Tabby, several different gunsmiths can make a Ruger action purr. It tunes up as well as anything out there.

You can shoot a Colt Python loose in as few as 300 rounds of hot (but within SAAMI pressure) loads. It is a weak lock up from an engineering point of view.

The Colt Python action is older that the S&W, and Colt had a reputation for weak double actions before that (remember the Lighting?). S&W mastered the double action revolver long before Colt. Ruger Single Actions are in an entirely different engineering universe from Colts. Ruger does not have 19th century engineering (check out their new .38 +P snubby).

And the 1911, Browning HP, P-38 and PP/PPK actions were all designed for semiauto use. So that is not really comparing apples to apples here, is it?

Nah...I've got to go shoot the thing first. I was kidding.

There are so many mil and ex-mil folks here that all you've got to do is beat the drum a little bit, offer a nice little range, put beer in the post shoot rotation and you can find almost any gun to try.

I shot a black powder pistol during the winter. Go figure.

rule of thumbo..........if yer gonna reload and reload HOT...............buy a ruger wheel gun hands down, thicker backstraps.

if yer just gonna plink a dink and shoot box ammo..............buy the smith.

now after doing tool paths and xyz coordinates and tooling for gazzillions of ruger cast frames in my past life...........i can tell you this. ruger makes a damn fine firearm that has more QC involved than many other mfgs. do in place.

yes some of their semi-autos look kind of clunky, but their rifles/shotguns/revolvers/and the entire .22 and its kin the .17 are all very fine quality built weapons. all my experiences with them on a biz basis or on me being the customer have always bean numero uno.(#1).

each and every mfg. has its stars and its duds.

i have seen in my hands(the pieces) of both a ruger and a smith blown apart from reloading hot. the ruger was blown apart by a double powder charge. the cylinder was not even a cylinder anymore. there was a resemblance of a very bent backstrap that did do its job. on the smith the backstrap was broken in two as was the cylinder in itty bitty pieces.

ya gots to be smart when reloading.

as evidenced by my suggestion earlier to view youtube at some of these clowns planting stainless and blue steel in their foreheads. it aint a joke. and if ya think loading hot is gonna solve the bear problem it isnt! that first shot may be all ya get and i want it to go where i aim at, regardless of what position my body or arm is in when i light it off. your second shot may need to be just as accurate if not more accurate if da bear hasnt dropped.

these big guns are fine and dandy at the range when your in a solid stance. but just picture your most vulnerable moment out in the woods. taking a crap,cooking,sleeping on cot,sleeping in zipped up fart bag, sleeping in trailer/camper/half lit from a fun night of a 1000 beers and trapper dan stories..........and all of a sudden the SHTF and you gotta shoot now and shoot with a damn good resemblance OF CONTROL! or risk being bear poo down the trail...............

have heard TOO MANY ALASKAN BEAR STORIES from alaskans at this aeropuerto who roost here during the winter. a couple funny...............but most very very tragic endings.

garrettcartridges does some very nice anti brown bear loads that dispel the myth that .44 mags are worthless against brown bears and ya need to file the front sight off so it doesnt hurt when the bear shoves the .44 up yer KEESTER!

me ........i like the ruger alaskan. i like .460 and .480's after that well your asking for problems. rugers are inexpensive in the big picture comparison and they do the job when called upon to the letter. scottsdale gun club here pulled their smith and wesson rental .500 off the line because it was the big draw for renting. too many injuries and after a "UNKNOWN" amount of rounds was "having some problems" that their gunsmiths had to look at. hmmmmmmmmmmmm??????

think about these damn big calibers for a minute.............how many rounds are you ever going to shoot thru them? in your life??

and practicing with them is kind of a masochistic way of going about things. IMHO!

Tabs: Nostatic actually wants to shoot his guns, not just stare at them.

Rugers are perfectly serviceable out of the box for close range defense work, and are also quite 'tunable'.

It seems most like to use mid weight JHP's, like in the 125-158 grain range. While I disagree with that choice, I cannot argue with their results. I always had either a Ruger Blackhawk or a Peacemaker in .45 Colt, with 260-ish grain hard cast Keith style semi wadcutters. No one could tell on whit of difference - us or the cats. I always felt my choice would be better if someone screwed up and one came for us, but that never happened. They would have had to have made it through about half a dozen hounds anyway.

