New to this forum, but not to wheelguns and cast boolits ...

[wquiles]

Hi there from Texas!

I have been reloading cast bullets since early 1991, when I started reloading for my Colt .45 ACP pistol. I am an engineer, and also a hobby machinist, so I can't help but keep very detailed notes about every single lot of ammo I have reloaded during this time, and I wish I had access to a forum as good as this one when I got started, as it would have made things so much easier and less frustrating.

Although I am not going to bother you with my all of my reload data, I have been most recently (last 10+ years) reloading cast boolits for my .44 Mag wheelgun. Although I have sold/traded some .44 Magnum firearms over the years, I have kept and modified this custom Ruger, at "upper" 44 Special/lower 44 Mag velocities (250gr LBT LFN, GC, at about 1100 fps). This started as a Ruger Super Blackhawk with the 7-1/2" barrel, but it has been modded over the years.

I have fire-lapped it already (.432 cyl throats, and right at .4305" for the bore), it has a full accurizing & action job by Hamilton Bowen, and I most recently installed and fitted the Bisley grip frame. Not happy with the balance now as I did when I first got it 10+ years ago, I then cut the barrel to 4-5/8" and soldered a new front sight (S&W interchangeable inserts). With the balance just right, all I "wanted" as a larger grip for my hands, so I got a new set of over-sized grips (Rosewood) from Eagle Grips. I sent the Bisley grip frame for them to fit, and it came back perfect. In fact, so good that I wanted to share a couple of pictures of how awesome those folks at Eagle Grips did on my frame:

http://m3coupe.com/Firearms/Ruger/custom44/20140620_192717.jpg

http://m3coupe.com/Firearms/Ruger/custom44/20140620_192803.jpg

http://m3coupe.com/Firearms/Ruger/custom44/20140620_192831.jpg


I am not affiliated with Eagle Grips - just a happy customer [smilie=s:

I will be participating and asking questions (reloading is a never-ending journey!), and since I was able to (finally!) find some Trail Boss powder, so I will be loading some mild loads for fun/plinking pretty soon.

Will
(no longer a lurker in the forums!)

[threewheels]

welcome aboard

[Nueces]

Nice, graceful fitting on the Bisley grip frame.

Welcome!

[crawfobj]

Very nice indeed. I've never seen grips like that on a bisley frame.

[osteodoc08]

Very nice wheelgun you have there. Welcome aboard from NW GA.

[bedbugbilly]

OMG! What's that tree trunk hanging off of that shooting iron?? :-)

First - welcome to the forum! Great folks here - lots of good stuff!

Those grips look great! They really dress it up!

I put a set of Eagle "gunfighter" grips on my New Vaquero (I have smaller hands) and I love them! Eagle makes a very nice grip. Thanks for sharing and great photos!

Look forward to your posts!

[littlejack]

Welcome to the CastBoolits sir.
I'll bet hose grips make that piece very controllable and the recoil is a lot more tolerable. Well done sir.
Regards
Jack

[W.R.Buchanan]

Welcome to the forum! Very Nice Wheel Gun! I like the Belt Mountain Base Pin! Nice touch.

I really don't understand why Ruger, maybe thru Lipsey's, has not made shorter barreled versions of the SBH Revolvers. They would sell out fast.

It seems the logical thing to do.

I have a SBH Bisley that got it's barrel lopped off to 5" and a Weigand sight installed. I used a Bowen Rear Sight

Mine is Blued and as such we Bead Blasted the entire gun before re-bluing. I have yet to install my Free Spin Pawl and Longer Ejector housing, but it is coming soon.

You find plenty of company here at Castboolits

Randy

[wquiles]

Thank you guys for the warm welcome!

Randy - awesome looking Ruger you have there. I already have the free spin pawl - highly recommended. My rear sight is also a Bowen. Since we have the same/exact Weigant front sight - where did you get/buy the front insert? What height are you using?

