This has been coming for a long time. It's a story about a simple Ruger, and the weeks and hours of pain and frustration that surrounded it. It started simply enough, with a Ruger Police Service Six, with excellent mechanicals and a rough finish, it looked like this:
As a Christmas gift, my mother and father paid to have it refinished, so off it went to the local gunsmith for a makeover. I also decided to splurge on new grips, since the originals were in as rough a shape as the finish. Two months later (!), it came back, missing it's pawl plunger and spring, which I quickly discovered are extremely important as the cylinder won't turn without them. I won't go more in-depth than that about this part of the story, since it seems to cause my blood pressure to rise. But the short of it was, I needed some parts.
Now, finding parts for an old, obsolete revolver can sometimes be tricky. Numrich had an ample supply of pawl plungers (KE-51), and quickly sent out the needed part. The pawl spring (KE-50), on the other hand, was pure vapor. Nobody had one, Numrich was out, and the other places apparently had never heard of the Six line. After spending a couple of hours pouring over Youtube videos and schematics, I decided to take a gamble and order a pawl plunger spring for the GP-100 (KH05000), and Midway quickly sent it out, only for the U.S. Postal Service to gobble it up, never to be seen again. Of course, Murphy wasn't far behind, and while Midway is willing to replace it, it's backordered until the end of January at least. In the meantime, I discovered that the SP101, Redhawk, and Super Redhawk all use the exact same part. I have a Redhawk. I decided to steal the spring from it, and have it wait for the backorder. The old Six had waited long enough, and I didn't plan on shooting the Redhawk for a while, so out it came.
To make a long story slightly less long, yes, the GP-100/Redhawk pawl plunger spring will work perfectly fine in a Service Six, and the old trooper was back to form and looking spiffy in her new finish and new grips.
This is the result:
And just to show that Murphy is still here, as I was pulling the trigger assembly back onto the frame, it pinched me and took a chunk out of my third finger. I guess that means we're now bound together in blood :twisted: .
As a Christmas gift, my mother and father paid to have it refinished, so off it went to the local gunsmith for a makeover. I also decided to splurge on new grips, since the originals were in as rough a shape as the finish. Two months later (!), it came back, missing it's pawl plunger and spring, which I quickly discovered are extremely important as the cylinder won't turn without them. I won't go more in-depth than that about this part of the story, since it seems to cause my blood pressure to rise. But the short of it was, I needed some parts.
Now, finding parts for an old, obsolete revolver can sometimes be tricky. Numrich had an ample supply of pawl plungers (KE-51), and quickly sent out the needed part. The pawl spring (KE-50), on the other hand, was pure vapor. Nobody had one, Numrich was out, and the other places apparently had never heard of the Six line. After spending a couple of hours pouring over Youtube videos and schematics, I decided to take a gamble and order a pawl plunger spring for the GP-100 (KH05000), and Midway quickly sent it out, only for the U.S. Postal Service to gobble it up, never to be seen again. Of course, Murphy wasn't far behind, and while Midway is willing to replace it, it's backordered until the end of January at least. In the meantime, I discovered that the SP101, Redhawk, and Super Redhawk all use the exact same part. I have a Redhawk. I decided to steal the spring from it, and have it wait for the backorder. The old Six had waited long enough, and I didn't plan on shooting the Redhawk for a while, so out it came.
To make a long story slightly less long, yes, the GP-100/Redhawk pawl plunger spring will work perfectly fine in a Service Six, and the old trooper was back to form and looking spiffy in her new finish and new grips.
This is the result:
And just to show that Murphy is still here, as I was pulling the trigger assembly back onto the frame, it pinched me and took a chunk out of my third finger. I guess that means we're now bound together in blood :twisted: .
