Do bisley hammers bite with plow gripframes & .44 mag.?

[k22fan]

Only yesterday we were assured by Rainman that "There are no dumb questions on this site.", so I risked asking one. Specifically, I'm wondering if a Bisley hammer combined with the longer dragoon gripframe would bite firing standard 240 gr. .44 magnums. I do not curl my small finger underneath the longer plow gripframes or make any effort to resist the muzzel rotating skyward. I find firing .44s comfortable this way, at least with higher hammer spurrs.

Gil

 

[jpickar]

The hammer has to be contoured to fit the regular grip frame on the lower part. But other than that it shouldn't bother you. I have no problems with it.


John

 

[CraigC]

How would the hammer bite you anyway? The grip is not supposed to slip 'in' you grip like a bar of soap. Your hand is supposed to roll 'with' it.

 

[writwing]

How would the hammer bite you anyway? The grip is not supposed to slip 'in' you grip like a bar of soap. Your hand is supposed to roll 'with' it.

Is this correct? I was told to allow a SA to roll in your hand. I have shot 4" BH with Linebaugh 45C loads that way with no recoil issues at all. And I am very recoil sensitive.

 

[Yosemite Sam]

In my experience hammer bite usually occurs on the rebound of the hammer in a semi-auto pistol when the slide moves backward under recoil. I've never even heard of hammer bite on a revolver.

Of course someone will be along shortly to teach me that it does exist, but at this point, I'm at a loss...

-- Sam

 

[Pinecone]

I've never heard or experienced a hammer "bite" with a single action revolver ever. Nothing coming back to cause it! Unless of course, the "whole" gun comes back at you when you lose your grip! However, with some of the old Iver Johnson and Webley revolvers you could "feel" the hammer touch your hand "web" if you rode the grip high in fast double action shooting. The only force you would feel was simply generated by yourself in pulling the trigger. Nowhere near the felt "bite" of a 1911 hammer coming back into your "web"!.................Dick :wink:

 

[Bucks Owin]

How would the hammer bite you anyway? The grip is not supposed to slip 'in' you grip like a bar of soap. Your hand is supposed to roll 'with' it.

Is this correct? I was told to allow a SA to roll in your hand. I have shot 4" BH with Linebaugh 45C loads that way with no recoil issues at all. And I am very recoil sensitive.

I'm not quite following you here I'm afraid. As CraigC said, your grip shouldn't be so loose as to let the grips slide in your hand. I find I need to hold on "like I own it", with a hard kicker otherwise I get "bit" on the middle finger by the trigger guard, not the top off my hand with the hammer...I don't mean grip with a white knuckle death squeeze, but you should have enough control to not have things sliding around to the point you'd ever have the hammer bite you. And your pinky is in no danger either unless you are shooting off a rest
The muzzle is gonna flip some with a "Linebaugh load" (or any other for that matter) as you must know by experience, but hang on and ride with it...I'm kinda puzzled here by you saying you fire them with no trouble but you are recoil sensitive and worry about a hammer bite....Not sure I "get it" :?

(Maybe you are holding really high on the grip but with a loose hold?

 

[writwing]

How would the hammer bite you anyway? The grip is not supposed to slip 'in' you grip like a bar of soap. Your hand is supposed to roll 'with' it.

Is this correct? I was told to allow a SA to roll in your hand. I have shot 4" BH with Linebaugh 45C loads that way with no recoil issues at all. And I am very recoil sensitive.

I'm not quite following you here I'm afraid. As CraigC said, your grip shouldn't be so loose as to let the grips slide in your hand. I find I need to hold on "like I own it", with a hard kicker otherwise I get "bit" on the middle finger by the trigger guard, not the top off my hand with the hammer...I don't mean grip with a white knuckle death squeeze, but you should have enough control to not have things sliding around to the point you'd ever have the hammer bite you. And your pinky is in no danger either unless you are shooting off a rest
The muzzle is gonna flip some with a "Linebaugh load" (or any other for that matter) as you must know by experience, but hang on and ride with it...I'm kinda puzzled here by you saying you fire them with no trouble but you are recoil sensitive and worry about a hammer bite....Not sure I "get it" :?

(Maybe you are holding really high on the grip but with a loose hold?

Didn't say I was worried about hammer bite, that was the original poster.

I hold a SA so that the gun rolls in my hand: the recoil is transferred against my hand, but mostly in rotational motion. My guess is that some energy is lost in the rotation motion, lessening felt recoil. This also brings the hammer closer to my thumb allowing me to cock the gun as I return it to the firing position.

