Will Ruger ever step it up and make a 5 shot Big Bore to compete with the Smith 69?

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98s1lightning

98s1lightning

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Do you forsee Ruger ever stepping it up to make a 5 shot medium frame trail gun in 41mag, 44mag, 45 colt????

Or is it just not worth it, people but the GP100's, Redhawks and Super Redhawks so why bother? Maybe it is not a good business move on their part to put $$$ into engineering for a limited amount of sales.

Plus now that they have the sleeved barrels.....idk how I feel about a brand new Ruger. I see quite a few Lipsey GP models have ditched the plunger/quick change front sight for a novak cut. I think that's a money saver for them too. I like the old plunger sight.

I'm OK with admin to pull this thread if this topic has been beaten to death already.
 
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If you're really dedicated to 5 just leave an empty hole in your .45 Colt Bisley BH, or man up to their 5-shot .454 Bisley BH. . . or a .454 Alaskan.

Seems to me Ruger's covered the .45+ revolver territory pretty thoroughly for their price point.
 
Its the size/packability of the medium frame gun I prefer. I always end up going back to the GP100 357. I have talked to some big name custom gun makers and they have told me for the price point of converting the GP to big bore, and how heavy the recoil can get and beat up the gun.....just stick with what I got. I get 1300fps with a 170gr 357 from a 5" gun.

I was told the 10mm GP is the stronger candidate for conversion because it has more material where the barrel threads are. Something is different there.

And the 44 special GP just isn't for me, in my opinion you have to load the 44 special pretty hot to compete with heavy 357 loads and the GP44 is too fragile in the forcing cone area for heavy loads.

Even if they made it in 41 mag only. I would be into that.
 
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I should have used different wordage then "step it up". I'm a big ruger fan and they offer a wide array of models for all applications at an affordable price. More impressive, I think, that other companies.

My want is a specialized piece and its probably not reasonable to expect them to produce for such a limited market.
 
I agree that it would be cool to see a Ruger competitor to the S&W 69, maybe we'll get close with the Super GP100 series at some point, but they'll be larger. I had several S&W 69's and several GP100 .44's. I like that the 69 shoots 44 Mag however, I didn't like shooting 44 Mag from it, overall I liked the GP100 44 much better. It's pretty strong, some worry about the forcing cone but I don't know how big of an issue it really is, the 44 Special even loaded hot isn't that terribly high pressure of a round.
 
98s1lightning said:
And the 44 special GP just isn't for me, in my opinion you have to load the 44 special pretty hot to compete with heavy 357 loads and the GP44 is too fragile in the forcing cone area for heavy loads.
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Ive run almost 1000 240s at just under 1k from my gp100, im not sure id WANT one of those in .44mag.

I have been considering buying a 10mm Auto gp100 and reaming the chambers to 10mm Magnum.
 
I always looked at the GP100 as 686 sized revolver,
I own a Security Six which is noticeably smaller than the GP100 ....
If I was shopping for a 44Mag the 69 seems a perfect tote’n option...
To me the 44 Spl is perfectly suited in the small Charter Arms Bulldog.. noted, standard pressure only ...
But why hotrod the 44 spl ?
Just carry a 69 it basically the same size as the GP100
 
The “tell the CEO” is not up right now for some reason. I’m all in on a 44 special bulldog for street use. If I didn’t have my undercover that would be my main carry. I haven’t dipped my toes into the 4x calibers yet cause it’s going to make me reload and I don’t want to
 
Watching stock prices and market volume, of the two, I don’t think Ruger is the one who needs to “step it up”.

Revolvers are a dying market, especially big bore magnum belt or pocket guns, and Ruger has done well to take over a dominant position in the revolver market by improving and implementing production technologies which provide equal or better products at lower relative costs. Producing a unique frame to share an exceptionally small and shrinking percentage of the market just isn’t good business sense.
 
Varminterror said:
Watching stock prices and market volume, of the two, I don’t think Ruger is the one who needs to “step it up”.

Revolvers are a dying market, especially big bore magnum belt or pocket guns, and Ruger has done well to take over a dominant position in the revolver market by improving and implementing production technologies which provide equal or better products at lower relative costs. Producing a unique frame to share an exceptionally small and shrinking percentage of the market just isn’t good business sense.
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Unfortunately...... :)
 
98s1lightning said:
Do you forsee Ruger ever stepping it up to make a 5 shot medium frame trail gun in 41mag, 44mag, 45 colt????
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No, I don't know think so.

My experience with Ruger leads me to believe that they like to engineer and build guns that can take a steady diet of SAAMI spec ammunition. I don't believe a medium frame revolver could handle a steady diet of top end factory ammunition in those cartridges. Sure S&W has the 69, but I doubt it could take regular usage of 300gr .44 mag without some noticeable premature wear. Though the shooter may also take some noticeable premature wear.

If Ruger thought the GP100 could safely handle a diet of heavy .41 Magnum, they may well have produced one by now. So purely speculating, I'm guessing they decided it's a bad idea.
 
