5.5" Redhawk released?

What year was the 5.5" Stainless 44 Redhawk released? I am thinking 1983, does anyone know for sure, I cannot find the on the interweb.

Thanks
Jeff

Gutshot said:

What year was the 5.5" Stainless 44 Redhawk released? I am thinking 1983, does anyone know for sure, I cannot find the on the interweb.

Thanks
Jeff

Click to expand...

*****

Bill Ruger announced his Redhawk .44 Magnum double action with a flourish in 1979. Came with 7-1/2" barrel. Not yet in production, details bedeviled to move from toolroom to assembly line. The Redhawk had yet to reach production when the IHMSA 1980 International Championships unfurled early fall 1980. Smith & Wesson, trophy sponsor of the 1980 World Championships, had barely assembled a few of its new Model 29's in stainless steel, designated Model 629. The big frame Dan Wesson Arms Model 44 .44 Mag did not exist.

The original Redhawk, with 7-1/2" barrel, shipped in 1981. The Redhawk 5-1/2 inch shipped in 1982. Oddly, with the hammer pivot inserted from the left side of the frame. (Never figured out that one.) My first deer taken with the 5-1/2" crumpled to the Federal 44B 180 JHP departing the Ruger @ 1610 fps, exactly as stated in Federal literature.

Short answer: 1982.
David Bradshaw

Sturm, Ruger tooled the Newport, New Hampshire plant for Redhawk production. (Single action production did not shift from Southport, Connecticut to New Hampshire until 1992.) The Red Label over/under shotgun struggled to calve adjacent on the shop floor to the Redhawk at the same time in Newport, NH. While built in Southport at this time, the Blackhawk .357 Maximum underwent its powder-burning bath on the hill behind the houses of Bill and Bill, Jr., in Croydon, up the road from Newport. We finished with the Maximum before either Redhawk or Red Label were ready. The single action represented, in Bill, Sr.'s words, basically "... a lateral step."

Whereas, the Redhawk and Red Label posed brand new headaches. Especially the over/under, where Bill, Sr., faced first hand the challenge of regulating two barrels to print the same Point of Impact.
David Bradshaw

I traded my 7 1/2" Redhawk for the first 5 1/2" gun I saw, and that was summer 1983. I had no idea that it even existed, even asking the owner of the gun shop if it had been somehow customized. Usually any new product from Ruger was covered in all of the gun rags long before ever seeing one on a shelf.

I still own that Redhawk, taking my first ever handgun killed deer. That was I believe 1985. My hammer pin is as David described, entering from the left side.

Dan

Thank you for the info

Jeff