Henry Rifle Forums

Put in a long day down at the range cutting the grass and working on shed project. But I did save some energy to shoot my Ruger Alaskan before I called it a day. Was shooting the 255 gr. Xtreme plated conical bullet loaded over 9.5 Unique...a healthy Colt 45 load.

The brick like mass of stainless steel with 2.5 inch barrel does make for a chubby snubby but it soaks up any recoil with the weight and nice big cushioned grip...remember it was designed for .454 Casull!
So I step back about 10 yds and give it a two hand grip and go double action for 6 shots at a quick rate. Shoots really well and I think a bullet or two may have gone thru same hole? The target I was using had been used before with that other hole you see thru the trigger guard.

Really bought it as a heavy duty DA to shoot any .45 Colt load you could imagine without any issues and short enough barrel to carry around.
Oh and the black bears are out and about now so it makes for handy bear protection. My carry load for woods use is 3 rounds of 315 gr. cast hammer head loaded over 10 gr. Unique and 3 rounds of 250 gr XTP bullet over 20 gr. of 2400 powder. I load them in the cylinder as one 315 and then a 250 and so on.

Nice revolver. I greatly prefer wheelguns as I like being able to retain all of the brass to reload. One ?, I can see using the Unique load but I wonder how much 2400 really burns in that short barrel.

Travlin wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 09, 2020 10:27 pm

Nice revolver. I greatly prefer wheelguns as I like being able to retain all of the brass to reload. One ?, I can see using the Unique load but I wonder how much 2400 really burns in that short barrel.

Good question... From my chrono tests with the 250 gr XTP bullet I was seeing 1107 FPS when loaded with 10.8 gr. of Unique and 1113 FPS when using
20 gr. of 2400 powder. May do another test to see if any difference in accuracy but mostly it is a revolver for shorter defense ranges.

Now the 315 gr cast bullets were clocked in the 900-920 FPS range using the 10 gr. Unique.

Nice shooting iron. I looked at buying one about a year ago but couldn't justify the investment for something to shoot 45 Colt. I don't think I'd ever load up some 45 Casull. I'm getting too old to beat myself up that much. For 45 Colt I'm looking for one of the older Ruger Vaquero's made on the large frame. They're the ones with the 2 digit serial number then the dash followed by the rest. The older Vaquero's will hold up to any 45 Colt load that a lever gun will.

Paul

The Ruger Super Redhawk grip and frame has always made for the most comfy to shoot big bore I've ever used, even if not the best looking gun. I actually sold off my standard SRH some years back because it was way too easy for me to shoot up a 50 round box of very expensive factory 44 mag ammo. Back in the day, I had a shooting pal who won the state championship big bore silhouette revolver class using a factory SRH.

I bet that snubby puts on a nice light show when the sun is low when you’re shooting the 2400 loads. That stuff tosses a lot of flash. I’m a big Ruger fan. I own several. N. Country Gal is right about Ruger comfort - even with larger calibers. Got a GP100 with the old style grips (the ones with the wood panels). That big chunk of steel with soft rubber grips makes the .357 smooth as silk. And shooting 38 specials is a breeze.

By the way - that’s some pretty good shooting for a bigger caliber snubby. Those short barrels a kinda tough to shoot well. Nice job!,