I doubt Ruger will offer a .44 mag version otherwise they would have done so by now. If they had decided to do so instead of coming out with the .44 SP only one set of engineering costs would have been incurred vs. two for the Special and the Mag. From what I can deduce to come out with the mag would require widening the frame to allow for a thicker forcing cone as was done on the 69. A slightly longer cylinder and attendant window in the frame would also be desirable. If one didn't want the Ruger "overdesign" for caliber it could be done with fewer changes as seen in the dimensions of the Taurus medium frame .44's. I doubt Ruger would go this route and also now is faced with sharing the small market with the 69 leading to less potential sales volume.

Regarding the change in sight design (front) on the 2 piece barrels I have a hunch that this came about not over cost but that the interchangeable sight system would not work on the 2 piece barrels as there is not solid top rib. I imagine it could be redesigned but then another cost is incurred.
 
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There will never be a .45 GP in any flavor. There just isn't enough real estate for it.

Ruger would have to do what S&W did, redesign and enlarge the front of the frame to accommodate a larger barrel shank. No way of knowing whether they will do that or not.

Personally don't want to shoot a .44Mag in a 34-36oz GP platform. The .44Spl does everything I want in a sixgun of that size and weight.

GP%20walnut%2001.jpg
 
RugRev said:
I doubt Ruger will offer a .44 mag version otherwise they would have done so by now. If they had decided to do so instead of coming out with the .44 SP only one set of engineering costs would have been incurred vs. two for the Special and the Mag. From what I can deduce to come out with the mag would require widening the frame to allow for a thicker forcing cone as was done on the 69. A slightly longer cylinder and attendant window in the frame would also be desirable. If one didn't want the Ruger "overdesign" for caliber it could be done with fewer changes as seen in the dimensions of the Taurus medium frame .44's. I doubt Ruger would go this route and also now is faced with sharing the small market with the 69 leading to less potential sales volume.

Regarding the change in sight design (front) on the 2 piece barrels I have a hunch that this came about not over cost but that the interchangeable sight system would not work on the 2 piece barrels as there is not solid top rib. I imagine it could be redesigned but then another cost is incurred.
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Good call on front sight. It must interfere with 2pc bbl design. Also once bored to 44 the plunger sight may have been in the way.
 
98s1lightning said:
Do you forsee Ruger ever stepping it up to make a 5 shot medium frame trail gun in 41mag, 44mag, 45 colt????

Or is it just not worth it, people but the GP100's, Redhawks and Super Redhawks so why bother? Maybe it is not a good business move on their part to put $$$ into engineering for a limited amount of sales.

Plus now that they have the sleeved barrels.....idk how I feel about a brand new Ruger. I see quite a few Lipsey GP models have ditched the plunger/quick change front sight for a novak cut. I think that's a money saver for them too. I like the old plunger sight.
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If they think there is money to be made they will. Ruger is pretty good about making a buck, as they should be. They won't last long if they sink a bunch of money into things that go south.

What would it cost to develop and market such a firearm? Maybe quarter of a million dollars. Got to sell a lot of guns to make back the up front costs.
 
They already offer the Redhawk 44 magnum. And the Blackhawk too, for that matter. The share of the 44 magnum market that they don't already cover must be fairly small.
 
ilbob said:
What would it cost to develop and market such a firearm? Maybe quarter of a million dollars. Got to sell a lot of guns to make back the up front costs.
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They would have more than 1/4 million into product marketing alone, before you even talked about design R&D, engineering, production planning and retooling, trademarks, legal fees, etc. Heck, they could have $20-50,000 just invested in a single casting mold, super easy to spend $50-100k just on market research to determine whether the product is financially viable or not.... There’s a lot more money in product development processes than most folks realize.
 
edwardware said:
If you're really dedicated to 5 just leave an empty hole in your .45 Colt Bisley BH, or man up to their 5-shot .454 Bisley BH. . . or a .454 Alaskan.

Seems to me Ruger's covered the .45+ revolver territory pretty thoroughly for their price point.
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OP wants a gun that smaller and lighter than a BH, but has the same power like S&W's Combat Magnum.

Honestly, what sense does it make to load a 6 shot revolver that has a transfer bar with only 5 rounds? Your response is the same as those I got when I asked years ago about Pietta or Uberti making a 5 round 1858 NMA police in .36. The point is a smaller, lighter revolver, not to only hold 5 rounds because... safety.
 
It would be interesting, but I doubt it. It would require a new frame size to be made because the GP100 is barely capable of hot loaded .44 Special, let alone full power .44 Magnum. The Redhawk frame is too large, so it would need to be something in between and I don't see Ruger doing it because I don't see the demand. People are generally averse to non rimfire 5 shot revolvers larger than a snub nose J or K frame, the only ones that gets much attention is Charter's in .357 or .44 Spl. Make it a .44 Mag and people seem to want a 6 shot for some reason, my guess is the weight to tame recoil.

The same goes for smaller frames too, I think me and three other people are down for a properly sized 5 shot .32 revolver in .32 ACP or S&W, but that's never going to happen.
 
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