I just finished loading 50 rounds with Trail Boss - first time ever with this powder: .430" Accu Cast 240gr cast hard cast, 7.1gr TB, WLP, RP cases, OAL=1.605". These ones are about 0.0005" too small for my bore, but since I still got a couple hundred left, I figured they are probably OK to shoot for fun/plinking while I get the .432" bullets that I order 1-2 weeks ago. If I get lucky I will try these new ones this weekend :)

Will

[W.R.Buchanan]

Will: Looks like the only difference between our guns is the SS vs. Blue and the style of front sight insert. IE not very much.

You can buy the blank inserts for the front sight from Weigand direct. Brownells has some but not all the inserts best just go to Weigand. They are $8-10 ea. I think.

That particular one I made from a blank. It ended up being about .270 high when done. The blank ones are a rectangle about 3/4" long x 1/2" high. I originally shaped it as a Partridge style at full height but found out quickly that it was simply too high as the gun shot 1 foot low at 25 yards. I cut it down a bunch. They also have a variety of other shapes and sizes and some S&W inserts also work I believe.

The biggest problem I had with the blade was cutting a slot in the back face to take the white paint.

I did this with a slotting saw on my mill and I ended up having to make a little fixture to clamp the blade at an angle as the rear face of the blade is angled forward. I clamped the blade so that the rear face was in line with the Y axis of the mill.

It took a few tries but I finally got it the way I wanted and the result works perfectly with the Bowen rear sight. The blade is .125 thick but the slot is only .060 so there is black on either side of the white line. it fills the rear notch completely so it is easy to index.

My reasoning for using this Front Sight is the ability to interchange blades when I shoot lighter loads in the SBH.

When I had the barrel cut I sent it to Terry Tussey in Carson City NV he is a big time pistol smith I have known for years. I specified I wanted 5",,, which I got. I also got the comment back that the Ejector housing looked stupid because it didn't extend all the way to the end of the barrel like yours does.

Apparently a gun with a barrel shorter that 5.5" should have a full length ejector housing. I don't know who established this rule (probably Keith) but I agree the gun doesn't look right with the shorter housing on it. I called John Linebaugh and asked about how they accomplished this and he quickly told me to order the ejector housing from a 10" bbl SBH and cut it to length. It should terminate just even with the chamfer on the barrel. I will do this when I install the Free Spin Pawl.

My gun doesn't index the cylinder with the Ejection Port exactly, the detent is beyond where the cartridge will fit thru. You have to stop it BEFORE you get there, or go around. Obviously the free spin pawl will fix this.

One other little thing I'm going to fix while I have this gun apart is to round the very front of the trigger where it goes into the frame. On my gun when it is cocked this little tang hangs down below the frame. It is also sharp and I don't like it. There are also some sharp edges on the sides of the Bisley Hammer that need to go.

These are all fine points you find while fondling the gun while watching TV. It takes a while to find all these little irritants, but after the gun is detailed it becomes a joy to use. These are all fine points no gun maker can do to production style generic guns. It would simply cost too much and add too much time to the process. Most people never would notice, but they would notice another $100 on the price of the new gun.

My wife recently bought one of those little photo studio light boxes so that she could take pics of her Silver to sell on Ebay. I used it to take some pics of this gun and they do look better than my previous efforts. I do believe that one picture is worth a thousand words and that is why I post lots of pics here at the site. I wish others would follow my lead as it costs exactly nothing to do it.

Ya gotta love that big hole lookin' at ya!

Randy

[W.R.Buchanan]

Will: now all we have to do is get you started casting boolits for your guns. :bigsmyl2:

Randy

[500MAG]

Every time I tell my wife "no more, I promise" some guy posts pictures like this.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Sorry,,,

Randy

[Rifle 57]

Welcome to the forum! That is a great looking handcannon, love the grips also.

[TXGunNut]

Welcome to the forum, nice looking hogleg. Have you shot it since you got it back?

