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Who had that 9mm / .357 revolver

Ruger single actions with 2 cylinders come in 22lr/22 wmr, 45 Colt/45 acp, 357 mag/9mm, 10mm/40 s&w. think they even made on in 44 mag/44-40. would love to see one in 327 Federal Mag/ 32-20.

I will tell you something I learned from bitter experience.

The "convertible" cylinder, like the 9mm will be numbered to the gun with the last 3 digits of the serial number. The numbers are put on by hand with what looks like one of those vibrating electric engraving tools.

If you send the gun back to have a convertible cylinder fitted (a factory only job, Ruger does not sell the cylinders, although there are after market conversions) the numbers will be added.

How, you may ask, did I acquire this piece of arcane information?

I purchased a 9mm cylinder for my .357 Blackhawk. it would only fire if I held the gun vertically. When I took out the two cylinders, and compared them, the ring on the front of the 9mm cylinder was a fraction of an inch shorter, so the whole cylinder moved forward in the normal firing position.

It turns out that in guns with long production runs, there is variation in the width of the cylinder recess, and that's why the cylinders are hand fitted at the factory. I dug deep into the Ruger material, and they state that even cylinders of the same caliber are not guaranteed to be interchangeable between guns. Some may fit and some may not. If the cylinder is too short as mine was, there nothing you can do.

I could have sold the gun and cylinders as a convertible set, and claimed I wasn't aware of the problem, but I sold the cylinder with the above disclaimer, and still have the gun.

The moral is that you need to either see the number on the cylinder or shoot the gun if you are contemplating buying a convertible model. I have looked at convertible models where the cylinder is not marked, and in true ODT style the seller claims to "not know much about it", "that's the way it came from the factory." i congratulate him on his fine gun and move on, learned not to try to educate people who don't want to learn.
 
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