Definitely a young man's sport, especially in our Cascades. At 48, there is no way in hell I could keep up for a day, much less several in a row. Good thing they outlawed the hounds damn near 20 years ago.:rolleyes:

Tabby, some of the finest single actions I have had the pleasure to handle are three screw Rugers. The transfer bar guns won't slick up as nice, and the "free conversion" guns are worse yet, but a well set-up flat top is damn near orgasmic... I could play with one all day...

And the Python is probably the best damn .38 Special ever made. Start feeding them stiff loads of 2400 under heavy bullets, though, and they quickly cry "uncle". My Python toting big brother finally learned, after sending his back to Colt twice, that he couldn't shoot my heavy hand loads in it. I had a Blackhawk, and a Peacemaker, and currently have a Virginian Dragoon (of early '80's American manufacture, not the Hammerli) that all digested thousands of them with nary a whimper.

So you are sayin ya cain't shoot a Python or a S&W Mdl 27...

I have always said buy the best quality you can afford...it pays off in the long run...oh and stay with the best brand names you can afford.

It really is a joke all the nitpicks..ohh the Python will shoot loose, the Smith is that and the Ruger is this...yep they all is junk just go buy a slingshot...oh but the rubber band might break.

When ever are ANYof you going to be REALLY using that gun..it is nice to pretend on the range...
Ohhhh yeah some of you actually hunt..I forgot..Well I like the 505 Gibbs for Bunny Blasting...never even see the critter again...

My choice is the Python, Mdl 27 and then the 686...

Oh yeah Colt modified that 1890's weak lock work in 1908.

The beginings of the 357 was in the early 1930's Gangster era, the police needed a heavier duty revolver to penetrate car bodies. So Smith chambered their 44 frame in 38 so you could hot load them..they called that revolver the 38/44 Heavy Duty and 38/44 Outdoorsman. Then in 1935 the 357 Mag came along and Smith introduced a custom pistol called the 357 Magnum. You could order it anyway ya liked, Smiths thinking was that during the Depression a $75 revolver would limit the number of orders. However they was wrong and 5500 Registered Mags were made before they discontinued the process of registering them with the factory. Aout 1500 pre wars were built after the registration process was dropped.

After the war Smith picked up production once again of the 357 Magnum which eventually became the mdl 27 in about 1959.

Colt during the 1930's to keep up with Smith built a few Shooting Masters Revlovers in 357 and New Services on their big frame. This frame was discontinued at the begining of WW2. It wasn't until 1954 that Colt once again built a 357 magnum revolver and they called it the 357 Magnum the companion guns in 38 and 22LR were called Troopers, which was built on the old 41 caliber frame. However the 357 Mag was short lived with about 15,000 being produced because in 1955 Colt introduced the Python.

The Python sported a vent ribbed barrel and barrel lug to give additional weight to the pistol. Colt basically took the idea of the vent rib from the KIng Sights Company (not in Glendale) that beofre WW2 would customize your revolver (Colt King Super Conversion) with a vent rib which incorporated the front and rear sights, Cockeyed (offset) hammer, fine tuning the actions and putting on a pair of target grips. King built guns for both Smith and Colt (including autos and SA's). Finding a King gun today on a Smith is difficult to do, Colts are much more predominate. The 38 spls usually Colt Officers Models are the easiest, with the 32 S&W and 22LRs being just about impossible to find. I only know of 2 in 32 and one with only King Sights. I know of 3 or 4 in 22LR and one on a 22LR Offical Police frame.

Jeff, what's a good SA .45LC that won't break the bank? Doesn't have to necessarily handle the hot rounds that you're used to, just a good, well made "first SA pistol".

Yeah i would have thought 180 grainers for the .357. The 125s are great against people, but they seem really light for any kind of dangerous game.

Your selection makes plenty of sense to me. With those hard casts you could probably put a round clean through a cougar from stem to stern. :D

Dang tabs...should I get a teaspoon or a table spoon, and could I get a history lesson on each :)? Just pickin'...I like to read all of you guys' opinions.

Freedom Arms SA's are the snot...

