Greg_M said:
Were they always offered in stainless, or did that come along later?
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Greg.... calving process took quite a while. To put it in Bill Ruger’s words, to go from "tool room to production is a very different process than to make a few guns.” I don’t know when Sturm, Ruger released the
Redhawk. Samples were shown to the press in 1979, with release projected right around the corner. Didn’t happen. I took a photo of Bill, Jr., shooting a Redhawk .44 behind his father’s house in New Hampshire in, I think, winter of 1980-'81. The
Red Label over-under was in development at this time, along with the
Blackhawk .357 Maximum close to production. Bill Ruger discovered how challenging it is to make proper shotgun barrels and then to
regulate them on a production basis. Labor intensive.
Also during this period, Sturm, Ruger was going all in to make its own handgun and rifle barrels, in New Hampshire. The George Wilson barrel company in Connecticut had long been Ruger’s supplier. Wilson .44 barrels were cut with a broach, while .357 barrels were button rifled. I think .45 barrels were broached, and .41 barrels as well (correct me, Contender, if I’m wrong on .45 and .41).
Barrels for the Redhawk start with a drop forging, which is then gun drilled, reamed, and broached. Same as Smith & Wesson. I have an early Redhawk .44 Mag 5-1/2”, made in 1982. The first Redhawks were stainless, with .44 Mags way ahead of other chambering. The .44 Mag just about owned the firing lines of IHMSA silhouette at that time. Calls for .41 Mag lagged far behind the .44 Mag. Not for any ballistic fault of the .41 Mag. The .44 was there first, and so dug in it couldn’t be shaken, just as the .270 Winchester had an insurmountable lead over the .280 Remington.
Ruger admired the efficiency of hammer forging barrels, mentioning Remington as prime example. Ruger demolished the indoor range in the Newport plant to install hammer forging machinery. Can’t just bolt a hammer forge to the floor; it calls for its own substantial slab, isolated by a moat of sand.
Stainless was all the rage among sixgunners. S&W released the stainless M-629 before Ruger released the Redhawk. Blued Redhawks had to wait for the stainless pipeline to fill.
Recoil of Redhawk .44 Mag with 7-1/2” barrel delivers considerably less jolt than the 5-1/2-inch. A major attraction of the .41 Mag is ballistics close to .44 Mag with less recoil. Gun writing arguments extolling ballistic superiority of the .41 Mag are the press-driven.
Both Smith & Wesson and Ruger rode the learning curve in adopting ordnance grade stainless to revolver making. Ruger completed the task, whereas S&W couldn’t get the hammers and triggers made from drop forged stainless to equal the carbon steel parts. Ruger perfected lost wax casting in stainless, right down to heat treatment.
David Bradshaw
