American Handgunner Jul/Aug 1981 - Jeffersonian

Can you imagine what happens
when these two greatsface-off?
By A I Pickles
I HAD INVITED BILL AUBERTIN to my ranch
to try my new Ruger Redhawk .44 Magnum
double action revolver. As a gun
writer I had pretty much completed my
own tests and welcomed.a "second opinion."
Bill worked as a Criminal Investigator
for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and
was additionally a pistolero of considerable
ability.
I guess the realization that we were
going to engage in a "big bore shoot-off"
struck me the minute he alighted his pickup-he
was wearing his own Smith &
Wesson Model 29 in a shoulder holster and
carrying eight boxes of freshly reloaded
ammo.
My first impulse was to cry foul! I knew
his 83f8" S&W had, shortly after he
purchased it, undergone an expensive fine
tuning and was now delivering a smooth as
glass 2'/2 pound single action let off. On the
other hand, my Redhawk was an out-ofthe-box
early production run which registered
a shade over four pounds on the trigger
pull gauge. Probably the main reason I
made no technical objection to the pending
"duel" was the apparent fact that we
would be using Bill's ammo-a condition
under which I always like to "bust caps."
Of course, we didn't get into a comparison
of the two big magnums right off the
bat. Bill was anxious to tryout Ruger's
new Redhawk after reading articles in
every gun and hunting magazine on the
market.
The Redhawk, at 52 ounces, actually
outweighs the longer barreled S&W
Model 29 because Ruger built a solid
beefy gun for the .44 Magnum cartridge.
When S&W tooled up for the .44 Magnum
they used the existing N Frame which was
originally made for lesser loadings.
Ruger's 7V2 inch barrel is topped by blue
steel sights with white outline rear and red
ramp front inserts. The contrast with the
otherwise all stainless steel gun is pleasing,
and the walnut checkered stocks set the
whole shebang off very nicely.
Internally the two guns are as different
as night and day. Ruger started from
scratch with a clean sheet in designing the
Redhawk to handle modern developments
in cartridges, bullets, and powders. Both
the crane and cylinder assembly lock directly
into the frame. The chamber wall
thickness is 25% greater than that of the
S&W 29. Both the hammer and trigger
work off opposite ends of the same spring
but in spite of this completely new design
concept, th~ Ruger retains simplicity in
disassembly. In fact, like the Security-Six,
it is one of the easiest revolvers to disassemble
of all those currently offered.
By the time Bill and I had shot a full box
ofhis reloads the conversation had worked
around to comparing recoil on the two revolvers.
We were shooting 240 grain Speer
JSP bullets backed by 18 grains of 2400
(Continued on page 91)
Out-of-the-box but heavier bui't Ruger Redhawk on 'eft was pitted against
8~-inch Smith & Wesson M29 that had undergone expensive tune-up work.
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