Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns totally useless pistol

was in cabella's today in their gun room.
ruger alaskan two inch in .454casul
revolver is about as blocky as anything you can imagine.
To me, totally useless.
maybe a boat anchor.

Agreed! Ruger has a new Talo Edition .44 mag with a 2" bbl and custom round butt grips that would be much more user friendly. Especially loaded with .44 specials. JMHO, though.

Sweet! And when I read the header I thought you were talking about the AMT Automag II..
You'd be 'blocky' too if you hadda corral that kind of power..
To others, plenty handy if yer hikin' through griz country, perhaps.. Pretty spendy anchor - those revolvers are fetching big bux..

I've run some .45LC rounds through mine (loaded to Ruger-capability specs) and they're manageable.. But put a full-bore .454C in that baby and you BEST be hangin' on with both hands or your going to have to have that front sight blade surgically removed from your forehead.. I think I could have lit a Weber at 20 paces..

Only revolver I've ever fired that actually HURT... And I was wearing padded shooting gloves.. Yow..

a sequel to a totally useless pistol thought:
a interarms walther ppk/s. Made by interarms.
Family member inherited one, it broke, brought it over to me.
seems the ejectors are mim parts, and subject to breaking where the originals were forged parts. You replace the ejector with a new one, and expect it sooner or later to break.

Second issue is a real german walther is easy to dissemble as everything is machined properly. The interarms is as rough as a cob.

I was going to fix it, then decided it wasn't worth the effort.
If the owner wants to fix it, good luck.

If a guy likes the SRH in general, which I don't, the Alaskan makes a better donor for some conversions because it doesn't have the god-awful scallops for mounting a scope.

Agreed. Bowen's "GP44" conversion comes to mind. Sure he would do the same with the 45/454 chambered gun too. Definitely one that has always had my curiosity.

The Interarms PPK/S revolver pre-date MIM manufacturing in firearms which didn't start until the early '90's, right about the time Interarms stopped making the PPK/s.

should not have used the word milled, investment cast would be better. Part of a thread on these pile of poop from another forum:
The ejector on the PPK/s looks like a forged milled part, but it is in fact a investment casting. The ejector of the original guns was, of course, forged and milled. In the PPK/s, it looks like they knew about that problem and tried to make up for it by putting a shoulder in the frame to take the strain (the German guns don't have it). But the ejector would have to be carefully fitted to take advantage of that and they aren't. Another reason my PPK/s will remain in the "nice to look at" collection. If I want to carry a Walther, it will be a pre-war .32; they never fail.

Jim

Ron...I think this guy would argue with your assessment of the SRH .454....

http://www.fieldandstream.com/photo.../charging-grizzly-killed-alaska/?image=6

From the story:

"The bear was moaning, his huge head still moving, as Brush aimed the Ruger to fire a finishing shot. �By then my gun had jammed,� Greg says. �I frantically called my wife on my cell phone and told her to bring a rifle. When she arrived I finished the bear.�


How does one jam a Ruger Super Redhawk revolver? Not a rhetorical question, I'd like to know what happened that prevented him from either reloading or cocking it and firing the last round. I can guess, maybe a bullet backed out from recoil and locked the cylinder, but it's just a guess. I'd really like to know the details of that jam.

Easy - an improperly seated (read: 'high') primer on a case two rounds to the left of the one just fired... A high primer can jam up against the frame near the lower-left bevel and stop rotation..

I've run into that before on a few revolvers.. If someone's going to use a revolver in any potential dangerous game situation it's wise to ensure all the ammo on tap is going to function properly..

I want one of the backpacker 480 Ruger guns. But can't see shooting a 454 Casull with that short barrel.

You are probably correct on the cause of the jam. Insufficient neck tension/crimp is all it takes with that kind of recoil/uber heavy bullets.

Best I can remember is that, the round was a reload. Recoil such as a 454 causes bullet pull often enough. Second one I'm familiar with, just shooting a bear off of them.

When I use my 454 Alaskan I mostly shoot Buffalo Bore 325 grain HC LBT-LFN bullets. Plenty powerful, deeply penetrating and quicker second shot capability. FWIW

RoninPhx: I have a friend in Maple Valley, Washington that recently bought a perfectly good Ruger Alaskan in 454 Casull caliber and promptly contracted to have a gunsmith cut the barrel down to 3" total length and re-attach the sight!!!
Apparently some of the folks who make 454's put out some 2" or 3" models but they are/were so popular he could not lay hands on one after a couple years of trying!
He fishes in Alaska on streams and rivers fairly often and that pistol and barrel length is what he wanted.
Useless... - if you have an Alaskan Bear rustling in the dense bushes right in front of you (this has happened to me!) then a short barreled canon that is quick to come into action would be a VERY welcome and a VERY useful tool!
Down Arizona way the Bears are probably not as numerous and not so often in close proximity and in such dense cover as those encountered by folks who enjoy the amazing fishing in Alaska and a few other places.
I personally preferred the Winchester SS Mariner sawed off 12 gauge shotgun for Bear protection - but they are a bit slower and more cumbersome (in the way whilst fishin!).
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Yep, chambered for a super-powered .45 Colt, and likely doesn't achieve much more than standard .45 Colt velocity due to a short barrel. The owner would likely do just as well with a much lighter, and more compact, 4.5" barrel Ruger Blackhawk chambered in .45 Colt, loaded up with Buffalo Bore.

Crimp pull. I've interviewed Greg and this is what apparently happened.

I like the Alaskans. I have one in .480 and it is surprisingly accurate and easy to pack. It's a serious backup piece, and in this role I think it is pretty good.

i've used the Ruger Alaskan for 6 years now, and really like it--the rig is a great piece of equipment. (in fact, when i saw a Super Redhawk in .44 for the first time, my very first thought was, "i'd sure like one with a barrel no longer than the length of the frame....")

however, i do shoot mine with 300 grain "mid-loads" most of the time, as the full power loads that i fire in the FA revolver--while i find it easy to fire 50 rounds in a row in the FA revolver--are simply too uncomfortable to fire on a regular basis in the Alaskan...

You sir are completely mistaken. A friend has one and it is the best thing since sliced bread for creating daytime fireballs. Also invokes smiles and chuckles quite easily.

it may be apples to oranges, but per a recent pearce article, i can run a 300grain plus bullet to 1500fps out of a redhawk, that i like a lot better than those clunky alaskan's.
We don't have grizz's, yet in arizona, wait a while for reintroduction. But i have had two personal up front and personal situations with black bear(20 feet or less) and that is where big bore handguns and a marlin guide gun got my attention.
That redhawk is .45colt