| Ruger Redhawk | |
|---|---|
 Redhawk with 5.5-inch barrel | |
| Type | Revolver |
| Place of origin | United States |
| Production history | |
| Manufacturer | Sturm, Ruger & Company Southport, Conn |
| Produced | 1979–present |
| Specifications | |
| Mass | 3.0625 lb (1.386 kg) |
| Length | 9.5–13 inches (241.3–330.2 mm) |
| Barrel length |
|
| Cartridge |
|
| Action | Single and double action |
| Feed system | Six or Eight round cylinder |
| Sights | iron sights (adjustable rear) |
The Ruger Redhawk is a DA/SA, large-frame revolver introduced in 1979 by Sturm, Ruger & Company.
The Redhawk is the first large-bore double-action revolver introduced by Ruger. It was designed by Roy Melcher and Harry Sefried. Sefried previously worked for High Standard Manufacturing Company, where he designed the High Standard Sentinel revolver. [1] [2]
Announced in 1979, the Redhawk began shipping to customers in 1980, and was chambered in .44 Magnum caliber. The revolver featured a square butt grip, adjustable sights, and 5.5- and 7.5-inch barrel lengths, and was available in blue or stainless steel finishes. While the grip profile and no-sideplate construction of the Redhawk was similar to that of the earlier Ruger Security-Six, it was in fact a new design, incorporating a much larger and heaver frame. [3]
Designed for use with the heaviest .44 Magnum loads, the Redhawk included a triple lock, where the cylinder is locked in place at front, rear, and bottom (a feature previously found solely on Smith & Wesson's triple lock .44 Hand Ejector design, out of production since 1915). [4] [5] Sefried himself observed that the triple lockup design "would last almost indefinitely". [5] To simplify the design and cut the number of parts, the Redhawk used a single coil spring to power both hammer and trigger, resulting in a slightly heavier trigger pull in single action mode. [5] Because of the single power spring, Redhawk revolvers typically show little disparity between single and double-action pull weights - often three pounds or less in variation. [6]
The revolver has forward ramp sights with four different interchangeable sight inserts. The rear sights are fully adjustable, featuring a white outline. The Redhawk is available with scope mounts and rings. [7] The Redhawk holds six or eight cartridges depending upon caliber, and has been produced with 4-inch, 4.2-inch, 5.5-inch, and 7.5-inch barrels.
When first introduced, the Redhawk was offered only in .44 Magnum caliber, which also chambered the .44 Special cartridge. In the following years, the Redhawk was offered in .41 Magnum, .357 Magnum, and .45 Colt. In 2015, a dual-caliber .45 ACP/.45 Colt chambering was introduced. [8] Redhawks in .41 Magnum and .45 Colt calibers have since been discontinued.
In June 2015 Ruger announced a .45 Colt / .45 ACP dual caliber chambering for the Redhawk that incorporates a redesigned grip frame with round-butt grip. [9] [10] Ruger achieves this multi-cartridge functionality by partially machining the cylinder to allow use of thin-gauge moon clips for the rimless .45 ACP while still retaining enough cylinder surface for proper headspace of the rimmed .45 Colt cartridge. [11] , [12]
Despite the introduction of the Ruger Super Redhawk, the Redhawk remains in production today. [7] Many shooters prefer the more compact frame of the Redhawk for hunting and self-protection, especially those who do not plan to use a scope. [7] [13]
The explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes carried a Redhawk on the 14-month-long Transglobe Expedition and used it to ward off a polar bear. [14]
During the mid-1980s, Ruger received reports of barrel failures in the Redhawk. [7] The barrels of some Redhawk revolvers had separated at the junction between barrel and frame. The cause of the barrel separation was not known at the time, nor why it had not occurred before, since the Redhawk had been on the market since 1980. Ruger initially addressed the issue by introducing a new receiver design, lengthening the frame 2.5 inches past the cylinder face to the end of the ejector rod. The new design greatly increased barrel support. [7] The extended frame also provided enough length to allow scope bases to be mounted on the frame, rather than the barrel mount required on scoped versions of the older Redhawk. [7] This new design, dubbed the Ruger Super Redhawk also introduced a revised stub grip similar to that of the Ruger GP100 revolver. [15]
It was later determined by Ruger engineers that the Redhawk barrel separations were the result of overtorquing threads on pre-lubricated barrels as they were being screwed to the frame, causing stress fractures. [15] Ruger corrected this problem with revised assembly procedures. However, since the new Super Redhawk design was already complete, and because the original Redhawk remained in popular demand, the decision was made to retain both the Redhawk and the Super Redhawk in production. [7] [16] [15]
The Colt Single Action Army is a single-action revolver handgun. It was designed for the U.S. government service revolver trials of 1872 by Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company and was adopted as the standard-issued pistol of the U.S. Army from 1873 until 1892.
The .45 Colt (11.43×33mmR), is a rimmed, straight-walled, handgun cartridge dating to 1872. It was originally a black-powder revolver round developed for the Colt Single Action Army revolver. This cartridge was adopted by the U.S. Army in 1873 and served as an official US military handgun cartridge for 19 years, before being replaced by the .38 Long Colt in 1892.