I hold tightly onto all l my other style guns, so that all of the recoil energy is transmitted thru my hand then to my arm.

My arm will raise much higher with a 1911 with ball ammo then a 4" BH 45C with HOT loads.

 

[flatgate]

Gee, I happen to have a Left AND a Right hand.

Boff'em seem to work together while shooting....

Yowsuh! I'z a southpaw!

flatgate

 

[Rclark]

My grip is similar to Flatgate's hold (I am a southpaw too) . But, my right thumb sets on the back of the left thumb. Both hands work together!

 

[Dale53]

John Taffin mentions his first meeting with the original flattop Ruger .44 magnum rotating in his hand and burying the hammer in the back of his hand with blood spurting...

This often depends on a persons particular hand configuration. The aluminum grip frame on the original .44 Flattop made for a pretty dern light platform for full house .44 magnums.

I, for one, appreciate the extra weight of both the Super BlackHawk as well as my 50th Anniversary Flattop .44 Magnum when shooting full house .44 Magnum loads.

Just a thought...

Dale53

 

[k22fan]

Unanamously your answer to my original question is a Bisley hammer won't bite.

Regarding the suggestion that I had a frivoulous question about a non issue, I did warn you that you might find it to be a stupid question.

At least my question gave rise to some discussion of how to best grip a SBH. I never gave much thought to how tightly I grip a SBH but apparently I grip one looser than some of you because I do let one rotate in my hand. However, I'm not going to train myself to another way because I've never experienced discomfort from the Dragoon trigger guard, I usually get great accuracy and I don't give a hoot about how long it takes to fire the subsequent shot with .44 mangnums. I suppose It would be nice to be able to double tap a grizzley but the little black tails in my neighborhood sure don't need it.

Thanks again;
Gil

 

[COR]

You are more likely to get the "frame ears" of the SA plowhandle style to get you in the web of your hand. I watched a friend shoot his 475 (425's @ 1100) with a Reeder GF grip frame and it would roll enough to bite him in the web but it was never the hammer. I think the Bisley GF was his cure but regardless I think you may be thinking too much about something thats not treally an issue. That damn square back trigger guard gets more folks iin the middle finger than anything else.

 

[CraigC]

The grip 'might' slip a little bit but IMHO, this shouldn't be intentional. Your grip shouldn't be "loose" but you shouldn't be white-knucklin' it either. I don't grip mine much firmer than I would hold my lady's hand. Then again, I read lots of responses about folks having to reset their grip for every shot, or having to shift their grip to cock the hammer. I don't do either so I reckon we're not all shooting the same way.

 

[JWhitmore44]

I thought the whole idea behind the plow handle grip was that the gun rolls up IN your hand so that you can reach the hammer to be cocked again. A double actions grip has an added hump to keep the gun from rolling up as you don't need to re-cock the hammer to get it to fire again.

Course this doesn't mean you have to let it roll up. If I'm doing fast firing I use my support hand thumb to re-cock the hammer so that I don't have to reposition my grip. Course the heavier load the tighter I have to hang on to keep it from moving in my grip.

I've never shot a SBH with the dragoon grip and Bisley hammer. But I have never had a Bisley hammer bite me on a Bisley grip frame. My SBH hammer on my short Vaquero with heavy 45 loads doesn't bite me either. I would have to guess that it wouldn't case me any problems.

 

[Bucks Owin]

John Taffin mentions his first meeting with the original flattop Ruger .44 magnum rotating in his hand and burying the hammer in the back of his hand with blood spurting...

This often depends on a persons particular hand configuration. The aluminum grip frame on the original .44 Flattop made for a pretty dern light platform for full house .44 magnums.

I, for one, appreciate the extra weight of both the Super BlackHawk as well as my 50th Anniversary Flattop .44 Magnum when shooting full house .44 Magnum loads.

Just a thought...

Dale53

My Flattop banged my middle finger pretty good with full tilt loads shooting off the bench unless I really clamped down on it. Swapping GFs with my OM Single Six helped. But maybe some of the problem was 10" of barrel is a lot of steel to "flip" and recoil came more straight back? Maybe because I was shooting off bags? I dunno....
I have fairly small hands like Skeeter and he advocated grippin high on the grip with a strong chokehold and preferred an original FT grip...Go figure...
I guess everyone kinda finds their own grip and what works for them eventually. I know it seems difficult to describe exactly! :lol:

"Somewhere" I have an old article of Skeeter's call "Taming The Kicking Mule" (or something like that) that deals with this...Maybe I can find it and weigh in with his advice... :wink: