deserves to be compensated.  Many folks IMO who sent their rifle to him and he fixed it ... and they did not send him anything are nothing more than cheap frigging PICKERS PIKERS.  I sent Dallas a nice check, asking him to take his Mrs out to dinner for the amount of time he was working on the rifles and not spending time with the family

[Papa Irish]

Thanks John Boy   

[Dick Dastardly]

Had a feller shootn' a trombone gun on our posse today.  First one I've seen run that well.  Only a couple of glitches thru the whole match.  Not quicker than other shooters, but he seemed pleased with his gun's performance.

FWIW, he was shootn' heathen fad smokeyless powder loads.  Don't know how it would run with Genuine Powder.  I'd like to learn how JBs trombone gun runs for an entire match without need to clean between stages.

DD-DLoS

[Cuts Crooked]

I'd like to learn how JBs trombone gun runs for an entire match without need to clean between stages.

DD-DLoS

Betcha it wood be purdy easy to design a "big Lube" with the nose profile that seems ta run gud in that gun! But I reccallow as how wif Swiss 'n a gud lube it might/could run jist fine.

[john boy]

Cuts, instead of redesigning the PRS, it would be easier to modify the spacing and configuration of the guides on the rifle.  Doing that would then possibly not allow a bullet with a narrower ogive such as the 454190 to feed correctly into the chamber.  Also, would think that the ends of the guides would be too wide to extract the spent case without a lot of wobble

[Springfield Slim]

Try some 45Slim Big lubes, they are shorter and narrower than a PRS. Or maybe the J/P 200 Big Lube, they are shorter also. The PRS isn't the only BL bullet mould DD offers. 

[john boy]

Slim, the 454190 is a configuration that works for these Lightning type rifles.  The smaller metplat and the taper of the ogive are conducive to the front design of the guides with a suggested round COL of 1.575.  Also, the rounds need a crimp that doesn't allow the case mouth to catch on the top of the chamber opening
... the 454190 on your website

[Montana Slim]

So far, the only problem with my Pa's .45 TB was a defective hammer... It appears to have broken at the full-cock notch.
Likely many of the rifles parts are made using the MIM process. I'm not a fan of this process for parts that take impact...it's fine for items that merely move a bit, or just sit there, tho.

Investment cast parts are much tougher.

Slim

[Mako]

So far, the only problem with my Pa's .45 TB was a defective hammer... It appears to have broken at the full-cock notch.
Likely many of the rifles parts are made using the MIM process. I'm not a fan of this process for parts that take impact...it's fine for items that merely move a bit, or just sit there, tho.

Investment cast parts are much tougher.

Slim

Slim,
I understand where you are coming from, but this is the 21st century.  A lot of MIM alloys surpassed investment casting about 15 years ago.

I don't know who designed or even produces  that particular Taurus' MIM part, but if they made a simple monkey copy using an Iron Nickel alloy (not actually even a true steel) it is pretty common.   There was actually a very good Spanish MIM house they used to do business with and I did as well, it is now owned by a German company.  I doubt you would place the other materials (MIM or not) they have in the Taurus on par with what you have used in producing forearms.  Taurus actually bought several companies and has their own MIM, forging and casting capabilities so I would assume they made the hammer, but then they are an international company.

In many cases precision powdered metal components and actually PM in general have surpassed forging and other wrought materials for fine gain alloy applications.  Any of the "super" knife alloys start out their lives as a PM hipped blank or raw form.  ATS-34, S30V, M390, BG-42, CM-154 and many other steels are all powdered metals that are formed by isostatic compacting.  They have densities that exceed wrought material which seems hard to believe until you understand what it is.  It is an alloy not unlike what you would find for the wrought material but it has a SUPER fine grain structure and therefore is a more homogenous alloy.  

In some cases they start by taking the same alloy and literally atomizing is in to very fine powder grains which end up being almost spherical directly from the molten alloy.  This means each grain is a microcosm of the alloy and has very defined grained structure.  When it is HIPed you end up with a billet of a very dense super fine alloy because you don't have the element clumps you get in material from a straight pour.

These materials are not just strong, or capable of being very hard, they are also extremely tough.  In the hardened and tempered states many can almost be bent 90° before failure.  You can't do that with the same alloy that started as a forging and definitely not a casting.

For instance the connecting rods in the Z06 engines and the early Z07 engines abandoned the "gold standard" Pink forged SBC rods and moved to PM rods.  Since then they have gone to titanium for decreased weight, but the powdered metal rods were stronger than the forgings.  We have always looked at those applications as the cutting edge use of materials since they use them on almost a "cost is no object" basis.

Let's compare MIM (not just general Powdered Metal parts) to precision investment cast parts on the microscopic structure level, because MIM will win on the net shape level.  Using polished met mounts the grain structure on a MIM component will appear as a fine crystalline structure with very even distribution of the alloyed elements.  On the other hand the investment cast part will appear as a treelike branched crystalline structure.  The branches are literally the road maps to the ultimate failure of the material.  In tests of the ultimate tensile strength of MIM versus Investment Cast parts using the same or similar materials the MIM parts are typically superior to cast materials and comparable to wrought materials.  When looking at the results of high cycle fatigue tests MIM is typically the winner as well.

