Most Dimensionally Correct & Uniform Handgun " I " Ever Bought

Bass Ackward

Active Member
Ahhh, the winter bug bit me, so I went to the local shop. Was looking at one of those GP100s in 44 Special & got tell ya, holding it, well …. it's like being 19 again and winning a dinner / evening with Rachel Welch. It is so sweet in the hand

I was about to pull the trigger and then this guy walks over (Ruger Tech) & asks me what I think. I told him & what I wanted to do with it & he shook his head. He walked me down the display case and pointed at the Blackhawk 45 Colt. (plow handle) I asked to see it & he said not THAT one, get the convertible one beside it, tighter specs. After the usual conversation & haggling, (I dreamt about a Scofield conversion like Doug's), I bought the darn thing. And ….. I said good bye to Rachel (that was really hard to do) & …. I left. A word of advise, avoid looking at those blued, 5" GP100s if you can or it'll cost ya.

OMG, I don't know how this is for alignment / gonna shoot, but it is the most dimensionally correct & UNIFORM factory handgun I have ever bought. (or seen) So close, I didn't trust my measurements. I have slugged it three times now since cleaning & measured 4.505. (It could be .4506) No thread choke thank goodness as my 44 Special did have when I got it. The throats are polished, (that means absent of marks) with NO reamer marks, no marks of ANY kind! And a pound slug in EACH throat has .4515-6. Did you just read over that like it was nothin? Go back and read that again cause it ain't never happened to me !!!

You dream about this as a manufacturing standard, but I NEVER saw this before. The Colt's chambers are the same, polished way to include the ramps for gosh sakes. SAME size throats as the other cylinder. (Exactly) And TIGHT? (coarse it will loosen up after firing) Took me 20 minutes to get the ACP cylinder into position / installed. And I had to use a tapered, round stone on the cylinder base pin hole to allow the base pin to enter cause of a burr. I kept looking at the name on the gun several times over during this entire process. Yes, it says …. Ruger. Only flaw is those plastic grip panels that are too small & don't fit for ____, ( 4 letter cuss word).

Can't shoot it today. And tomorrow's Sunday, but I will just have to pray for forgiveness tonight & invite God to the range if he ain't busy tomorrow. :D If it's anything special, I'll let you know. Gotta go load some jacketed now.
 

Cherokee

Medina, Ohio
Well Bass, I hope it all works out as good as it sounds. I have lots of Ruger's that all shoot better than I can hold, regardless of flaws - but that's me. I really like the convertibles.
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Interesting post right up to the last sentence. :( .4505" throats did you slide one of those jacketed thingies through those throats? Jacketed thingies at .452" might be a tad tight.

My Blackhawk Colt converted to Bisley is also remarkably close on tolerances. Closest I have to my FA's in fact.

Cabin fever is expensive isn't it? Last time it struck you went and cleaned all your bores. :confused:
 
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Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
I read .4505 bore and .4515 throats. Sounds about perfect to me.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Sounds great Bass! Know what you mean about the grips though. I still haven't found a grip for a Ruger BH frame that feels good, much less great. Hope it shoots as good as it should.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
I have had some pachmeyers go right on and then the same ones from a later batch were a no go.
I may have missed a number somewhere on the package.
when they do fit they make the gun feel like something completely different.
the little filler between the handle and the trigger frame takes out the little knuckle crunch and the handle angle takes the recoil roll right out of the picture.
 

Bass Ackward

Active Member
Sounds great Bass! Know what you mean about the grips though. I still haven't found a grip for a Ruger BH frame that feels good, much less great. Hope it shoots as good as it should.

I have 9 1/4" hands. I have had, in my hands, Eagle Gunfighter, wooden grips. They felt good in my right hand BUT …. I'm a lefty, so I will go with the Traditional myself if the gun pans out.

fiver, …. Pachy's? ….. Really? I only have one gun that something rubber EVER went on and that was limited. :D OMG, …. REALLY?
 

Bass Ackward

Active Member
OK, did a trial run and was gonna post a pic until I realized that it (the target) looks pretty bad if you don't understand what it represents.

I shot the first cylinder full of hard ball. Just wiped some of the green off them & sent them down range. :) (WW II vintage stuff needed to go) This gun REALLY hates hardball. Then I cleaned it. I loaded some 230 Hornady round nose, 230 Hornady Flat point, & some 200 grain HPs (my 45 caliber jacketed selection is terrible) Took all of those to load up a box of 50. They were all loaded with 5.5 gr of 231. (too lazy to change the thrower from some earlier testing I wrote about.

