One Man's Packin Pistol

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One Man's Packin' Pistol.

By Josh Maloley.

The gun started it's life as a 5.5" Ruger Bisley-Vaquero in .45 Colt. I bought it used as a project gun from a local man who shares my tastes in firearms, and trading them off. He'd let the Ruger "color case" finish on the frame rust a bit, and he put some Flitz to it (like you would do to a blued gun), but to our surprise, Flitz removes the fake colorcase finish leaving nothing but white steel behind. So he polished the rest of the cc finish off to give the frame a uniform look. That's how I bought the gun, a 5.5" Ruger Bisley-Vaquero in .45 Colt with no finish on the frame - cheap!

I shot it that way for awhile, tempering my nerves to heavier and heavier loads, but I resisted getting a holster for awhile, because I knew that this gun wasn't even close to what I wanted to end up with. I was going to build myself (to quote John Taffin) The Perfect Packin' Pistol, equipped of course with the three P's - it must be Powerful, Practical, and Packable.

Well the powerful part was covered in spades, and is hardly worth mentioning - the gun was after all chambered in .45 Colt. I don't think that I need to tell anybody that the .45 Colt when chambered in a strong handgun like the Ruger can be handloaded to levels that easily leave the factory .44 Magnum loads in the dust, and you're using a bigger hammer so to speak. So, being a careful handloader, the Ruger was already powerful enough for any task that I might find for it in the Michigan woods.

But was it packable? Some would say the the 5.5" bbl is short enough to be packable, but I would personally disagree - not that I'm trying to tell you what does or doesn't work, I'm just saying what does or doesn't work for me. For a gun to be truly packable in my book, it breaks down like this: a double action revolver has to be 4" or less, a single action has to be 4 5/8" or less, and an auto can be 5" or less. Why the differences? It has to do with the different over all lengths of the different action types, but I really haven't taken out my guns and a ruler and tried to come up with a maximum dimension or a formula, these are just based on personal observations.

Some people prefer aluminum grip frames and ejector rod housings on their packing guns to shave weight without giving up their full sized guns. But for a piece that's carried in a good holster on a belt or other rig, and doesn't need to be concealed constantly, I personally prefer to carry an all steel gun. I prefer steel for it's balance, and recoil taming abilities.

Is it practical? Is there any room for doubt? How can a gun as reliable as a single-action Ruger, as handy as any handgun can be, and as powerful as I care to load it - be anything but practical?

My project gun being a 5.5" Bisley-Vaquero, I needed to shorten the bbl. What a great opportunity! There were all sorts of things that I wanted to do to the bbl. We (meaning my gunsmith Burt gave me tools, equipment, knowledge, supervision, and his time - and all that I had to do was play around with my gun, and take all of the credit!) disassembled the gun, and removed the bbl using an action wrench, and bbl press. This was the stage where I got my feet wet - I'd always been VERY squeamish about doing anything to my guns, I used to leave the room when he had to do anything to my guns that involved even a brass hammer.

I thought that the honeymoon was over when I clamped the bbl in the press, and unscrewed the action. Then I thought that I was over my butterflies for sure when Burt had me heat the end of the bbl with a torch, and pull the front sight out from the slot that it was soldered into. Well, what can I say? I was wrong!!!! Next he handed me a hacksaw and told me to cut the bbl even with the back of the slot from the old front sight. I thought that I would faint, but he said that he wasn't going to do it, it was my gun (and I did want to be involved). So I did it. The cut wasn't perfect, but that wasn't important, we were going to cut the crown on the lathe.

After some thought, I asked why I had to hacksaw off the bbl if we were going to have it in the lathe? Why didn't I just cut it off in the lathe? He laughed and said that he thought that the hacksaw would help to loosen me up a bit.

I guess that Burt was right - he usually is.

