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Range Report: Ruger Redhawk (.45 Colt/ACP)

Gun/Ammo Tests, The Gun Thing

Through ways too complicated to explain here, I came upon this beast:

…so I took said beast off to the range a couple days back because of course I would.

This Ruger Redhawk is chambered, as in the title, to shoot the manly .45 Colt/Long Colt cartridge, and .45 ACP with the use of moon clips.

Here it is, with the S&W K-frame Mod 65 .357 Mag and minuscule J-frame Mod 637 .38 Spec, by comparison:

The Redhawk, as they say, is a handful — almost more than a handful even in my paw.

“So how does it shoot, Kim?”

Well, it has the typical Ruger trigger:  very stiff (but smooooth) double action (maybe 15lbs), and a slightly gritty single-action pull of about 3-4lbs, best as I can guess.  I see LOTS of dry-firing ahead, or maybe a trigger job is in its future.

As for recoil:  .45 Colt 250gr ammo beats the shit out of my creaking wrists, and the lighter 200gr only a tad less.  Were I to press it into bedside duty (to replace the Mod 65), I’d load it with the 200gr boolets.  However:  using my standard Norma 175gr .45 ACP rounds (what I load in my 1911) in the moon clips, it is an absolute joy to shoot, for so big a revolver.

Accuracy is about what I can shoot, i.e. not bad for a first time:  2″ groups at 30 feet, with the occasional flyer.  (I’ve shot the equivalent S&W Mod 625, but over twenty years ago and I can’t remember it well enough to make a comparison.)  Also, that 4″ barrel does have its limitations;  a 6″ barrel would be better, but man that would make it even bigger and heavier.

Which brings me back to the Redhawk’s size.  It is seriously big, and almost too big for me;  but that weight does help soak up recoil, oh yes it does.

Ordinarily, I’d be a little torn about keeping a gun that (for me) is a little marginal, what with its size, recoil and stiff trigger.  Any one of those is usually cause for a swap meet;  all three?  Hmmmm.

And yet:  there is something about holding in your hand a gun that is indestructible, and that will handle anything you can load into it with consummate ease and reliability.  Because if ever I venture into wild country with big bad toothy animules that want to eat me or worse, I would load up some Buffalo Bore monster +P 300gr loads, and feel very adequately well-armed, with a gun that just will not break under the stress thereof.

That is a Ruger Redhawk, and that is why I’m going to keep it.

A quick word about the new range.  Since I moved away from Plano, my old stamping ground at the Mission Creek range proved to be just too far for a weekly trip.

However:  allow me to introduce y’ll to Texas Legends in Allen TX.  Lovely new range, it is, staffed by silver-haired old farts who are pleasant and only too willing to sit and chew the fat awhile.  And they’re not fussy about what guns and what ammo you shoot (CCI Blazer and its ilk is verboten  only because the aluminum casings are non-magnetic and difficult to pick up.)  No 100-yard range, but a 3-bay 50-yard rifle-only range is just fine for my needs.

And if you get there between 10am and 1pm during the week, there’s a 50% Old Fart discount.  I spent less than $15 with a target.  This is going to cost me a ton from now on, not in range fees but in ammo.

Starting tomorrow.

Hey, it’s a shitty life, but someone has to live it.

A Big Middle Finger To The Dept. Of Energy

Bureaucracy, Gummint

Via the Goddess Diogenes herself:

We here at the Department of Energy wanted to thank you for being conscientious about your energy usage this summer. Your efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. As a token of our gratitude, we wanted to highlight all the small but powerful steps you’ve taken to conserve energy over the past few months—and…

…then it falls headlong off the High Cliffs of Sarcasm immediately.  Read it all, but first I’m going to issue a standard Swallow Coffee Before Reading Alert.

(I meant to post this over a week ago, saving the link, but it fell through the cracks as these things do.  Fear not, for despite my stupidity, her post is as timely as its original publication date.  Enjoy.)

Not Just Chrysler, Not Just Manhattan

Architecture

I wailed about the difficulties facing the people trying to fix up / sell New York City’s Chrysler Building, and saw the possibility of the disappearance of that wonderful structure.

Well, it’s not just Manhattan.  Heeeere’s London:

A number of major London office blocks costing more than £300million each have recently been put up for sale at the same time.

The four buildings have hit the market at a time where deals have been extremely rare due to rising interest rates and continuous uncertainty about working from home.

