Category: The Gun Thing

Not just the guns, but all the stuff that goes with them

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.

Worth Knowing

SHTF, The Gun Thing

From Friend & Longtime Reader JCinPA:

I’ve been handicapping the probability of widespread violence around the election—I mean as in nationwide—for a couple of years and now I believe any sentient person knows it is now virtually 100%. The only question remaining is which side wins the election, that will determine which side kicks off the festivities, but we will have festivities.

For any of your readers who are not firearms enthusiasts (there must be 1 or 2?), you may want to put this out as a public service announcement. Good condition S&W police surplus revolvers. Add $50-75 for s&h and processing, but in the unlikely event someone has no weapon and is now regretting that fact, these are the ticket for the non-shooter.

Along with four to five 5-gal water bottles and some 4patriot food packs, it’s time to get prepared.

All good advice and two good links.  Thankee, my friend.

I actually added some supplies to the SHTF cupboard a day or two ago, for no apparent reason.  Hadn’t done it for a while, but something must have been tickling my antenna.  And I don’t think I’m the only one…

Here We Go Again

Anti-Gun Nannies, The Gun Thing

Never one to shrink from pouring water into a sinking ship, Willie Brown’s ex-mistress is supporting an action that everybody knows doesn’t work, is un-Constitutional, and can’t be enforced:

Banning AR-15s, AK-47s, and other firearms that Democrats describe as “assault weapons” has been part of Harris’s gun control agenda since she vied for the Democrat presidential nomination in 2019. Moreover, Harris made clear during the 2019 nominating cycle that she would enact such a ban via executive action if elected.

Well, far be it for me to oppose such silliness, but here’s a little FYI for anyone who may not yet own any such terrible weapons (links are in the pics):

 

No need to thank me;  it’s all part of the service.  (And those prices are quite tasty, if I may say so.)

Oh, and I almost forgot the important part:

Guns are no good without a sufficient quantity of boolets, after all.

Ron Asks The Question

The Gun Thing, Wildlife and Hunting

“If you could only have three rifles to address all your hunting needs, what would they be?” — Ron Spomer

Of course, it depends where you live OR what terrain you would be hunting in, and what animals you’d be after.  Those three factors (before we even begin to talk about your hunting abilities) are probably the biggest drivers.  I mean, your needs in eastern Wyoming are going to be vastly different from eastern Kentucky, right?

And just in those two areas, what you hunt is going to be… diverse:

But enough equivocating.  Let’s make it really difficult, and say that you have friends all over the place so at any time you’re likely to get an invitation to join them on a hunt where they live.  (But if that makes it too difficult, go ahead and pick three rifles for hunting where you live.)

So you need three truly all-round rifles in your safe, (say) because that’s all you can afford.

Now pick ’em.  (My choices are below the fold, but pick yours first.)

Read more

Gratuitous Gun Pic: Mauser HSc (.32 ACP/7.65mm Browning)

Gratuitous Gun Pics

The HSc was Mauser’s answer to Walther’s PP model in the same chambering, and it’s a pretty little thing, made very much in the Art Deco style of the time:

Like many of the .32 ACP guns, I’ve actually owned one of these, and while it’s a joy to shoot — far nicer than the PP, by the way, which can cut your hand up — it’s not really a “pocket” pistol like its many competitors, in that it’s surprisingly heavy despite its diminutive size.  (Carried in a pants pocket, it’ll make your trousers sag alarmingly — ask me how I know this — which is not true of the others.)

I’ve spoken before of my fondness for the .32 ACP cartridge, and it should be known that I’ve owned a large number of guns thus chambered, and fired almost all of them.

I once owned a Mauser HSc, and I very much regret selling it (but not the Walther), because it was a peach to shoot:  accurate, smooth and in my hands, absolutely reliable without a single stoppage (despite that semi-rimmed design, which can cause feeding problems, I never experienced any with the HSc).  Other people think so too, as whenever one appears at Collectors Firearms, for example, it seldom lasts long before being gobbled up.

The biggest problem with owning the HSc (like many of its cousins) is that the magazines are made of unobtanium, and if you can find one, it’s going to put a big hole in your wallet.  Upon reflection, however, I don’t happen to think that it’s a problem because a .32 ACP pistol isn’t going to be your primary carry piece anyway.

But every time you take it to the range, you’ll remember why you enjoy shooting it so much.  And that is not something you can say about many guns.

Amen To That

Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

SOTI, Chris Cypert talks approvingly about revolvers as self-defense weapons:

I set out to learn all I could about revolvers, their strengths and weaknesses, and how to use them effectively for self-defense. Did I learn that revolvers are obsolete relics of the previous century? That’s what I expected, but instead I learned that revolvers are still more than sufficient for self-defense and can even be the optimal tool in certain contexts. Let’s examine the strengths of revolvers for armed citizens and self-defense.

And then he goes on to list all of them.

As most Readers know, I keep a S&W Mod 65 next to the bed — my “bedside” gun — because in any kind of bad situation, a revolver is like a fork:  you pick it up, and it works.

No scrabbling for a safety, no racking of a slide, none of that.  You get it in your hand and pull the trigger… bang!  and it’s all over.  (Okay, bang! bang! bang!  etc. as the need arises.)

It’s that instinctive action that makes me do the above.  Gawd knows that I have practiced for countless hours with my 1911, and its operation is by now about as automatic and instinctive as I could possibly get it.  And it’s the reason I keep it under the revolver… as a backup, because I do believe that by the time I’ve emptied the Model 65’s cylinder, I’ll be awake enough to grab and operate my 1911 (which is always kept cocked and locked anyway), should I need more than six shots.

This is my way, and if yours is different, that’s fine — whatever works for you, works for you.

But just as Cypert learned about the excellence of the revolver as a self-defense piece, maybe my argument will help you, and perhaps at a time of the direst emergency.

Think about it.