Next I went to work on the warning label (how long until Ruger starts putting an arrow on the bbl to let us know which is the dangerous end?), I was pleased to find that about half of the depth of the warning is a bur that's raised up around the lettering. I draw filed away the bur until it was down to the level of the surrounding steel. Then I spun the bbl in the lathe and used some emery strips to remove what remained of the warning label.

Then I trued up the end of the bbl, and cut a new crown.

Next step, I wanted to set the bbl back a thread. I measured the thread pitch and moved the shoulder back a similar distance. I let Burt set up the lathe and cut that extra thread into the bbl.

While the bbl was off, and to complete this stage of the project, Burt cut a Taylor Throat into the bbl with a reamer that I had Clymer Mfg make for me (they are a great company to do business with).

Excellent! Time to put the gun back together! Well, the bbl screwed back in just fine, we lined up the witness mark that we made before removing the bbl (that way the threaded hole for the ejector rod housing would be in the correct location relative to the frame).

Then we fitted the ejector rod housing to the bbl that was now set one thread back farther than it was before. In fact the bbl length was now 4.5" even, and the ejector rod housing had to be trimmed a might at both ends.

OK it's got a bbl with an ejector rod housing on it, next it's time to install the cylinder and set the bbl cylinder gap. I used a forcing cone / bbl crowning kit from Brownells. I figured that I could try to put the cylinder in, and make a cut from the rear face of the bbl and keep cutting a bit off at a time until it fit. (Sounds great in theory.) Burt warned me that I needed to cut slowly, and check my work often.

I did go slowly, and made several cuts. After a few (too many) Burt said that the cylinder should be going in by now (but it wasn't). He examined the situation and found that I had moved the bbl shoulder forward one thread, I had moved the rear face of the bbl forward one thread, but I had failed to do anything with the pre-existing threads - the bbl moved back one turn, so did the threads, now there was one extra thread at the rear of the bbl. That one thread was hanging down just far enough to interfere with the front bushing of the cylinder (I know that it's not really a bushing, but it looks like one, and I didn't know what else to call it). A few quick strokes of a file, and that pesky thread was in my way no longer.

By the time Burt stopped me I had opened the bbl / cylinder gap up to 0.0045", and I was aiming for 0.002"-0.003". Oops! Had I opened it up much more I would have had to set the bbl back another thread, and re-refit the ejector rod housing, and re-set the shoulder, and have Burt cut another thread, and re-reset the bbl / cyl gap - all in all - way too much work, there's really nothing wrong with a 4.5 thousandths b/c gap.

Bbl, cylinder, ejector rod housing - hey this thing is starting to look like a gun again! We put the grip frame back on, and moved over to the mill.

Since I'd shot this gun quite a bit before the work started, I had some very specific ideas of how the factory sights could be improved. Like I said before, it started off as a Bisley-Vaquero (which is a Bisley gripframe trigger and hammer on a Vaquero frame) which means that it had the Vaquero fixed sights. The Vaquero frame is rounded on the top with a notch formed through it. Sighting is accomplished by lining up the top of the front sight between the left and right edges of the top of the notch. But since the top strap is rounded, the reference points that we have to aim with come to points at the edges of the notch. The problem with points is that they are small, and easy to lose track of in less than ideal or changing light conditions. So we milled a bit of a flat into the top of the topstrap to give a decent rear sight picture. I thought of milling the notch a bit deeper, but decided that I probably didn't need to (also, I didn't want to remove anymore material from the topstrap than was necessary for good sighting).

It was the front sight that I was really excited about. I wanted a sight that had a better shape than the rounded factory sight. More of a post or partridge style. I also felt that the factory sight was too wide for the existing notch in the topstrap, I like to see a fair amount of light on both sides of the front sight in my sight picture. I knew that I wanted my new sight to be taller than my factory sight, I wanted plenty of material to work with. (Most handguns shoot high for me, and with heavy loads, I'm usually several inches higher than I care to be.)

