Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Gunsmith to customize a Ruger GP-100

Does anybody know of a gunsmith or company that might be able to turn a Ruger GP-100 into a 5 shot .44 Special? This is a popular conversion for Old Model Ruger Blackhawks, but I�ve always thought that a 5 shot GP-100 would be a crackerjack general purpose handgun. I have no need of a flame throwing short barrel .44 Mag, but a .44 Special load at 950 fps and another at about 1250 fps (Elmer�s original concept) would be just perfect and a 5 shot GP-100 should be plenty strong enough for that. Of course one can load down a .44 magnum, but .44 Mags are only chambered in large frame handguns. I specifically want a medium frame revolver.
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<br>The S&W Model 696 would be perfect except � it is available in a 3� barrel only (why the hell did they choose 3� and not 4� ?!), plus I just will not buy a new S&W.
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<br>I�ve called Philips & Rodgers and the only DA revolvers they will work on are Redhawks. It looks like Hamilton Bowen and Linebaugh only work on Redhawks as well, plus the latter two want incredibly exorbitant sums for everything they do. Turning a 6 shooter into a 5 shooter is obviously more of a problem with a DA revolver than a SA revolver, but they do it with Redhawks all the time and as far as I know the lockwork of the Redhawk and GP-100 are the same.
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<br>If anybody has any names, websites or phone numbers of someone who could do a quality job of this I�d appreciate hearing about them
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I know that Jack Huntington has done several conversions on the super redhawks, which is to a degree the same gun. I don't have his contact info handy, but a google search will bring up a link to his website. A buddy has had jack build several customs for him, 5 shot 500 linebaugh, and a couple of custom bisleys.

Dave Clements.
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<br>www.clementscustomguns.com

Thanks, Dave Clements specifically lists the 5 shot GP-100 conversion to .44 Special. Price is a cool $1100.00. Whooeeee!
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<br>I was reading one of John Taffin's articles on this conversion. He shot one based on the old Security Six, he says that with that cylinder size even a 5 shot conversion should only be shot with the milder loads. I'm thinking that the GP-100 has a slightly larger cylinder.
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<br>I notice that Dave also will convert S&W revolvers from .347 to .44 Spl. and .44 to .45. This conversion is "only" $350. But a 6 shot L frame Smith is still probably not big enough to handle the 1200 fps .44 Spl loads. That wouldn't be too bad, as one can find lots of good used 4" S&W 586's and 686's at gun shows.
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<br>Guess I will call ol' Dave next week and get the lowdown on just how strong these conversions are.
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<br>Thanks again for the link.
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