[wquiles]

Wow - Randy, those are in fact awesome pictures :-o


Will: now all we have to do is get you started casting boolits for your guns. :bigsmyl2:

I have cast bullets (our of WW) for another Bisley I have (.357Mag), but I have not cast any (yet) for the .44Mag




Welcome to the forum, nice looking hogleg. Have you shot it since you got it back?
Unfortunately, not yet. Grips feel amazingly well in my hand, but I don't yet know how they feel under recoil. Maybe today or tomorrow I will get a chance to try them out :)

[W.R.Buchanan]

Will: for your gun start with Lyman 429421. it is probably the most copied and most used boolit in .44's there is. It was designed by Elmer Keith along time ago and so far nobody has really come up with anything better.

One of the guys here (.44 man) has just about every .44 mould known to man, I think at last count he was up to about 28-30 or so, so there is a lot out there to choose from.

Everybody pretty much uses wheel weights and maybe about 2% Tin added to make the mould fill out easily. Plenty of info here on Cast Boolits.

Randy

[wquiles]

Thanks Randy. I have been tempted to try casting for the 44 Mag for several months now, and found molds that look really good/interesting to shoot, but so far I continue to buy most of my bullets from Beartooth, although I just recently ordered some .432" 265gr from a Ranch Dog Outdoor (http://www.carolinacastbullets.com/44_Special___44_Magnum.html) design to try out as well. More expensive than casting my own, yes, but high quality and since I don't get to shoot that much lately, I have not "justified" casting my own "yet" :-o

[Petrol & Powder]

wquiles, Welcome Aboard !

That's a nice shooting tool you've put together. I have a long affiliation with all things gun related but didn't start casting until a couple of years ago. This forum is great resource. If you do start casting your own you will open up a whole field for your engineering side. Casting is addictive but very rewarding.

[wquiles]

Thank you guys :)

I got to shoot the revolver with the new grips today, and the new grips are outstanding. Weather today was hot, but it was awesome to be outdoors!
http://m3coupe.com/Firearms/loads/44mag/TrailBoss/20140706_101852.jpg


I shot a lot more today than last time, and I can barely feel it on my hand. Last time, with about 1/2 of the # of shots (none hotter than 1100 fps) my hand was a little sore. With the new grips, there is much less felt recoil, even though I was shooting some "hotter" loads today (240Gr @ 1300 fps). The "only" thing to note is that (being left handed), and with these finger groove grips, my point of aim changed drasticaly - shooting 2-3" to the left, so the gun is twisting in my hand more than with the standard/smooth Hogue grips.

For those interested, here are the links to the chronograph data on TrailBoss, Lil'Gun, and H4198:
TrailBoss data (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?246764-First-loads-with-Trail-Boss-on-44-Magnum&p=2845499#post2845499)
Lil'Gun data (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?246976-44-Magnum-loads-with-Lil-Gun)
H4198 data (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?246996-44-Mag-loads-with-H4198&p=2845766#post2845766)

I have not been shooting much these last 10 years, but my eyes don't see as good as they used to. I think I have to put a small scope/red dot in order to test accuracy better and get more enjoyment of this sixgun :)

Will

[harley45]

Welcome to the forum, I've been considering a revolver in 44 to compliment my 10mm passion and these custom Blackhawks seem to be pulling me in!

[doc1876]

THAT IS IT!!
I was having a peaceful day at work, I have always lusted after a Keith #5, but it was dormant in the back of my mind until, I happened here about 4 days ago, so what do I do, I nonchalantly just peruse the net, and I found some sight called Lipseys. checking Gunbroker, I found that the price was not too bad., It seems that my local gundealer is a authorized dealer, and they can get them in for a ridiculous low price. so what do I do? you know exactly what I did! Now I have to set up for another new caliber, God how can I be so dumb? I just got to get banned from this sight, or I am going to need help.

Nice guns btw wquiles, where did you get the cylinder pin? I found Belt Mountain has some nice ones.

[wquiles]

Well, apologies if this thread "caused" you to spend more of your hard earned money :)



Nice guns btw wquiles, where did you get the cylinder pin? I found Belt Mountain has some nice ones.
Thank you. To be honest, it was 10+ years ago, and I don't remember where I got that aftermarket cylinder pin. My memory was never great to start with, but as I am aging I sure forget more and more every day ;)