broke a transfer bar on a Blackhawk!!!!!

[FrankenMauser]

I know dry firing a Ruger Blackhawk is supposed to be fine and dandy...but what were you doing when the transfer bar broke.....Oh Yeah ..dry firing !
I just can't get over the notion that dry firing wont hurt a gun... You were dry firing and the gun broke.
I don't do it unless I have proper snap caps and even then I don't do it much....
It just seems wrong to keep dropping the hammer to hit parts it shouldn't be hitting .

Uhh... What?

"...dropping the hammer to hit parts it shouldn't be hitting..."
You do understand that the transfer bar gets smacked by the hammer EVERY time the trigger is pulled, right?
That's it's job.
The hammer is supposed to hit the transfer bar! EVERY TIME.

Snap caps? They don't do anything for a transfer bar. The transfer bar gets hit by the hammer EVERY time the hammer falls while the trigger is pulled. EVERY TIME. Having snap caps in the cylinder does not change the fact that the transfer bar is a chunk of metal designed to get smacked by the hammer and transfer that energy to the firing pin.

Whether in live-fire or dry-fire, the transfer bar takes the same abuse.

 

[Bill DeShivs]

Yes, the blow to the transfer bar is cushioned by primers or a snap cap.
Think about it.

 

[briandg]

Yes, the blow to the transfer bar is cushioned by primers or a snap cap.

The blow to the primer will slow down the hammer some and lessen the actual amount of force and that will possibly preserve the steel from fatiguing, but even with the primer missing, that pin spring poses a lot of resistance as well. I'm having a hard time accepting that the steel could be so weak, unless it is sintered, or just brittle garbage. I know that the banging around will cause some steels to deform in their elemental structure.

I'd like to point something out. IF there was a problem with dry firing or a problem with the transfer bar of any sort, it would have been so easily evident that Ruger would have resolved it years ago. Lives hang in the balance whenever a gun is loaded. anytime a cartridge goes in. having a broken transfer bar may cause you to miss that charging moose, or having a bit of steel floating around in the gun may cause any number of problems. Testing? a mechanical trip hammer that generates the same amount of force could be set up to test a mechanism, any machinist could do so in a few minutes.

This encourages me to believe that the dry fire connection is probably rather tenuous. I believe that it is likely just a flaw in the steel or the part. I would suggest, if there are actually serious issues with it, that ruger would have created a multi part bar, a plain sintered base with a spring steel transfer strip. a very simple fix.

If there was a significant problem, especially one caused by dry firing, which ruger specifically approves of, they should know about it already and they would have recalled the guns.

I just don't think that we have the answer.

 

[Bill DeShivs]

It has nothing to do with the steel being weak. Take a low-carbon steel coat hanger, and keep bending it in the same spot. You will see what work-hardening does. Same thing when hitting it with a hammer-it will deform and then begin to crack.
The problem is even worse with medium-carbon steels used in guns.
While a modest amount of dry-firing will not hurt most modern guns, an excessive amount can cause problems. Ruger, or not.

 

[briandg]

That was my thought. That bar doesn't bend, but it does take a lot of blows. So, the little bit of flexing and compression could eventually weaken the grain of the metal and break at the spot that has weakened.

So again, we find that if there is a problem, won't the break always be at a distinct location? won't metallurgical testing prove that it resulted from overwork by constant misuse and no primer to buffer the blow?

A thought that I had was whether the transfer bar actually contacts the breech, or does it contact only the base of the pin? Could that be the cause, that the bar is being struck flat on the breech? I dunno, I have one sitting on my lap and can't tell.

I still hold that a sensible manufacturer would understand that there is a genuine hazard in such a situation and rectify it.

Do you think that changing from a simple mechanical type of steel to a steel designed for the situation, a steel that can flex rather than becoming work hardened would solve the problem? I've never seen a leaf spring break in a car, and that takes an awful lot of abuse. I've seen a lot of other steel products snap.

I don't know if you are a genuine metallurgist, but you know your metals and work with them and could answer that. I knew a metallurgist for a few years, and I wouldn't have asked him this question, because he was nuts.

 

[Bill DeShivs]

Even non-ferrous metals will work-harden-except gold.
Springs are funny things- as long as they are flexed inside their design parameters, they have almost infinite life. Flex then outside those parameters, and things go south quickly.

 

[rclark]

I've had it happen to me once. Luckily I was just testing at the range when it happened... That's when I learned about the pinch problem and its cure. I think once you 'fix' it right, there is much less chance of having a breakages. Personally I had no problem with the 'OM' revolvers that didn't have a transfer bar (one less that could break)... but that's just me.

 

[ThomasT]

After looking at that link and how to test if your transfer bar needs to be fitted better I had to go check all my Ruger single actions. None of them have the pinch. And I have a single six from 1961 that has the new lockwork, A new model SS, two 32 mags and a 44 SBH and Ruger got it right on all of them.

 

[Dave T]

In years gone by I owned a lot of Ruger "old models". One in particular, a Flat-top 44 Mag, I bought used and it had seen a fair amount of shooting. I owned it for between 10 and 15 years and put a lot of rounds through it (cast bullet reloads of Elmer's specs - 250g SWC over 22g 2400). Nothing ever broke and the fellow deputy I eventually sold it to was still shooting it after he retired.

Oh! And I dry fired that thing all the time. Probably a ratio of 3 dry fires for every live round fired. But according to the lawyers and the safety Nazis that gun wasn't safe. Too bad.

Dave