Thompson/Center Contenders take of the majority of the space in my gun safe. Contenders are very simple firearms that can be tuned to shoot well by tinkering with handloads. During 2002 I had the opportunity to buy my first revolver, a Ruger Blackhawk .41 Magnum. The first round of handloads I experimented with shot rather well so I thought revolvers would be as easy as Contenders to tune with handloads. I was soon to realize that I had just gotten lucky.

For Christmas 2002 my lovely wife bought me a Ruger Blackhawk .45 Long Colt to match my .41 Magnum. After having such good luck with my first sixgun I thought that finding an accurate handload would be easy. Wow was I wrong! Six batches of handloads later I was ready to send this revolver out to pasture. Had my wife not purchased it for me, I certainly would have done just that. To make this a reliable hunting sidearm I needed to get it shooting six rounds into less than two inches at 25 yards; I'll just say that the absolute best group I could get at 25 yards was over well two inches. Usually the shots were arranged in patterns than groups. Instead of sending the Ruger to another home I began researching option for "accurizing" revolvers. A revolver has many more moving internal parts and pieces that can use some TLC. With my limited knowledge I contacted a local gunsmith that has plenty of years experience working on handguns, Rich Debick (724-697-5294 or standebick@arcticmail.com).

Rich suggested a few common fixes that would improve the revolvers accuracy. First was a basic action job that would smooth the entire internal operations and lighten trigger pull (upon initial inspection the factory trigger pull was over eight pounds). This was cured polishing and lubricating all internal contact surfaces and replacing the factory springs with a kit from Wolff Springs. That work brought the trigger pull to just under three pounds. The next operation would be to ream the cylinder throats to uniform dimensions. Ruger's have a reputation for tight cylinder throats that have inconsistent diameters. They may handle jacketed bullets reasonably well, as mine did, but cast bullet accuracy will suffer. This is because the cast bullets are actually getting resized as they pass through the tight throat before entering the barrel. Reaming the throats uniforms the dimensions and increases the throat diameter to reduce disturbance of the bullet.

The first range session after Rich's machine work revealed a marked improvement in the Ruger's accuracy. The patterns turned into reliable groups and renewed my hope in getting this handgun to shoot. It was now averaging closer to two inches with the majority of handloads using cast and jacketed bullets.

The jacketed bullets still group better than their cast counterparts. The cast bullets were fouling the forcing cone heavily within the first few cylinders full of ammo. This problem was later pinned down to the propellant I was using with the hard cast Penn Bullets (www.pennbullets.com). The powder was burning too fast and melting away the bullet base not creating enough pressure to seal the bore. Switching to a slower pistol powder, which generated more pressure and eliminated the aggressive leading in the forcing cone area and accuracy increased.

This Ruger Blackhawk .45LC was initially going to be a secondary sidearm and only drawn for close range deer hunting. Battling to get a load suitable for even that purpose has turned this into a semi-custom revolver project. When completed I may use this as my primary sidearm for Pennsylvania deer hunting.

Now that I am becoming more familiar with revolvers and how they operate, future improvements have been planned for this handgun. On order at this time is a Belt Mountain Base Pin. The factory base pin is very sloppy, the replacement base pin will tighten up the cylinder to frame alignment and hopefully increase accuracy. Before becoming content with the Ruger's accuracy I hope to reach the "two-inch" accuracy standard with several handloads. After I get to that point I may then look into a few cosmetic improvements such as custom grips and the addition of a steel ejector rod housing.

Stay tuned to future reports on the Ruger Blackhawk. Will I reach my accuracy goal? Only time, and of course money will tell.

Good shooting,
Dan B.