The old large throat vs small throat thing & don't forget to throw in there it's "only bullet casters that worry about throat dimensions".
Well I guess it comes down to:
What would be better when using a .429"/.430" bullet in .433" cylinders or .430" cylinders?
How much velocity would you loose when the .429"/.430" bullets have to expand to seal the escaping gasses of the .433" cylinders.
How much is accuracy affected when a .429"/.430" bullet has to bump up 3/1000th's+ to seal the cylinders & then get swaged back down to another 3/1000th's+ when it's in the bbl.
The cylinders are the same length on both revolvers:
Is it better accuracy wise and velocity wise to have less freebore/bullet travel in the cylinders 44spl oal vs 44mag oal?
A lot of posters want to use softer/milder shooting ammo so they chose a ruger. Odd, for some reason the same ammo can't be used in a m69? Can't 44mag ammo be loaded down to those levels? The s&w can be loaded down to the ruger ammo levels, can the ruger be loaded up the the s&w ammo levels? Much ado is made about the bbl shanks. ruger .513" vs m69 .620"
I swear I'm going to start pulling my hair out if I see 1 more post about how a ruger trigger is just as good as a s&w trigger after a bunch of work is done to the ruger. Just make sure that you take a hard look at the hammer pivot holes in the gp100 when doing your trigger job. Typically 1 hole is loose and the other side of the frame, the holes tight.
ruger gp100:
I have no idea why no one had brought up the gap between the front sight and the bbl. The dovetails are cut for a different sight and there's a gap under the sight. For range play, no big deal. For ccw, not something I'd want. But the good news For a mere $39 you can order a sight from dawlson precision that solves the sight/bbl gap. It will also take care of the gp100's shooting high at anything over 20yds. So you do the trigger job, check the hammer pivot pin, get a new front sight, have the cylinders honed/evened. You're still stuck with a low to mid-quality/priced firearm that you had to stick +/- $200 into that can only shoot oversized bullets/low powered loads. Yes low powered!!! If you think a hot 44spl load is anywhere near what a 44mag load brings to the table, then the ruger's your huckleberry.
Myself, I'd go with the m69. It can do everything the gp100 can do without all the drama. The gp100 couldn't even begin to do everything the m69 can do.
What, no endless rant about the Skeeter load??? I really wish you could post without all the veiled insults and condescension. It's fascinating how you have to imply that everyone but you is uninformed.
That's interesting. I would've thought there'd be some comments about the 5/8" group I posted, fired out of a box stock Ruger .44Mag from about two years ago. With commercial cast bullets sized .430" but I guess that doesn't fit the narrative. I guess we're going to pretend that S&W throats are always perfect?
Ruger is now low to mid-priced and needs a bunch of work??? Rugers are made like they always were. They have not spent the last 40yrs cutting more and more corners and cheapening their product to lower production costs. Sorry but the elements of fit & finish that S&W used to hold over Ruger no longer exist and haven't for some time. They've been replaced by two-piece barrels, injection molded innards, bead blasted finishes and synthetic grips. I have S&W's going back to the 2nd Model Hand Ejector but mostly from the `60's to `70's. I have them that have been tuned by professionals and nearly twice as many S&W's as Ruger DA's. So I know what a good DA trigger feels like. With that in mind, I can find very little to complain about with my late model Ruger DA triggers. No, they're not as good as they could be but nothing is. They are perfectly serviceable out of the box and their SA triggers are excellent. Yes, I did replace the front sight with a taller one, an easy five minute fix.
I'm fairly certain I know the difference between a "hot .44Spl load" and the .44Mag's capability.
Yes, I'd agree that a factory load using a 246gr roundnose at 700fps is "low powered". I do not agree that a 250gr Keith bullet at 950fps is "low powered". It's not a .44Mag load but I don't need it to be. Because when I'm walking the woods or hunting with a rifle, that's all I want. If I wanted more out of a mid-frame package, I would have bought the 69. It's that simple. However, when I need a real .44Mag load, I 'need' more sixgun to launch it from. S&W hasn't been my go-to for that, ever. Those crappy Rugers you refer to seem to do just fine and I don't recall one I've ever owned that wouldn't do 2"@50yds with .430" commercial cast bullets. As I said, for my purposes, the GP made better sense. Not to mention that it has a 5" barrel and is made from blued steel. So I reckon the 69 won't do everything the GP will do. Others obviously think and prefer differently and that is fine. We can discuss it without hostility.
PS, I didn't say that "only casters worry about throat dimensions". I said that casters obsess about minutiae. That round thing with the five or six holes that the cartridges go in, that's the cylinder. Those five or six individual holes, those are called chambers.