I was a bit nervous about getting the front sight placed on the bbl correctly. After all, this was a fixed sight handgun, and that means that no adjustment is possible. Says who? While Burt was sure that he could place the sight properly and cut a biscuit into the bbl like the factory sight used, I had a different idea.

While the gun was still fixtured into the mill from flattening the topstrap I had Burt cut a dovetail into the bbl for my front sight. This would give me the obvious advantage of being able to adjust my sights for windage, but would also give me flexibility in the future in case I ever changed loads, or wanted a sight with an ivory bead, or gold bars. or something else that I haven't developed a taste for yet.

I looked through some catalogs, but wasn't finding the nice, thin, plain sight that I was looking for. We decided that making one shouldn't be too big of a challenge. Burt handed me a dovetail blank (the kind that you would use to fill an empty dovetail in a rifle bbl) and pointed me towards the drill press. I selected a piece of 0.075" flat stock to become the new front sight (I settled on that thickness by holding different pieces at the end of my bbl until I found one that gave me the desired amount of space on both sides of the flat stock - there may be a more scientific way, but I am unaware of it).

I then took a drill bit that had a diameter slightly greater than the 0.075" flatstock, and I drilled a couple of holes next to each other in the orientation that I wanted to attach the flat stock to the dovetail blank. I then used a small needle file to elongate the two holes until they formed a slot. The flat stock was cut into an oversized sight blade with a tab on the bottom that would easily fit into the slot in the dovetail blank. A vise, a TIG welder, and a couple minutes later a front sight was formed. I cleaned the excess of with a Dremel, and eyeballed it to what looked like (was) the center of the bbl. I left it purposely tall so that there would be plenty of material to work with.

Well, Bbl, sights and all, lets put this thing together and shoot it!

"It's not finished yet Josh." Burt said.

"I know, but I want to shoot it for a while, and work up some loads, and get the front sight filed in before it get polished and blued. Besides, I need to shoot it for a while, to make sure that we're going to get along." I said.

"If you leave with it now, it's never going to get finished, and if you're not careful that white steel will rust."

We put it together anyway and I shot it that afternoon. Remember when I said that I left the front sight extra tall? Well I did. My first cylinder full was a healthy dose of H110 behind a 310gr LBTWFNPB. It shot about three feet low at 25 yards, but dead on for windage. After a couple of trips to the belt sander, I had the front sight a bit shorter, and the group was on paper. The first group on paper - I don't remember the size, but it had 4 of 6 shots touching! This was a sign of things to come. This gun and I were going to get along just fine.

Burt was wrong about the gun not getting finished. I brought it back for finishing after only nine short months (without any rust).

During that nine months, I shot my Packin' Pistol A LOT. I played with loads from 9 grs. of Unique, up to 27 grs. of H110. I played with bullets from El Cheapo 255gr BBSWC, to various excellent bullets from Cast Performance, up to 310 gr LFNPB's. The load that I finally settled on was 23.5gr-24.0gr H110 under a Creeker 265gr KT SWC. This load gives me 1250 fps out of my gun, no real leading, and very satisfying accuracy. What more could a guy want?

Well, it seems like I always want more. Many will disagree with me, but I've never really been happy with the Bisley package. The hammer is fine. The shape of the grip frame is good for handling heavy recoil, and for most people it seems to be the best that there is. But it never felt natural to me. Also the trigger used to drive me crazy. It's too curved, and sits too far back in the trigger guard, it always seemed like my trigger finger had to reach waaaay back in the trigger guard to get to the trigger.

Nope, for me, the Bisley is OK, but the Super Black Hawk is great! Yes, I'm talking about the Super Dragoon gripframe with the square backed trigger guard. I've had people tell me that they are OK for light loads, but the trigger guard will cut your knuckle with .44 Mag loads. All I can say is that these people have either never tried it, or they have hands shaped differently than mine. It's easy to find a grip frame that works for you, and proclaim it the best, but you never know until you try them all. Everybody's hands are different, and you should try them all. Just because some yahoo with a keyboard says that the "Bisley is OK, but the Super Black Hawk is great!", don't believe it, do yourself the favor of trying every gun that you can lay your hands on, one will probably fit you better than the others, and it may not be the one that works for everybody else.

