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Calculating Cylinder Size

Who likes Revolvers?

I like Revolvers.

Lets say that you were playing with the idea of a Revolving
Shotgun. How big would a Five-Shot 20 gauge cylinder have to be?

How about a Six-Shot .500 S&W Magnum? Seven Shots? Eight?

What about a Five-Shot .32 ACP ?

Back before my NRA membership expired–-[Gonna renew it

eventually–but times are mighty tight at the moment...]–and before I
found all these Cool Gun building Sites–I used to send a lot of
questions to NRA’s “Dopebag”. You have to limit yourself to one
question per envelope, and send them a Stamped Self-Addressed
envelope.....

And I used to throw a dozen–or more–questions in the mail at a

time.

Anyway, this is a formula that a very nice Mr Charles R Fagg sent

me:

“A Revolver Cartridge should be slightly longer than the longest

Cartridge expected to be used. Bear in mind that the Standards to
which ammunition is loaded allow considerable variation in Cartridge
length. For example, the .38 Special Cartridge can vary as much as
.150 inch. For Cartridges with heavy recoil, you should also allow for
the bullets to back out of the case a little under recoil. I suggest that
you provide a cylinder .050-.075 inch longer than the largest round to
be used.
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Experiment with the following method of obtaining a cylinder of

minimum Diameter.

#1} Chose a Cartridge.

#2} Establish a chamber diameter. SAAMI determines the

chamber diameter, and this is usually about .002 to .006 inch larger
than the Cartridge diameter

#3} Establish a cylinder wall thickness. It must be great enough

to provide some clearance between adjacent rims and also great
enough to withstand the pressure generated.

Computation of the wall thickness required to withstand the

pressure is complicated. For your purposes it is probably best to plan
to plan on using high quality materials and not use wall thicknesses
less than those used in highly successful existing designs.

#4} Establish the number of chambers to be used.

#5} Establish the center of the cylinder as viewed from the rear.

#6} Establish degrees of arc between each chamber using:

alpha=360/N
Where alpha=angle between chambers
N= number of chambers.

#7} Draw radial lines from center of cylinder with angle alpha as
computed in #6 between each line. Centers of chambers must lie on
these lines. All now needed is to find out how far the chamber centers
are from the point from which all the lines Radiate.

#8} Compute minimum distance from center point to centers of

all chambers by applying this relationship.
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WHERE: Min Radius=(Sin 90)/(Sin alpha/2)*(CD/2+WT/2)

alpha=angle between chambers
WT=chamber wall thickness

For a caliber .38 Special with six chambers and a chamber wall
thickness of .1 inch, the minimum radius to chamber centers would be:

Min Radius=(Sin 90/Sin 30)*(.38/2+1/2)

=(1/5)*(.19+.05)
=.48 inch.”

Note–That’s Radius. Double it to get Diameter.

I got the Dimensions for my “Rastina Ophelia” revolver drawings

from this formula.

Interestingly–I have an old Police Positive Special in .32-20. Don’t

care for Colt’s rickety feeling Double Action trigger pull; but the Gun is
a very handy size–even with 4" barrel.

By that formula, you could make a 5-Shot .40 S&W with a cylinder
slightly skinnier than the Colt PPS. If you made a 6-Shot .40, the
cylinder would only have to be marginally larger than the Colt.

A 6-Shot .38 Super cylinder could be made marginally smaller

than the .38 Special–and have close to .357 performance even in
factory ammo...

But all the ACP/Super Cartridges should have cylinders at least a

good quarter inch shorter than the Colt Police Positive Special–which
should make them marginally more “Packable”.

.....RVM45