Just ordered a Bisley Flattop .44 Spl. from Buds

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Mike Armstrong

Hunter
Joined
Jan 20, 2008
Messages
2,274
Location
Orange County, CA
I've been looking for one of these for some time and had it on my Buds "Wish List." It never showed up on my email as available for my "Wish List," but I just happened to troll their Ruger inventory today and there it was. So I put in my credit card # and it just went to their shipping department. I looked in their inventory a few minutes later and it wasn't shown, so either they had very few or they went really fast, or both!

I'll let you know my impressions and how she shoots when I actually get control of the gun. In CA, that takes a while.....I CAN wait, but it ain't easy.

Tried to buy one of these back last year before the Great Gun Grapple, but Bud's wouldn't sell it to me! Turns out they (or at least one sales rep and his boss) were misreading the CA "Safe Gun List" BS, which most of us Rugerforum guys in CA know by heart. By the time Bud's straightened this out, of course the guns were gone, baby, gone.... But it looks like I'll have one anyway.

Persistence matters, I find, and you don't even have to be smart to do it. Lock your jaws, shut your eyes, and shake, baby shake--bulldogs get their way!
 
Great guns - I better go search - I had alot on my wish list.
What bbl did ya get?
Since I got my specials my other irons are real jealous as they so a lot of sitting.
 
Says it has a 4.62" barrel. But I won't send it back if it has the longer barrel and black grips!

I'll look at the prefix when it arrives and post it, but if you don't hear from me by June 1, PM me with the same question. Pretty good chance I will have forgotten the question by the time I actually get the gun in my hands after it is released from our 10-day "gun jail"!
 
Mike Armstrong said:
Says it has a 4.62" barrel. But I won't send it back if it has the longer barrel and black grips!

I'll look at the prefix when it arrives and post it, but if you don't hear from me by June 1, PM me with the same question. Pretty good chance I will have forgotten the question by the time I actually get the gun in my hands after it is released from our 10-day "gun jail"!
Click to expand...


Thank You! Trust ME,,,, I know all about CRS. :D
Terry
 
You'll enjoy it. I shoot my plow handle 5.5 .44Spec more often, but do get the Bisley 5.5 .44 Spec out on occasion. Enjoy!
 
Bud's is a dealer, not a Ruger distributor. The Lipseys exclusive means that they are the only distributor allowed to buy it--for now at least. Then, Lipseys is free to sell to any dealers they want to. In theory, you might pay a bit more getting a Ruger from Bud's as you will have 2 dealer handling events and 1 distributor event. But, anybody that can get any flattop Bisley 44 at anything approaching a sane price should just grab one. I hesitated and am still looking for mine!
 
I'm thinking you'll love it.

You can load anything from light target loads to heavy hunting loads. A 250 Keith SWC at 1200 fps and I'm wondering why a fellow even needs a 44 mag.

If I need something with more horsepower, then the 454 gets the call... and that's only needed up north along those grizzly infested salmon rivers. :)
 
I have one (5 1/2") on order from Kentucky Guns. They were showing them in stock when I placed the order. That was a couple weeks ago. Nice gun!!
 
wolfee said:
Bud's is a dealer, not a Ruger distributor. The Lipseys exclusive means that they are the only distributor allowed to buy it--for now at least. Then, Lipseys is free to sell to any dealers they want to. In theory, you might pay a bit more getting a Ruger from Bud's as you will have 2 dealer handling events and 1 distributor event. But, anybody that can get any flattop Bisley 44 at anything approaching a sane price should just grab one. I hesitated and am still looking for mine!
Click to expand...
Of course. That makes sense to me now. Just like any dealer might order one for someone or to have in stock.
Thanks. :D
 
Bud's has two prices, a cash discount price and a regular (i.e. credit card) price. I have always gone for the cash price in the past (Armstrong was originally a Scottish name....) but in this case I opted for the old Visa since it takes at least a couple of days for a PMO to get to them and get processed and they won't hold the gun for you while all that happens. I was pretty sure I'd better get right on it; the guns wouldn't last that long (It appears I was right!). Cost me an extra $16 (aprox) to put it on a card, but the other would very likely have cost me the gun! Whole cost, insured and shipped to my FFL was $502.

