RUGER’S WINNING PAIR Of .44S

The reason for wanting a powerful sixgun when wandering off the beaten path is sound, especially in bear country. Bears can be a problem in Alaska and to a lesser extent in the lower 48. Black bears will normally shy away from humans, however, all of them don’t know this, and it’s always possible to unknowingly get between a mother bear and her cubs, which can be a real problem.

There are other large, possibly dangerous critters out there such as elk, moose, cougar, wolves, even feral boars and feral cattle. I was once challenged by a wild horse and felt very good having a short-barreled .44 Magnum sixgun with me. The chance of ever being placed in a situation of real danger with these 4-legged creatures is probably somewhat less than winning the lottery, however, eventually someone always wins the lottery.

While I have no expectation of always really needing the pistol I’m packin’, it will always be at my side and I would not be out without one.

My first ever Perfect Packin’ Pistol was a Ruger .44 Blackhawk Flattop cut from 61⁄2″ to a more easy carrying 45⁄8″ in the late 1950s. My hunting friends in the 1960s dubbed it the Bear Buster and always felt more secure when I had it belted on. The three of us slept in a very small camper shell on the back of the pickup with the rifles stored upfront in the cab. The Bear Buster was always with us allowing us to sleep soundly and securely. Imagination? Maybe, but we certainly felt better having it.

Since the 1950s the .44 Magnum has been the packin’ pistol of choice for many who wander the desert, foothills, forests, and mountains. We can argue the merits of the original Magnums, .357, .41, and .44 for hunting, however, when the tables are turned and the hunter becomes the hunted, portable power begins with the .44 Magnum. With today’s heavy bulleted loads it is capable of the deepest penetration on large heavily muscled and boned critters.

History Lesson

Ruger did not make a double action .44 Magnum until nearly 25 years after the first double action Smith & Wesson arrived. With this length of learning curve they decided to build their first double action sixgun around the cartridge making it large and heavy. Ruger’s Redhawk arrived in 1979 and has proven to be an exceptionally strong revolver able to handle the heaviest of .44 Magnum loadings. When we talk Heavy .44 Magnum we mean 300-to 340-grain bullets at 1,200 to 1,400 fps. These are too heavy for the original .44 Magnums from S&W and Ruger. I save the heavy loads for the sixguns of the last quarter of the 20th century, two of handgun hunters as well. Until the arrival of the Redhawk, it was generally conceded single actions were stronger than double actions, however this .44 Magnum is actually larger and probably stronger than the Super Blackhawk and soon became a real favorite of handgun hunters who used 300-grain hardcast bullets over heavy doses of WW296 or H110 delivering 1,500 fps from its 71⁄2″ barrel.which are Ruger’s big-bore double actions, the Redhawk (Big Red) and Super Redhawk (Bigger Red).

The .44 Redhawk represented the new wave of .44 Magnums of the 1980s, big, tough, able to withstand the recoil of not only standard .44 Magnums, but the new heavyweight bullet loads soon demanded by The only fault most of us found with the Redhawk is it is difficult to get a really good trigger on Big Red. It was strange to read the account of the engineers and designers of the Redhawk as they talked about the smooth double action trigger pull and good single action pull. Not quite. My two first two Redhawks came with single action trigger pulls that measured 63⁄4 and 61⁄4 pounds. This hasn’t changed over the past 25+ years.

The Redhawk gains its strength in many ways. The threaded area of the frame is very thick, double what one finds in many other sixguns, and the massive cylinder is locked at the rear and front of the cylinder itself rather than at the end of the ejector rod. The barrel carries a heavy rib and the top-strap is big and brawny.

The grip frame of the Redhawk was designed by Harry Sefried who also designed one of the most comfortable grips ever designed on one of the most easy pointing .22 double action revolvers, that being the High-Standard Sentinel. The grip frame and grips of the Redhawk were designed for shooting comfort, however things change dramatically with 300+ grain bullet loads and I get nailed on the knuckle of my middle finger when shooting heavy loads with bullets in this weight class.

