Building a Lightweight revolver

[dougader]

I had a Montado in 45 Colt on GB for 10 days and it just ended with a few bids, and I had several people email me about it. I guess no one likes the price, although I was selling it for a few bucks less than I paid for it.

 

[Yosemite Sam]

...
IrvJr I know you are looking to build something, but you can get a Freedom Arms M97 Round Butted with a 3 ½" bbl that weights right at 34oz in .45 Colt. They can be loaded with Ruger only loads (as long as 1.600" oal isn't exceeded) and handle recoil extremely well. ...

Wow. My first thought upon handling my 5.5" FA 97 was, "With a 3-4" barrel this would make a heck of a carry gun!" Very svelte even with the longer tube. That one is real nice!

-- Sam

 

[IrvJr]

paul105 - great looking guns! That FA 97 is a great packing pistol! I've handled a couple of longer barreled FA97's (one had a nice octagonal barrel) and they are definitely handy, well-balanced guns.

Here's a picture of my current lightweight, single action handgun (.45 cal)...

It's not a Ruger and it's not a sixgun, but it's lightweight, reliable, accurate and a joy to carry. I bought it cheap at a local gunshop. the previous owner had installed a hideous looking oversized, tactical slide release lever on it, and had done some kind of pitiful attempt at adjusting the trigger pull by messing with the sear spring.

I replaced the "tactial" slide release with an Ed Brown, blued hard core lever, and then adjusted the sear spring and the gun now works and shoots like a charm.

I still haven't ruled out a S&W 329PD, but I'm going to start looking to see if I can find a used Ruger Montado or New Vaq locally for a lightweight revolver build.

 

[CraigC]

Several years ago, Dave Clements had a light weight 50 cal (50 short of some sort) single action for sale on his message board.

When Bowen came out with his mid-frame 5-shot conversions in .50GI I asked David about doing one in an abbreviated .500S&W, cut to .44Spl length. He agreed that with its smaller diameter and rim that it would work (the .500L-based .50Spl does not) but said that recoil would limit velocity to 700-800fps. I still think it's a fine concept that I have yet to see realized.