Clean up stainless 44 special flattop?

[medicdave]

Snagged this one off the broker as I missed them when they first came out. Fired case is dated 2014, and no lock in the grip frame. Saw one more listed online with a 2015 fired case as well. It's going to have a long eventful life eating Skeeters load, just curious if anyone knows how many clean ups are floating around. Kind of funny as well, my new 44 would have a serial number ending in 357 lol.







New shoes need the located pin hole relocated on the grips. Bisley hammer and micro front sight on the way.

 

[Jim Puke]

It is my understanding that these are from a 2nd run of these guns, for Talo.

I have one, also.

 

[LuckenbachTexas]

There it is, Nice pistola!

 

[medicdave]

Interesting didn't know a second run had been made. No matter what I'm tickled pink to have it. I got one of the first release Lipseys blue guns when they came out and have been lusting after the stainless for a long time. Hopefully have the ole girl finished up ready to go this week. Bisley hammer is here and the front sights due any day.

New old stock Micro front sight.

 

[contender]

Go over to the "Collecting" section, and look at the post about these guns. Look closely at the pics. One of them is just a few numbers away if my memory is right. (521-34353)

 

[medicdave]

Interesting, possibly just a few cleanup guns.

 

[Bearcat]

I'd like to pick up one of these. Which distributor has them now?

Thanks,

--Doc

 

[medicdave]

Looks like they went out last year and a couple just popped up recently. Possibly 10 guns from this later run per the other thread.

 

[Bear Paw Jack]

I feel fortunate to have one of these. Love to wander onto another one but haven't had any luck so far.

 

[medicdave]

Most of the parts are in and work began on making this a bit more Dave friendly.

Bisley hammer was modified to fit the plow handle grip frame. The line drawn is the outline of the standard hammer.



Bisley hammer in its new home, extra power base latch spring, and trapper spring kit installed. Still a little final polishing on the hammer to complete but that'll happen when the grip frame is fit down.



Locater pin removed and grips moved to final home. Locater hole in grips filled in with JB weld and will be re drilled tomorrow to properly locate on the new frame. Going to take a little fitting of the frame down to the grips as Ruger did a good job leaving it oversized as usual these days.







Tomorrow should have the micro front installed, grips redrilled and on the gun. Sendin off an order for a no. 5 base pin to belt mountain, and we'll only have final fit and finish, and sighting in to do.

 

[Bearcat]

Thanks for sharing your photos of this project. Very cool!

 

[medicdave]

Not as much done today as I'd like to have finished, but progress none the less.

Hammer polished up a bit to clean up file marks and finalize shape.





Front sight trial fit showed it a bit to wide to fit into the slot, so sides of the tab were thinned and reshape do to allow it to fit snugly in the slot. A little filing needed to bring the sight forward on the base as well.



Final fit and mounted. Sight was clamped into the base and drilled through half way from each side for alignment. I would guess sight is not about 1/10" tall and will be filed down to match the chosen load.





Hopefully tomorrow I'll get the grips redrilled for the proper locater hole position and mounted. That will leave the base pin and grip frame reshaping as far as smithing, then sighting into the load.

 

[LuckenbachTexas]

Heck dats nice!

 

[Zebraranger]

Love the grips, that 44 is very nice looking.

 

[medicdave]

Little more progress that will lead to a bit more work as well.

Grips redrilled for locater pin, pin put back into the grip frame and grips assembled to frame. As you can see in the pictures there will be a good bit of file work to bring the frame to the grips and smooth the transition between them.







As I thought may be the case the thinner new model xr3 frame and the thickness of old xr3 grips aren't playing well together leaving a bit of a gap where the mainframe and grip frame meet. Pondering on fixing this, maybe a liner between the frame and grips to space them out a bit.

Upon reassembly noticed the loading gate had more resistant than I'm used to. Disassembled and reassembled a couple of times and still no love to be had. Didn't see any burrs, or glaringly obvious defects either. Off to the parts box we go and swap in a replacement and all is good in Rugerland again. Seems the spring included was not to spec. Not sure how I missed this before, but it's fixed now.

With the spring issue corrected, everything went back together slick as can be and other than the narrow grips she's quite the looker. Very smooth and a very nice trigger pull.









Any ideas from you fine fellas on a liner material to space the grips out? Was thinking g10 knife handle liner material .060" should space them enough to clear the frame, but what color? Thinking of black as it would provide a bit of contrast rather than sticking out as a patch job like a white or tan would.

While thinking on this, I'm going to load up some rounds and see about bringing the front sight to where it needs to be. If it shoots half as good as it's looking so far I'll be one happy fella.

 

[LAH]

Love that front sight.

 

[medicdave]

Loaded up a box of skeeters load (7.5gr of Unique and a 250gr Keith bullet for the uninitiated) and headed out back to try her out. Groups are good and about 18" low with the rear sight bottomed out. Going to need to take a little over a 1/10" of the front sight.

 

[medicdave]

Ordered up some g10 and vulcanized fiber spacer material should be in next week sometime. See how it works out from there

In the meantime, I'll hijack my own thread. Thought the Shorty 22 should get finished up. This was meant to be an understudy to my shorty 44 I'm very fond of.



Projects don't always go as you plan and this one has shown that to be true in spades. Broken tap that wouldn't extract, and the newly drilled triple measured holes for the front sight and ejector housing may have been off a bit (luckily the same amount in the same direction). Got the broken tap drilled out with a diamond burr, redrilled and tapped the hole, and turned the barrel in a bit to line everything back up and she went together slick as can be.



Then I started to really look at it and Jim's (Hondo44) words sounded off in the back of my head that the proportions didn't look right (Your as bad as John Taffin, Jim!). Off to the parts box we go and trot back with a xr3-red short frame.

Before



After



Together





The short frame really seems to bring the gun into symmetry with the super (even if the barrel is a bit long in proportion Jim). So while waiting on the spacer material there's plenty of frame fitting and grip shortening to keep busy with. Didn't want y'all to think I was a shiftless democrat or anything.

 

[LAH]

Lookin' Good

 

[medicdave]

Back on topic for a while, the spacer material has arrived. The g10 looks good and seems stiff enough to perform well. The vulcanized fiber however isn't even worth a picture. Imagine poster board project paper you used in school.

Rough blanks were cut from the 1/32" g10 in black and red. This is just a trial run so not a lot of precision was called for.



The red g10 went first and was fitted down to match the grip. It's definantly a step in the right direction.

Before:



After:




Shaped one of the black scales to match the frame and added it in. Grips stand nice and proud to the grip and main frame.



Little mock up of the effect on the backstrap. It's a bit dull unfinished, but the g10 will polish up to a shine.



Going through the motions I think that laminating the two sheets of g10 to each other and then to the grips will yield the best results. Once the grips are complete the grip frame can be shaped down to match the grips. Fair bit of work but I think this should come out kind of nice.

I have a knife blank and some extra sambar laying around so I may build a matching knife as well once the guns done. Be kind of a neat set with the matching spaced grips and scales.

One more hijack of my own thread again lol. Picked these xr3-red's up last night on eBay for a deal. Seller had them listed only as Blackhawk grips no mention of stag or sambar which kept the price reasonable. The sambar addiction continues unabated.