Cut The Barrel

A 10″ barrel on the Redhawk was promised early but never materialized, nor has any barrel shorter than 51⁄2″ been offered, at least until now. A very simple custom job performed on the Redhawk has been cutting the barrel to 4″, mounting a Patridge front sight, and rounding the front and back corners of the bottom of the grip frame as well as the factory grips. I find one so altered will fit the Idaho Leather pancake-style holster made for a 4″ Model 29 and the construction of this type of holster provides a natural channel for the front sight.

With these custom touches the Redhawk becomes a candidate for Perfect Packin’ Pistol and will handle the heaviest .44 Magnum loads avail-able including those heavy hardcast bullets offered by Buffalo Bore, Cor-Bon, and Garrett Cartridges. With its stainless steel construction and the fact it is built for strength and endurance, the Redhawk is an awfully good choice for the outdoorsman. The Redhawk may handle these heavy loads easily, but the shooter is another matter. With its smallish wooden stocks I find felt recoil with these heavy loads to be quite stout. Ruger has now solved two problems with the Redhawk — the latest version from the factory has a 4″ barrel for easier packin’ and it wears totally new grips.

The original Redhawk has an inter-changeable front sight system, how-ever Ruger decided to go with a fixed blade on this new 4″ version using a ramp style with a red insert. I would have preferred they kept the inter-changeable system and I also blacken this red insert for shooting as I can see black much easier. The balance of the shortened Big Red is pure Redhawk except for the grips. Instead of the smallish, smooth wooden stocks found on the other Redhawks these grips are newly designed, and very well carried out finger-grooved, pebble-grained rubber grips from Hogue. Most factory finger groove grips do not fit my fingers however these feel as if they were custom-made to my hand.

Horse Of A Different Color

I treat the Ruger Redhawk much differently than my Smith & Wesson .44 Magnums. The Redhawk is big and strong and bull stout and able to handle the heaviest loads with ease. It is the Clydesdale in my stable. Its stainless steel finish and rubber grips are perfect for every day hard outdoor use. For carrying it is matched up with a plain heavy-duty pancake-style holster from Rob Leahy at Simply Rugged. Capable of being worn strong side or cross draw, this leather lives up to its name. On the other hand, my Smith Model 29s are fitted with custom stocks and even engraved and matched with floral carved Tom Threepersons holsters and they reside in the Thoroughbred stall in the stable. Two different classic designs for two different purposes.

Both .44 Special and .44 Magnum factory loads and handloads were test-fired in this 4″ Redhawk shooting at 25 yards. It handles Buffalo Bore’s 340-grain LBTs at 1,325 fps, Garrett’s 310 and 330 Hammerheads at 1,200 fps, and Cor-Bon’s 320 Hardcast at 1,250 fps with ease and accuracy with 5-shot groups of 2″ or less. Any time I can get this type of accuracy from a short-barreled sixgun with these heavy loads, I am more than satisfied. Perhaps groups would be even tighter with a trigger pull less than the 61⁄2 pounds on this .44, but only perhaps. I have no complaints whatsoever about the double action pull.

Bigger Is Better

The Redhawk never got a barrel longer than 71⁄2″, however, Ruger built an even larger double action .44 Magnum — the Super Redhawk with a 91⁄2″ barrel and an extended frame for scope mounting on the frame itself. Everything said about the strength of the Redhawk applies even more so when one talks about the Super Redhawk and I find it is also much more comfortable to shoot than the Redhawk, in fact, when mounted with a scope and custom grips, its increased weight makes it one of the most comfortable .44 Magnums to shoot.

The Super Redhawk is not simply a Redhawk made bigger. Instead of just changing the Redhawk and making it larger and heavier, Ruger used an enlarged GP-100 as the basic platform for this double action .44 Magnum. When the Super Redhawk was intro-duced in 1986, the plan was to drop the Redhawk as they were having some troubles with the barrel threads. Two things prevented the disappearance of the Redhawk: the problem was found to be the oil being applied to the threads as the barrel was installed, and even more importantly, the Redhawk was simply too popular to drop.

One of the major changes in the Super Redhawk as compared to the Redhawk is the trigger pull. The Redhawk uses the same spring to operate both trigger and hammer; the Super Redhawk uses separate springs for the trigger and hammer going back to the hammer spring and strut used in their single action revolvers resulting in a much smoother from-the-box trigger pull. Another change is found in the grip frame. The Super Redhawk uses the GP-100 stud accepting the rubberized GP-100 grip panels. Hand-filling grips from Hogue or Pachmayr really help to tame felt recoil of the Super Redhawk even when chambered in the .454 Casull.