The reason you don't see MIM frames, slides, barrels etc. is due to size limitations not strength.  The typical MIM part is under 100 grams (3.5 ounces).  The cross sections also limit the size.  The limiter in the cross sections is the ability to "debind" the carrier polymer from the part before sintering nothing more.  I have seen wall thicknesses of 10mm with MIM but on short sections, typically is can't be greater than 6mm or roughly .25", and that is max.  I have read papers in tests up to 1.25 inches but I have yet to see anything like that outside of a lab.

The world is moving on...
The Dir of R&D who worked for me at the last company I was with has a close friend who works with Honda's racing development group.  They are now using an even different technology to produce super strong HOLLOW lifters and other parts for their racing engines.  They are using Laser Sintered parts which literally almost remind you of a Star Trek "replicator" in how it works.  They get net shape parts without even going through an injection molding process and debinding  process.   They produce parts in a couple of hours and then heat treat and grind the seating surfaces if even necessary and they are ready to go.  We had a plastic extrusion "printer" in house which made plastic prototype models for R&D in hours.  The laser sintering makes that particular Strasys prototyping  system look like a toy.

In fact I am in the process of evaluating Laser Sintered components for direct final use in medical devices.  I'm working with our regulatory group to avoid having to re-qualify the materials just because we go to a different fabrication process.  We successfully accomplished that with MIM last year because of the similarity to PM that has been used for years.  We just provided the materials testing and life cycle testing of the components (which eclipsed the investment cast parts) and it was accepted.  It's pretty cool, it means CUSTOM built components in some applications.  Custom built for the patient instead of making the patient fit the device we build.  In other applications it would just replace the MIM, investment cast or machined from billet parts that would be in the devices, instruments or implants.

Pretty cool stuff this 20th and 21st technology...

One last note about MIM hammers in particular.  In 1997 we began selling MIM hammers to Bill Wilson.  Before he would go with them we had to demonstrate the strength of them relative to his classic #9 Hammer.  In all of the tests the MIM hammers I provided were as strong or stronger (including tougher) than his investment cast hammer.  I know a lot about MIM hammers...  From 1996 to 2005 we only ever had one returned for warranty and I have it still today.  We replaced it but it had been modified.  It was easier to just give them a new one and bank the "goodwill" of a happy customer.

~Mako

[Montana Slim]

Well, I know enough about MIM that it is a wild-card. Very little QA behind it to ensure consistent product....If you have a savy MIM house making your part, you might be great....as long as they're real consistent or real good at finding bad ones before they ship (instead of breaking in your gun). I've seen poor investment casting, too...but it's easy to spot..and generally they will be consistently bad within a lot. Parts I deal with are expected to run a long time without breakage.

Adding a final protective finish is interesting, too..corrosion protection can be dicey as well.

Slim

[Mako]

Well, I know enough about MIM that it is a wild-card. Very little QA behind it to ensure consistent product....If you have a savy MIM house making your part, you might be great....as long as they're real consistent or real good at finding bad ones before they ship (instead of breaking in your gun). I've seen poor investment casting, too...but it's easy to spot..and generally they will be consistently bad within a lot. Parts I deal with are expected to run a long time without breakage.

Adding a final protective finish is interesting, too..corrosion protection can be dicey as well.

Slim

Slim,
You should check into it.  They don't use stone hammers and wooden sticks anymore.  The Q.C. and Q.A. are on par with any manufacturing organization you will find, they are ISO 9001:2008 and ISO / TS 1694: 2002 compliant as well.

The parts accept black oxide, nickel, manganese phosphate, nitrocarburizing, hard chrome, you name it...

The military is using firearms with MIM parts even as we speak.  These are not ones they had forced on them, these are ones they wanted.  On one particular weapon adopted by a couple of the special operations command forces they only "refused" one MIM component and that had nothing to do with strength or durability , they just wanted a different sight.  The weapon has 11 purpose built MIM components on it in the critical hammer, trigger group and safety controls.  It only has 46 unique components (that includes screws, pins, etc.), that means almost 1/4 of the parts are MIM.  It was extensively tested with zero breakage failures.

Regards,
Mako

[Montana Slim]

Slim,
You should check into it.  They don't use stone hammers and wooden sticks anymore.  The Q.C. and Q.A. are on par with any manufacturing organization you will find, they are ISO 9001:2008 and ISO / TS 1694: 2002 compliant as well.

The parts accept black oxide, nickel, manganese phosphate, nitrocarburizing, hard chrome, you name it...

The military is using firearms with MIM parts even as we speak.  These are not ones they had forced on them, these are ones they wanted.  On one particular weapon adopted by a couple of the special operations command forces they only "refused" one MIM component and that had nothing to do with strength or durability , they just wanted a different sight.  The weapon has 11 purpose built MIM components on it in the critical hammer, trigger group and safety controls.  It only has 46 unique components (that includes screws, pins, etc.), that means almost 1/4 of the parts are MIM.  It was extensively tested with zero breakage failures.

Regards,
Mako

I've actually checked into this ...extensively.
I even know the exact date the military started using MIM parts in small arms....and what they were 

I'll hold my other comments  

Slim