All the same issues facing the Chrysler.

Unlike the Chrysler, however, the four London skyscrapers are anything but wonderful:

The first three are of the Le Corbusier-Gropius-Modernist ilk — and frankly would be no great loss to any skyline, let alone London’s — while the last, the aptly-nicknamed Can of Ham, is an architectural carbuncle of the direst kind, but at least it has something of a sense of fun about it.

And while I and many others would dearly miss the Chrysler Building, these British edifices would not only not be missed, but applauded in their implosion.

So mote it be.

What Would You Do?

Funny Stuff

As a rule, I tend to avoid silly pop quizzes like the one below, because no matter how I answer the question(s), I always seem to end up proving that I’m actually a libertarian.

This one, however, is different.

Imagine you are driving home on a deserted road in a sports car in the middle of a stormy night. On your way home, you pause at a bus stop and notice four people desperately in need of transportation.

The next bus isn’t scheduled until the morning and you can only fit three of them in your car. You cannot bend the rules to allow you to fit all four in the car with you driving. For example, the child cannot sit on someone’s knee.

The test reads: You stop your car and meet the four people:

  • A pregnant woman who started to have excruciating pain and looks like she’s on the verge of giving birth. She’s pleading to be sent to any hospital or at least be helped while going into labor.
  • A young child crying and screaming because he/she wandered away from his/her parents and home. The child doesn’t know where his/her address is but knows the full name of his/her parents. He/she just wants to go back home.
  • A surgeon doctor with his briefcase that contains his medical tools. He needs to go to his hospital as soon as possible in order to perform a very critical surgery.
  • Someone who just wants to go home, but it happens that you already have known and met this person before. To you, that person is a very dear and close friend/love of your life/desired future spouse. It’s been a very long time since you have both seen each other. You’ve always wanted to meet this person again to reconnect and rebuild your relationship with him/her, and you can’t find a better opportunity to do that, because if you don’t take it, chances are that you may not have that opportunity again.”

Adding to the complications, you do not have a mobile phone so you cannot call anybody else for help, and there are no houses nearby to ask to use their landline. There’s no one else on the road to help them but you. The bus stop is located away from any public facilities (hospitals, police stations) and houses, so no one can take it for a walk, especially in this kind of time and weather.

What do you do in that kind of situation? How will you give your help and prioritize it for those people? Which one will you choose to be the first person to be helped? You have to think very quickly to come up with a solution for this predicament.

So, Readers: what say you?  Give your answers in Comments.  My response will be posted tomorrow.

Quote Of The Day

Men & Women, QOTD

From SOTI, under the heading of “Things your mother never told you”:

“You can’t have it all without expecting to DO it all.  And if you aren’t able or willing to do it all, you’re going to fail, either at one of the things, or at all of the things.”

I think that “you can have it all” is one of the biggest lies ever perpetrated on women by the so-called Women’s Liberation movement.

Unrealistic

Men & Women

From the Daily Mail:

Hannah Waddingham wants a man to scoop her up, take her to bed and afterwards eat Marmite on toast with her.

The multi-talented Ted Lasso star said she can’t remember when she last had a first date but admits to being ‘just a bit picky’.

‘I’m 50 and I’m like, ‘Dude, if you are not going to step up, step off and be gone’.

Okay, if I may be a bit picky myself…

The redoubtable Hannah has a few things going in her favor, and quite a few not.  For starters, she’s tolerably good-looking for an old broad in her 50s.

But, and I hesitate even to say this, unless she’s going to date bodybuilders, her Amazonian frame ain’t going to be “scooped up” anytime soon.  Okay, cheap shot;  it was a metaphor.  But even then, she has to be aware that she’s an actress, with all the fuckwittery and moonbattyness attached thereto;  most eligible men of around her age are quite aware of this, and will try to avoid it wherever possible.  (Younger men, of course, would just go for the tits and celebrity she brings to the party, but they’re unlikely to be satisfactory outside the bed and red carpet.  Unless that’s all she wants.)

Lastly, Marmite is a dreadful substance.  It is regarded as a delicacy by some Brits, but it has also come to define something that you either love or hate.  One hopes that she’s not insistent on the post-coital Marmite thing, because that too would cut out a considerable number of men from the dating pool.

Were I available for said Hannah-bonkery duty, I’d run a mile — and I’m probably not the only one.