Less Is More

For nearly 20 years the Super Redhawk was only offered in the two original barrel lengths, 71⁄2″ and 91⁄2″, however the .44 Magnum was joined by the .454 Casull and .480 Ruger chamberings, and then another major change occurred with the introduction of the Alaskan. With more and more folks concerned about protection from big beasts and wanting an easy packin’ but powerful pistol, Ruger cut the barrel of the Super Redhawk even with the end of the frame at 23⁄4″ and chambered in .454 as the Alaskan. Shortly thereafter the .480 Ruger was offered and now a third chambering — the .44 Magnum.

For most shooters, the .44 Magnum is the easiest choice. It has been around now for more than 50 years with many choices offered in factory ammunition from 180- to 340-grain bullet weights and for the reloader there are reams of published data avail-able as well as easy access to brass and bullets. When I reviewed the .44 Magnum Super Redhawk in 1988 I ended my article saying, “For some strange reason, there is a demand for short-barreled, under 3″, .44 Magnum sixguns. By chopping the barrel of the Super Redhawk off flush with the frame, milling off the scope recesses, and installing a front sight, the Super Redhawk joins the ranks of the snub-nosed .44 Magnums. Since there is no grip frame as such, it will be very easy to make small concealable grips for such a snubby.” I don’t know if any custom gunsmiths ever did such a con-version on the Super Redhawk .44 Magnum, however Ruger has now done just that with this Bigger Red version offered with a 23⁄4″ barrel even with the end of the frame.

Hogue Did It Right

Factory .44 Magnum loads have changed dramatically in the past 20 years and I now rescind my call for small concealable grips. The pebble-grained, finger groove soft rubber grips designed by Hogue are much appreciated when firing 310-, 320-, and 330-grain bullets at 1,200 fps and 340s at 1,250. All would be unmanageable with small stocks. The Alaskan .44 Magnum is made for ease of a portability combined with potent power. Mine is carried in a Simply Rugged pancake-style holster with six cartridge loops sewn on the holster proper giving me a total of 12 rounds without using a cartridge belt.

The Alaskan is designed to be a defensive not offensive weapon. It is not what I would call a good choice for hunting, but rather to be easily carried and always ready when things go bad — “things” being bears, feral hogs, feral cattle or anything else trying to bite, scratch, puncture, or rip. Carried high on the hip and loaded with the heaviest rounds you can handle gives a great measure of security when wandering where the sidewalk ends.

With its short sight radius the Ruger .44 Magnum Alaskan was test-fired at 15 yards. One of my favorite loads, a Keith hardcast 250-grain bullet over 10.0 grains of Hodgdon’s Universal, clocks out at 1,050 fps and places five shots in 5/8″ at 15 yards and would certainly be my choice as an everyday carrying load. The heaviest loads also shot well, with Garrett’s 310- and 330-grain Hammerheads right at 11⁄2″ with muzzle velocities of 1,100 fps. Buffalo Bore’s 340 LBT at 1,260 fps is a mite harder to handle, but still stays at the 2″ mark. Trigger pull on the Alaskan is set at 51⁄4 pounds, so both of these new .44 Magnums from Ruger would benefit from a good trigger job.

Which To Choose?

So which one to pick if only one is to be chosen? I prefer the 4″ barrel of the Redhawk over the shorter barrel of the Alaskan, but the plain black front sight of the Alaskan works better for me than the red insert of the Redhawk. The single action trigger pull of the Alaskan is lighter but not by much —51⁄4 pounds to 61⁄2 pounds — while the double action on the Redhawk beats the Alaskan, again not by much.

Grips? The Hogue boys did their homework on both of these and though quite different they work equally well, at least for me. I can’t choose, so I will buy them both and a couple decades from now my grandsons can argue the merits of each. In fact, they can join my custom 4″ Redhawk giving me three Ruger double action, short-barreled .44s for three grandsons. I just love it when a plan comes together.

Get More Revolver Content Every Week!

Sign up for the Wheelgun Wednesday newsletter here: