 It was not known at the time why this was happening; the Redhawk had been on the market for years with no reported problems, but Ruger decided to address the issue by extending the frame 2.5 inches past the cylinder face, all the way to the end of the ejector rod, to provide a massive surface into which to thread the barrel.The extended frame also provided enough length to allow scope bases to be mounted on the frame, rather than on the barrel as was done on the scoped versions of the Redhawk.It was determined that the barrel separations on the Redhawks were due to a change in the lubricant used when attaching the barrels to the frames, but by that time the new Super Redhawk design was already well underway and the extended frame was kept.