I cleaned after 6 shots for 3 cylinders & then fired the rest. Ran the break in procedure to prevent bad barrel harmonics or first shot fliers later on. :) I did this under cover of the porch, standing supported at 33 yds aerating a paper plate. This gun does WELL with jacketed. Had to order some stuff from Graf, so I won't be able to do cast till next weekend.

If ya look at the pic, I can only get 450 fps outta the ACP, BUT ….. I can launch that 375 gr LBT LFN over 1000 fps outta this pistol with 19k psi using the Colt cylinder. Gotta love Quickload !!!17EDBAD4-059F-4707-8950-203096B2F4AF.jpeg
 
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fiver

Well-Known Member
if I don't use them my hands hang off the bottom and either get a pinch in the palm or I curl my little finger under the grip and get a rap on the joint. [the little ruger symbol also tears the callouse off the side of my thumb]
what I really wish they made was some of the over sized Dan Wesson target grips for them.
 

CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
Fiver's experience with the plow-handle Colt or Ruger S/A grips is much like my own. Up to about 45 Colt/1873-level, I can manage all right. Past that, gotta have Pachs. REAL preference is the Ruger Bisley grip, but the Pachs can pacify the 41 Magnum BHs well enough. The Ruger BHs have appeal because they are far less regulated in CA than most other sideirons. That whole "Roll up in the hand under recoil" is a total non-starter for me. THAT is an unnatural act.
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
fiver, …. Pachy's? ….. Really? I only have one gun that something rubber EVER went on and that was limited. :D OMG, …. REALLY?

Oh yes really. I wouldn't consider shooting a Ruger or my FA's in match without them.

I do admit they are ugly as sin but the real issue is . . . Do you want to shoot good or do you want to look good? Pick one.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
My SBH came with Pachmeyr grips and I never had any reason to change them. They work fine for
me. My .45 BH came with Ajax sambar stag grips which are wider than normal and very heavy, and bit
of grippy texture. I like them a lot, mitigate ".45 Magnum" loads very well. A friend liked my .45 BH, even with
very heavy loads, so bought one....did not like the recoil with stock grips and is now looking for something like
my no-longer-available Ajax grips.....which are about worth what I paid for the gun. :headscratch: I put a Bisely frame
on it, and made some walnut grips. The jury is still out on which I like best. The stock grip panels are NOT in
the running, ONLY with the heavy, wide Ajax stag grips is the plow handle workable with heavy loads for me.
Bisley may be slightly less comfortable with heavy loads. I need to shoot them, then swap grip frames and
shoot the same load again, same session to be sure. Wish I could find real sambar stag Ajax grips for the
Ruger Bisley grip frame. Not sure that Ajax was making sambar stag grips when the Bisley frame was in production.
Nowdays they mostly make colors of pearlite plastic grips which I find pretty abhorrent.

Bill
 
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Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
The traditional Colt style grip works okay for me on things like 22's. Not great, but okay. When I still had my SBH 44 it wore Pac's. Never had the Dragoon style trigger guard rap me, but my short fingers didn't care for the Pacs much. My BH45 Convertible came with Pacs. I've swaped out factory grips and went back to the ugly ones. Sometimes I think all the Ruger grip needs is something like a Tyler Adapter, but I've never seen anything like that. I don't think the perfect grip exists for that style frame for me personally.

On a tangent- I used to be pretty fair at fast draw combat shooting. I don't know how anyone finds the SA style grip fast to grab. It always wants to go sideways for me. But maybe if I'd put in the hours training like I did with a Smith...
 

Cherokee

Medina, Ohio
I started shooting in 1955 with Ruger SA's, so I did not know any different (except for 1911's) for several years. I got good with the 22's and 357's. Then I tried an early 44 Mag...big difference. I used the Pac's for a while later but they were too large for my small hands and I went back to factory grips. When I got into SASS 20 years ago, I tried the gunfighter grips and liked them. Along the years I acquired Colt and Smith DA's and always had to change out the grips for comfort. Never liked the SBH, switched them to XR-Red grips. To me, the best factory grips for shooting were the Redhawk grips. A tyler grip adaptor would be nice for the SA's, wonder why no one ever made one ? Just some random thoughts from my past...