Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Typical accuracy and range with revolvers

With a Ruger super redhawk 44 Rem mag, with 7 1/2" barrel, and say shooting Winchester 240gr Jacketed soft point ammo. With the open sights, In general What kind of accuracy could you get at different yardages? Or to put it another way, approximately how far could you shoot a 3" group? I realize that there are many factors that would affect this, but just in general/ average shooting.

Depends on the individual revolver and the shooter

Can't speak to Winchester 44 mag ammo and your revolver. But unless you have a poor example, the gun is likely capable of 3" groups at 100 yards with good (for that gun) ammunition.
Doing it with open sights would require some ability and practice.

10 1/2" gun, and my handloads, open sights, no rest.

When I was shooting a fair bit, claybirds at 100 yards were between 2 and 6 per cylinder. 6 wasn't real regular.😁

No idea wehat groups were.
Figured it was a bit far for me on a deer.
But knew if one was wounded, I could put more holes in it.

Minute of deer if you are!

Mine is a SA. Ruger SBH bisley hunter in 41 mag.

It will keep six in the head (6×6) of a torso target at 132 yds from the bench and sandbags with a Nikon 2x20 and 210 gr XTPs over a max load of H110.

I would expect a SRH to perform as well.

This. If I had been practicing a lot and the gun was properly tuned, then I might be able to do it offhand at 25 yards or from a rest at 50.

Optics might improve that somewhat. Lack of practice will destroy it completely.


Okie John

For me optics were a bench only thing.
Tried it on my SBH, 2x Leupold.

Couldn't off hand it for crap.
I don't hunt from a bench, so the scope is mounted on the shelf.

I’m not much of a handgun hunter, but I tried a 629 with a 2x Leupold. It grouped well on the bench, but that’s about all I could say about it. Left me cold otherwise.

90% of shooters, a 3" off hand group at 25 yards would be good shooting, the other 10% maybe stretch that to 30-40 yards.

This

Many variables. such as:
-Cylinder throat diameters and uniformity
-degree of "thread choke in barrel from mounting into the frame
-barrel's bore/groove dimension ( uniformity at different parts of the barrel)
- "taper of travel" ( my term). You want to put these all together and have the cylinder throats uniform with a diameter just big enough to let the bullet pass through it with good pressure seal. THEN, you want the frame side of the barrel's groove diameter to be essentialy throat size, but not smaller than the groove diamter of the muzzle end. Bad accuracy comes from squeezing the bullet down at the frame end of the barrel (thread choke), then have the reduced diameter bullet travel down a barrel with a larger groove diameter ( causes gas blow by and leading for reduced accuracy.

You want a slight "taper" of bullet diameter from throat to muzzle, as the bullets travels out of the revolver.

You want uniform cylinder throats, because it creates a uniform starting diameter for maximizing accuracy.

Case in point. I have a stainless Ruger GP100 ( 4" bbl) in 357 mag. With 170 grain Keith bullets (from Leadhead bullets, sized 0.358" ) I was getting 3-4" groups at 25 yards. Three shots were close, and three shots were much wider. I slugged the cylinder throats. 10.358" , 20.357" , 1 @0.356+ ", 20.355". I slugged the barrel from the muzzle, and detected increased resistance at the frame area ( thread choke).

I sent the cylinder to the "cylindersmith.com" to have the throats reamed to 0.358" (all are now uniform, and equal to the largest throat) . I then fire lapped the barrel to open up the thread choke constriction ( took about 50 shots total (~20 with 400 grit bullets, then 30 shots with 800 grit embedded bullets). Thread choke is gone, and a barrel slug passes easily without restriction/drag at the frame.

I shot the same 170 swc Keith Leadhead bullet load in the modified GP100 and got a nice round groups of 1.25" @ 25 yards. I haven't done much load testing to see if there is a "best accuracy" reload for this revolver, but I was happy with the results ( this all happened 18-20 years ago). I just haven't shot this Ruger that much; but, enough to enjoy it "as is". I was disappointed with the variable original throat diameters of my GP100. I'm satisfied with it now (also did a polish and trigger job on it to for a trigger which feels close to my S&W k38.

So, there multiple variables that contribute to ( or degrade) accuracy. All errors are additive. Eliminate them, and the process (accuracy in the case) improves. So, at what distance can a revolver generate a 3" group? Depends. It mat be 15-20 yards for some revolvers and loads, or 5O yards, or even 100 yards. I would like to mount a Wigatinny scope base and a pistol scope on my Ruger to find out what kind of accjracy potential it really has. I'd like to load it with wadcutters and go squirrel hunting with it.

A tuned and accurized 1911 45 acp for bullseye shooting should have x-ring accuracy at 50 yards, which is 1.5" ( 3 moa).

My dad had a SRH 9.5 in .44 mag. Bone stock.
The grips sucked but the trigger tolerable.
The overall weight of the gun made it easy to shoot well.
Had a Burris 1-4x or something like that on it.
Hated it.
Yanked it and ran irons

Think another w a reflex at fwd ring slot might be dandy.

I did 2" at 50 offhand w my 648 6", often
Why it was my IHMSA field pistol

Practice and a fine aiming point helps.

And young eyes.

For hunting an EER scope is kinda tough for me.
2X is doable. 4X is max.

Much prefer a red dot.
Had one on my Contender Super 14 in .35 rem
Made offhand shooting easy.

If i can stand on my two hind legs and keep em all in a ball cap at 25 yards i'm good, finding a place to sit and grab a crossed knee or falling against a post/tree/rock cutting that by two thirds is where i like to be.

With a plain ol' hawgleg, off hand about 30 yards, tree as a rest 50 yards, over sand bags 75 yards - give or take a few yards on all. I've killed deer out to 60 yards leaning against a tree. With my Contender and a rest, 100+ yards. I'm not a fan of shooting Contenders/Encores off hand. I find the scope wiggle to be ridiculous in my hands. Drives me crazy....

revolvers can be very accurate , have a Redhawk with 2x scope and over bags it will cloverleaf all the shots at 50 yards


standing up on your hind legs , and using irons the shooter is the limiting factor

If you are Bob Munden you can put a hole in a one gallon milk jug at two hundred yards with a snub nose 38 standing on your hind legs. And then do it again before all the water drains out.

Any decent .44 and ammo is capable of 100yd stuff.

You can go well beyond that very quickly but 100yds should be easily obtained for any serious shooter.