[Mikul]

I have a Ruger Redhawk 5.5 inch that shoots painfully high at 50 yards with magnum rounds. I have the sight cranked all the way down and waaaaaaay off to the right. It's dead on for windage, but I still have to hold the top of the front sight half-way down the notch in the rear sight for elevation.

You won't believe this, but it still shoots high at 100 yards.

Any ideas?

This is a gun meant for 50 yard hunting, but it has to be cranked all of the way down and to the right to come close to hitting in this area.

[Mal H]

Any particular caliber? ;)

If you are sure it is the gun and not the shooter (it shoots the same from a benched pistol perch, not just a rest), then maybe the load is too mild for the sight design. That's purely a guess. It also could be that someone modified the front sight. Did you buy the gun new or used? A third possibility, although remote, is that the bore is not concentric with the barrel. You can check that by inserting a long rod of slightly less diameter than the bore. If the bore is off, it is magnified by the direction of the rod in relation to the barrel.

[larryw]

I have a 5.5" RedHawk in 44 Mag that does exactly the same thing (benchrest or offhand) shooting hot 240gr loads. Bought the gun new, and I'm getting ready to send it off to Ruger to be fixed.

[Cherokee]

Larry: I think Ruger offers different front sights and it might be you can get a taller front sight without the problem of sending the gun to Ruger.

[Mikul]

Larry, this is sounding very fishy. I was shooting 240gr Magtech .44 magnums when I was having this problem. I haven't tried any other loads at 50 or 100 yards.

Are you using Magtech ammunition as well? Does this same thing happen with other ammunition?

My gun is also new.

With the sights set for 50 yards, the gun shoots about 2 inches right when shooting at 10 yards with the gun loaded up with 44 Pokeys (210gr bullet at 600fps). Elevation is still dead on. The whole thing doesn't make any sense.

[larryw]

Thanks for the suggestion Cherokee, I was actualy planning on filing down the front sight, but that post won't help the windage problem, which is actually more frustrating.

All my 44 mag ammo are reloads. With the medium mag loads its a bit off (3-4") at 50. With hot hunting loads its off by a bunch (8+") at 50. This is with the sight cranked all the way down.

POI is far right regardless of the load; I have the sight cranked all the way over and its still about an inch off at 25.

[braindead0]

Filing down the front site?? Probably not what you want if you're already shooting high! ;-)

[larryw]

Yeah, I know, I'm braindead today...no wait, that's your handle...oh heck, never mind... :)

I'm going to go write, "Move front sight to chase POI; move rear sight in direction you want to move POI." one hundred times on the chalkboard.

[Mikul]

Larry,

That's funny, because I believe that is what Ruger is planning to have engraved on the right side of the barrel. The star spangled banner will be engraved around the cylinder.

[Steve Smith]

Ruger sets up their sights for different uses...to some degree.

Call them, tell them what load you're using, and ask if there's a better front sight fo your application. You could get it in the mail.

Worked for me.

[Mikul]

I would love to know what my sights are set up for. The gun shoots high at 10 yards, higher at 50 yards, and even higher at 100 yards.

I must have gotten one of those 600 yard sniper revolvers.

[WESHOOT2]

I have four. They all wear Millett orange-ramp front blades. They all shoot better than me.

[goon]

If the gun is new, I would send it back.
If it is YOUR problem, you could file the REAR sight.
I have done this before (S&W M-18) and it did work.
But I was only off by about 4 inches at 25 yds, and it only took a little bit of metal.
But still, the gun shouldn't be like that.
QC must have really gone down the crapper.

[Mikul]

I was able to fire it with my handloads. I was shooting 210gr SJHP at around 1500fps. The POI at 50 yards remains unchanged, but I am no longer high at 100 yards.

[ninenot]

Mikul, before you get Ruger all in a sweat:

I have an H&K 9mm, fullsize, which shot low--about 4" at 50 yards. Tried nine ways from Sunday to change POI with different sights--and it improved a tiny bit.

One day at range, I bought a box of 147 grain FMJ's. I had been using 125g FMJ's.

Gun shot dead on the target with the 147's.

Later read on TFL that the lighter rounds exited the barrel just a bit sooner than the heavier ones (OK so far,) meaning that the 147 got the benefit of just a Twitch more muzzle flip--thus elevating the POI to POA. Hmmmm..

In your case, you may wish to try a lighter round. If you are using 230's, try 195's, etc. The point is to get the round out of the barrel a little faster so that it doesn't take as much muzzle flip.

Might work. If nothing else, you've got another 50 rounds to break the weapon in with...

[mec]

bowenclassicarms makes a taller front sight for these for just this problem. Nice looking sight in the pictures. If it is really shooting way off to one side, Ruger probably needs to fix it though.

I half expected mine to shoot high with heavy bullet loads because my older Superblackhawks do. Lucked out though and can sight in with the worst of the bone crunchers.

[standingbear]

of course first thing i did was was sell those skinny wood grip and put on a new packmeyer presentation grip-some of my revolvers ive had i just couldnt hit nuttin with until i replaced the grips with pacmeyers.did you try a different grip?before you go cutting on your sights,maybe consider some rubber pac grips.this gun is a 44 mag,s steel and 7.5 inch barrel.could be several issues.start with the cheapest and try them all first before you go cutting on things.

[461]

My redhawk is dead on with all of the factory front sights. Now mine is a .357 so that may be the difference, but this pistol is "extremely" accurate.

[goon]

If you want the gun to shoot POA with 240gr bullets, then it should. Send it back. They made is half-a**ed, and they should fix it.

[Mikul]

Things have progressed (or degraded, depending on how you loook at it). I was shooting the revolver this past Saturday and the trigger kept hanging up every 3-4 rounds. When I got home, I took the whole thing apart according to the instruction booklet (boy was it scarey looking at all of those parts on the floor). After I put it all together, it was exactly the same.

Soooooooooo, I thought it might be particular cylinders that are binding so I began watching the gun try to do it's thing from the side. Well, it turns out that the cylinder gap disappears from time to time. In other words, the cylinder is rubbing against the forcing cone. If I push back on the cylinder, it turns normally.

I called Ruger, and they are going to pay for return shipping after I get back to them with my serial number.

[BigG]

IMHO a gun should shoot somewhere near the point of aim with standard ammo for the caliber. 240 gr is standard for the 44 Magnum so I would have a jaundiced eye toward an alleged 44 Magnum that could not be adjusted to hit point of aim. But that's me.

Also, a 147 gr is not standard for 9mm; 115 gr is. So it's a lucky accident the guy could get his HK to hit point of aim by changing to the 147 gr bullet. (Unless HK advertised the gun as a 147 gr model, did they?). Both examples are lack of reasonable manufacturing quality control to me.