From the old Sixgunner.Com Files ....

by JimT, Texas, Wednesday, February 08, 2023, 06:07 (654 days ago)

The Taylor Throat
A System For Accurizing Revolver Barrel Throats

Back in the '80's I burned the barrel throat in one of my revolvers to the point that it was starting to cut the cylinder face and the top strap. I asked my Dad what he thought we could do about it. After studying it he decided on a radical approach. We screwed the barrel out of the gun, set it back 2 threads to clean it up, and re-cut the forcing cone. In addition Dad reamed a special throat into the barrel which consisted of an 11 degree forcing cone and a freebored section approximately 1 caliber long.

We hoped the freebored barrel would help stop forcing cone erosion. Whether it does or not I have never determined.(NOTE ADDED:20-some years later I am still shooting this gun with erosion problems.) What we did find was that accuracy increased a lot. I fired 25 5-shot groups at 25 yards with 3 different bullet diameters. Where the gun originally was particular to the bullet diameter, now it shot well with any of these sizes:

.450" diameter averaged 2.3"
.452" diameter averaged 1.8"
.454" diameter averaged 1.99"

The velocity increased also. Statistical analysis confirmed this to be due to the throating.

Sometime after this two friends, Ed Wosika of Hanned Precision and Bud McDonald took this idea and began playing with it. They experimented on several guns and confirmed what we had found. They had reamers made up to cut the throating in several different calibers. When they had finished most of the tests they took the results to Wesson Arms. Wesson Arms began testing, again confirming what we had "discovered". (I am sure someone, someplace, had already done something similar.) They contacted Dad and asked his permission to use it in their firearms. Dad had been befriended by Major Doug Wesson in WWII and thought, "What a neat way to repay an old favor!" He gave Wesson Arms his permission to use the throating system. In return they named it "The Taylor Throat". Today Wesson Arms offers it in their revolvers.

In addition, during the 1993 NRA Show, Wesson Arms presented Dad with a custom-built .445 SuperMag. The gun is made of stainless steel, coated with titanium, and the serial number is "A.Taylor 93", and both barrels are Taylor Throated.

This is one fine-shooting handgun. I have fired groups under 1" center-to-center for 5 shots at 25 yards from the bench with it. What a treasure.

You can read what an award-winning top Pistolsmith thinks of the Taylor Throat at Alpha Precision in the "Revolver Accuracy" section.

Results In My Guns
(your guns may be different)

NOTE ADDED: I am not sure who is doing this throating any more other than Gary Reeder. He improved it by making the throat longer for those who shoot heavier-for-caliber bullets.