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The .44 Remington Magnum, also known as .44 Magnum or 10.9x33mmR, is a rimmed, large-bore cartridge originally designed for revolvers and quickly adopted for carbines and rifles. Despite the ".44" designation, guns chambered for the .44 Magnum round, its parent case, the .44 Special, and its parent case, the .44 Russian all use 0.429 in (10.9 mm) diameter bullets. The .44 Magnum is based on the .44 Special case but lengthened and loaded to higher pressures for greater velocity and energy.
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A moon clip is a ring-shaped or star-shaped piece of metal designed to hold multiple cartridges together as a unit, for simultaneous insertion and extraction from a revolver cylinder. Moon clips may either hold an entire cylinder's worth of cartridges together, half a cylinder, or just two neighboring cartridges. The two-cartridge moon clips can be used for those revolvers that have an odd number of loading chambers such as five or seven and also for those revolvers that allow a shooter to mix both rimless and rimmed types of cartridges in one loading of the same cylinder.
In American English, a pocket pistol is any small, pocket-sized semi-automatic pistol, and is suitable for concealed carry in a pocket or similar space.
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The GP100 is a family/line of double action five-, six-, seven-, or ten-shot revolvers made by Sturm, Ruger & Co., manufactured in the United States. Since its introduction, it has been produced with a number of variations including various barrel lengths and profiles, fixed or adjustable sights, and in blued carbon steel or stainless steel.
The Super Redhawk is a line of double-action magnum revolvers made by Sturm, Ruger beginning in 1987, when Ruger started making weapons using larger, more powerful cartridges such as .44 Magnum, .454 Casull, and .480 Ruger.
A snubnosed revolver is a small, medium, or large frame revolver with a short barrel, generally less than 4 inches in length. Smaller such revolvers are often made with "bobbed" or "shrouded" hammers and there are also "hammerless" models ; the point is to allow the gun to be drawn with little risk of it snagging on clothing. Since the external movement of the mechanism is minimal or nil, shrouded and hammerless models may be fired from within clothing. The design of these revolvers compromises range and accuracy at a distance in favor of maneuverability and ease of carry and concealment.
The Ruger Single-Six is a single-action rimfire revolver produced by Sturm, Ruger & Co. The Single-Six was first released in June 1953.
A super magnum is a longer and/or more powerful version of a "magnum" cartridge. Although the term "super magnum" typically refers to a handgun cartridge, created by lengthening an existing straight-case design, it can also refer to rifle and shotgun cartridges, such as the .17 Winchester Super Magnum and the 31⁄2" 12 Gauge Super Magnum. In this case, it simply denotes that it is of greater power than existing "magnums" of a similar caliber or gauge, this is comparable to other designations, such as the "Remington Ultra Magnum". The most widespread of these cartridges are the "SuperMag" family of super-magnum handgun cartridges that were proposed and tested by Elgin Gates in the 1970s.
The Ruger Vaquero is a six-shot single-action revolver manufactured by Sturm, Ruger & Co. based on the New Model Ruger Blackhawk frame and was introduced in 1993. It comes in blued steel, case colored, and a gloss stainless finish, all of which are available with wood, hard rubber, simulated ivory or black micarta grips and fixed sights. It arose with the popularity of Cowboy Action Shooting from which came demand for a single-action revolver that was more traditional in appearance.
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The Ruger Security-Six and its variants, the Service-Six and Speed-Six are a product line of double-action revolvers introduced in 1972 and manufactured until 1988 by Sturm, Ruger & Co. These revolvers were marketed to law enforcement duty issue, military, and civilian self-defense markets.
Freedom Arms is a Freedom, Wyoming based firearm manufacturing company, known for producing powerful single-action revolvers. The company was founded in 1978 by Wayne Baker and Dick Casull to produce the Mini-Revolver, then later a revolver chambered in Casull's powerful .454 Casull revolver cartridge. This 5-shot revolver was the Model 83. Freedom Arms currently makes a single-shot pistol in addition to their revolvers.
Remington Model 1875 Single Action Army was a revolver by E. Remington & Sons. It was based upon the successful New Model Army with both revolvers having the same size, appearance, and the removable cylinder. The new 1875 Remington differed mainly from the older 1858 percussion model by having a bored through cylinder chambered for metallic cartridges. Thus, in 1875, Remington entered the cartridge revolver market with this big-frame, army style revolver, intended to compete with the Colt Peacemaker. Ordinary citizens and Old West lawmen alike recognized the sturdy quality of the new Remington revolvers. This design was followed by the Model 1888 and the Model 1890.
Richard J. Casull was a Salt Lake City-born gunsmith and wildcat cartridge developer whose experiments with .45 Colt ammunition in the 1950s led to the creation of the .454 Casull cartridge. Casull's passion was six-shooters, and he was determined to create a high velocity round for the .45 Colt. His goal was to achieve a muzzle velocity of 2,000 feet per second with Colt .45 rounds fired from a single-action Army-style revolver with a 7+1⁄2inch barrel. This proved impossible due to the tensile strength of the Colt .45 cylinder, so he set out to develop his own casing and bullet.