Another option they offer is to put the gun on layaway, paying the minimum with a credit card, then pay the balance with "cash" (PMO or certified check). Not sure if they'll give you the "cash" price that way, but they WILL hold the gun until you pay the balance.

In this case, I didn't even want to wait to call them and set that "layaway" deal up. I just haven't seen ANY of these available since my first try to get one last year.
 
Mike Armstrong said:
I have always gone for the cash price in the past (Armstrong was originally a Scottish name....) but in this case I opted for the old Visa since it takes at least a couple of days for a PMO to get to them and get processed and they won't hold the gun for you while all that happens.
Click to expand...

There's a lot of that Scotish blood in my veins too! Cool story behind my Lipsey's FT. I was one of the first in my state to have one and it had been on order for a while. In the mean time I had been laid off work. When the LGS called and said it was in I told what was up and that I'd have to sell another gun before I picked it up and asked him for enough time to sell something on Gunbroker. "No big deal, do what you gotta do" he says. So after all is said and done almost 2 weeks later I pick up the gun and pay his normal and very reasonable markup. Cash of course, because he a Hollander and is always bitching about the 3% CC fee. :wink:
 
Jimbo, I always liked the Bisley, too. Possibly because I was taught to shoot two-handed and take my time.

When I was in college I made extra money during the academic breaks by driving my bosses Ford station wagon down into Baja del Norte and northern Sonora and buying him Colt SAAs and Winchester '73s mainly from police confiscations, but from anybody who had and would sell me a "Tejano" or an "Oinche." I paid for some of them with .22 shorts, Excedrin, fish hooks, and monofil; what good was money when there was nothing to buy and no place to buy it?

Our deal was that I'd bring home all the SAAs I bought with HIS money and could bring home anything else I wanted and could afford with MY money. So "Beesleys" were fair game, and I bought several that were in good shape, and one other. The nice ones I later sold when I had nothing else to sell and no money--remember college?

The "other one" was a very nice "top half" of a 4 3/4" .44-40 that had been "converted" by some backwoods genius to an SAA! And the SAA parts he'd used must have been stored at the bottom of a salt marsh.

This was back the day when you COULD find just about any Colt part if you waited and looked and sure enough, I found a near mint "set" probably taken off a Bisley that some (gringo) genius "converted" to an SAA. Put them (grip frame, springs, hammer, trigger, and grips) on my "hybrid" and presto, a near mint Bisley. Just a little mismatched, number wise, tho....

Probably because of that (it wasn't worth much), and the fact it had some memories in it, I've kept it all these years since I first got it in 1962. I'm gonna retire it and shoot the Ruger .44 Special instead.

Bisleys were called "abrebotellas" down there because you could pop the top off a beer or pop bottle with the hammer easily. Curiously, I never found one with a broken off hammer tip! Can't imagine why not. Not something MY mama would've wanted me to do.....
 
Very interesting Mike. I have heard that back in the day a lot of Colts and Winchesters could be found in Mexico. Bart Skelton talks about that a lot. Have you ever seen any Mexican engraving? I have seen some picture examples that were deep and ugly. :D
 
I only bought guns that were more-or-less original, and the people I was buying from were too poor for engraving. REALLY poor; too poor to afford any ammo except for their "no-name" .22 single shots, probably the only reason they let the "big guns" go. Only exceptions were the cops who had guns confiscated from poor people. My boss had a permiso that allowed me to deal with them.

Saw a few "pawn shop" engraved guns, but mainly not Colts. If my time machine wasn't busted, I'd go back and get the S&Ws and Colt Lightnings, Merwyn and Hulberts, etc. I saw then.
 
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