Any Ruger, hands down. The Blackhawk is their adjustable sight single action. It is built on the same frame as the Super Blackhawk .44 magnum, and will handle substantially more powerful loads than the Colts or their clones. The other choice from Ruger is the Vaquero, which is their fixed sight single action. It is built along the lines of the traditional Colt pattern, and resembles it very closely. In the last two or three years, Ruger has been building it on a "Colt-sized" frame, just a bit smaller than the Blackhawk, so it is not suited to the heavy "Ruger" loads. No big deal. Standard velocity .45 Colt is really all anyone should ever need. I rarely shoot the heavy 300 grain loads anymore, and have even hunted with the standard 250-270 grain, 900 fps loads.

You can pick up used Blackhawks and Vaqueros all day long for anywhere from the high 200 dollar range, up to somewhere in the 400 dollar range. The last two new ones I bought (both in the last six to eight months) ran me around $450 for one (stainless 4 5/8" Blackhawk in .45 Colt) and about $510 for the other (blued/ case hardened 4 5/8" Vaquero, also in .45 Colt). Pretty tought to beat that.

If money is no object, tabby is right on about the Freedom Arms. There has simply never been a finer single action made by anyone, anywhere, at any time. Fantastic revolvers, but they will set you back a good two grand. Or more.

I'm kinda partial to the N-frame S&W. Handles hot magnum loads, very comfortable in large-ish hands, and plenty accurate. Mine is a somewhat ugly-duckling variant (627PC) but the truly classic blued 27's are also still out there. Someday I'll pick up one of those or maybe a 686. This is the only wheelgun I've got thus far, so take the advice for what you paid for it....

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1237872296.jpg

I like revolvers. They are so old-school. The reloading is slow, though. S&W has made a few revolvers in 9mm, with full moon clips I imagine you could reload pretty darned fast. (Speedloaders seem rather bulky.) My dream carry revolver is a scandium-frame, titanium-cylinder, 5 shot 9mm snubnose with concealed hammer - basically a fancy S&W 942.

Don't tell that to this guy (wait til 0:25):

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I expect he's about one of the most dangerous men on earth inside about 75 meters.

Could you imagine the punk that tries to mug him at the ATM? Dude would fill him full of lead and be walking back to his car counting his cash before the bad guy hit the ground. Insane.

seeing first hand front and center that kind of phenomenal shooting sunday your brain just cant register how fast that really is until the timer shows the actual times. and your brain figures out by the sound and the visual holes in the target..........this aint hollywood!

i would like to have that guy go camping with me on the san carlos/white mtn rez or in mongollon new messiko..............i'd sleep much better at night!

da bears wouldnt know what hit them! boom boom out go da lights!

One thing I've never understood is why the barrels on all revolvers are positioned at the top of the cylinder. Seems if it was positioned at the bottom of the cylinder, you would have a much lower bore axis-to-hand position and thus more controllable recoil. You'd need an extended topstrap to carry the sights, but that could hold an internal laser or tactical light as well.

Alternatively, the cylinder need not be positioned above the hand. If it were positioned in front of the hand, you'd have a low bore axis. Lightweight materials (polymer, titanium, or light alloy) would help with the nose-heavy balance.

The other thing I'd like to see is the return of the top break revolver with automatic ejection. Press a thumb catch, in the blink of an eye the revolver frame springs open and the ejector throws out the shells then retracts. Slap in six rounds in a full-moon clip, the rounds sliding easily into the chamfered cylinder, snap the frame closed, and you'd be reloaded in a flash. Without having to be Jerry Michulek.

In deference to m21sniper, who thinks that all revolvers are unsafe without manual safeties, you could have a thumb safety and even a grip safety like the S&W model 40/42.

It would also be interesting to see a single-action revolver where the hammer is automatically cocked and the cylinder rotated by closing the frame, and thereafter by a gas system. This would allow a short single-action trigger pull.

Revolver design appears to have frozen 40 years ago.

All of these ideas have been tried many times. The shooting public is pretty conservative and does not like radical change.

Revolvers have been built as:
rocket powered cartridges
semi auto,
self cocking,
up to 21 chambers
dual interlocking cylinders
low barrel
dual barrel
quick reload with snap in cylinders
etc.

The best combat revolver was the Webbley .455, durable, quick reload, heavy bullet and combat proven all over the world.

No I am saying you can't shoot a collector grade gun enough to master it, without destroying the value of it.



Yes, they did. Now the springs won't break, but it still will shoot loose faster several by several orders of magnitude than the S&W with heavy magnum loads.

Don't confuse shooters with collectors. SmileWavy