During those years I had more custom sixguns built and in that time of experience and sixgun education, I had become dissatisfied with aspects of that first Bisley. In September of 2016, I had just received a fabulous best grade custom Ruger Bisley .500JRH from gunsmith Jack Huntington and was meeting up with Jack and others for a hunt down in Hondo, Texas. I carried the .44 Bisley for the last time on that trip, for the decision was made to send it home with Jack for its final makeover. The sixgun would maintain its .44 Magnum chambering but to take advantage of the longer heavy bullet handloads, as well as +P handload data provided by Brian Pearce and intended for the Redhawk, this sixgun was to be an all-out custom built just like a high end five-shot conversion, featuring an enlarged frame window to accommodate an oversized, linebored six-shot cylinder with recessed chambers. A completely rebuilt, refitted and blocked action. The grip frame would be decked and refitted once again. It would receive a new octagon barrel milled from a Pac-Nor blank in the same 4 5/8” length, a custom front sight with design cues taken from the Ruger #1 rifle. The whole sixgun would be hand struck and hand finished to keep all surfaces true and edges crisp. A special custom sixgun deserves special grips and this one would be finished off with perfectly-fitted Dall sheep horn by gripmaker extraordinaire Rob Rowen. Sheep horn is a beautiful and fascinating material for making custom handgun grips. There is much variation from horn to horn and you never quite know what you’ll end up with until the material is worked. Dall horn tends to be more white with the potential of having reddish or pink areas or streaks. While bighorn tends to be more caramel colored with the potential of a lot or just a little black content. It’s a difficult material to obtain as horns are not shed every year like antlers and those with big horned trophies are not likely to want to cut them up for grips. In our case we ended up with a little red showing through on both sides, more on the left panel than the right. It looks great on anything but I particularly like Dall sheep horn on stainless, nickel or hard chromed sixguns.
To say that I’m pleased with this sixgun would be a gross understatement. Huntington and Rowen took a prized sixgun and made it even better. Now to get to the shooting and decide whether or not it needs to make a trip to the engraver. In the meantime, it’s almost time to go to Hondo again, this time for water buffalo.
To say that I’m pleased with this sixgun would be a gross understatement. Huntington and Rowen took a prized sixgun and made it even better. Now to get to the shooting and decide whether or not it needs to make a trip to the engraver. In the meantime, it’s almost time to go to Hondo again, this time for water buffalo.
Perfection is finally achieved through the talents of Jack Huntington and Rob Rowen.
Perfection is finally achieved through the talents of Jack Huntington and Rob Rowen.
The beautiful Ruger #1 style front sight.