I went to Burt's one weekend to do some work on my Packin' Pistol, I walked through the door and he said to look at the gun that someone gave him. It was a Super Dragoon 7.5" Ruger (7.5" Super Black Hawk .44 Mag.). It had about half a cylinder, and a bowed top strap. A case of a handloader pushing the gun too hard. I immediately asked him what he was going to do with it. He said that he was saving it for a show and tell at a hunters safety class, and that he didn't want me stealing parts off of it. I talked him into letting me swap the grip frame, hammer and trigger, for a standard grip frame, hammer and trigger that I had.

I took the parts that that Burt gave me, and you should have seen his jaw drop when I took the grip frame straight over to the grinder and started rounding the corners.

I rounded the grip frame until the corners appeared to have a natural contour. I then put the grips on and headed over to the belt sander. I sanded off anything that hung over the reshaped gripframe, and rounded them until the line from the bevel on the factory grip panels (stocks, handle covers, or any other name that you prefer) was gone. I also discovered how deep the locator pin holes in the grip panels are (deeper than I thought, oops). I polished the gripframe on a Scotch Brite wheel, and the belt sander left a reasonable finish on the grip panels, so all that was left was to reassemble and test the new gun handle out with some heavy loads.

I was very happy with the results, I found it very comfortable with even the heaviest loads - loads that I had found punishing with the Bisley gripframe. Am I saying that the Super Dragoon grip frame handles recoil better than the renowned Bisley gripframe? No, of course not, I must just have funny shaped hands. I don't think that the shooting world is ready for that type of proclamation. Maybe the new Super Blackhawk Hunter grip frame will catch on, after all there is no square-backed trigger to scare people, or scar them.

I once again parted with the gun. I left it for Burt to finish polish and re-blue the gripframe. I also had Burt do some sanding on the grip panels, to try and clean up my belt sander work.

When I returned a few weeks later, my gun was in parts, and in it's usual cigar box. I peeked in on it, and was amazed at how well he cleaned up the grip panels. All that was was left was for me to do some fine sanding and to apply the polyurethane finish. The gun went back together and was declared finished, but what did I really accomplish?

I spent 4-5 hours a Saturday, about once a month for nearly two years up at my gunsmiths, helping out (learning), playing with, shooting (it's called test firing in the biz), and sighting in other peoples guns. Oh yea, occasionally I even tinkered with my Packin' Pistol - Burt always seemed able to make time for it whenever I did.

I ended up with a gun that has a grip frame and grips that I find comfortable, even with the heaviest loads that you can put through a six shot Ruger (not that I care to push it that hard, but I have).

I ended up with a gun that has the reliability of fixed sights, and shoots to point of aim.

I ended up with a gun that has an improved sight picture over the factory version, but has a sight that can change with my eye sight over the years.

I ended up with a gun that is accurate, how accurate? I'm not sure, I rarely shoot at paper. This is a working gun, not a target gun, but last weekend I was shooting with some friends. I was shooting at a 4.5" steel spinner at 25 yards, standing off-hand. I spun it 47 of 50 shots. Why the three misses? I wasn't paying enough attention and I was getting cocky, those were the last three shots of the day. This gun seems to hit where I aim it, and when I do shoot it at paper from a bench, there are often several holes touching.

I ended up with a gun that will be fed one load for the rest of it's foreseeable future, but due (apparently) to the reamed cylinder throats, and the Taylor throat cut into the bbl - I ended up with a gun that seems to shoot almost any load well. (It should however be mentioned that this gun was a fair shooter to begin with.)

I ended up with a gun that is powerful, practical, and packable.

I think that I ended up with the Perfect Packin' Pistol. - JM.

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