Ruger 44mag Blackhawk Standard or Bisley?

evolture

evolture

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Ruger 44mag Blackhawk Standard or Bisley?

I'm on the hunt for a Ruger blackhawk in 44mag. I'm trying to figure out what is going on with the bisley frame revolvers..

Is this an option that'll help me out if I shoot a lot? Should I seriously be considering one of these? Or just stick with the standard model...

Thanks!
 
The custom builders stateside utilize the Bisley for the big power conversions. They handle the recoil better and are more comfortable.

With a "regular" 44MAG ;) I think it's personal preference.

Avoid the dragoon trigger guard on the Super Blackhawk if you like banging out heavy 44 loads, it will mess-up your fingers.

You can get grips to improve that but then it hides the cool lines of the dragoon trigger. Kinda a catch 22 eh :)
 
I've been shooting a Super Blackhawk for a while now. Having big hands made it hard to get a proper grip on the rather thin stock grips. This resulted in bruising the back of my middle finger from that dragoon bite. So I made up some grips which are quite a bit fatter around the upper "neck" of the grips and frame. Now I can shoot stout .44Mag rounds without any dragoon bite and yet the gun can still roll up in my grip to soak up some of the recoil with no trouble. Not only did the fatter grips solve the dragoon bite issue they also spread the recoil out into more of my hands so the gun doesn't pound me as badly. The rounds I've been shooting went from borderline discomfort to just plain big boomer fun.

At some point I may start making up some of these grips to sell but for now I'm still working on the shop renos and making them is a fussy pain in poor conditions so please don't ask. But if you can find something like these from some supplier they make all the difference in the world.

Here's a couple of pictures of what I mean for the shaping.

grips4.jpg


grips5.jpg
 
Not all the Super Blackhawk grips are the same length. The older dragoon style and Hunter model with the round trigger guard have a longer grip then the other Super Blackhawks with round tigger guards.

A lot of people like the Bisley's for heavier loads but it's a personal thing and needs to be experienced in person in my opinion.

There are some different synthetic grips ( a bit ugly) available for the the plow handle that some people like but not for the Bisley.
 
pageophile said:
BCRider, you're a big old tease :)

Never would have thought going that root.

Thank you for sharing!
Click to expand...

I'm sorry.... um.... well, not really... :D

For a one off job it really wasn't all that bad if you're a little bit of a wood worker.

What I did was to use the raw frame as a guide to make a pretty accurate 3/4 inch hardwood plywood form that looks like the grips complete with the screwholes for the locating pin and mounting holes. The edges of the holding jig were mated to the frame other than the butt end which was left about 6 inches long so I could grab it in the vise to have both hands free for holding the coarse files used for the general shaping. The jig was made just a pencil line width wider all around Once matched to the frame the edges were darkened with felt pen. More on why later.

I then rough cut the grip blanks and drilled the locator pin and screw holes. The blanks were then fitted to the core jig and the shaping proceeded. When doing the edges they needed to be at more than a 90 degree angle. This is where the very slightly oversize shaping jig and felt pen marking comes in. It allowed me to file away the wood to a slight but easy to see bevel angle where needed thanks to the felt marker and slightly oversize plywood jig.

Keep in mind I'm not talking the cheezy spruce plywood. It's birch laminate ply which is as hard as the zebrawood used for the grips So it shapes much the same as the hardwood grips to aid in maintaining consistent lines.

The jig makes it easy to get the lines and shape right. And using coarse metal files instead of power tools only takes a little longer but it really lets you get a better feel for the shaping process.

Next time 'round I'll see if I can do a video of the whole process and stick it on You Tube. I want to do a set for my Single Six yet since I just did a quickie set from some tight grain nice looking softwood. But it's still "only" softwood.
 
Good idea on the jig and nice work! Custom grips on most guns is nice but on a single action it's real nice!
 
I would be very interested in that video. I have a set of SB 44's that I use for CAS and I want to put some new grips on that are a little personalized and wasn't sure what the logistics were.
 
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