David Clements Ruger Blackhawk

[Gunsnrovers]

My first pistol was a Ruger Blackhawk .357 I bought in 1990. Just turned 21 and it was perfect.

Over time I became bored with it, but you can't sell your first gun. That would be wrong. What's a guy to do?

Well, I decided to send the gun off to David Clements for a conversion to .44spl. He removed the Ruger warning label from hell, restamped it to .44spl, rebored the barrel and opened up the cylinders, installed a new front sight, fitted a new base pin, made the cylinder free spin, gave it an action job, refinished the entire pistol, and case hardened the hammer.

Six months later I got this back and I'm in love all over again. I hope to hit the range Sunday to give her a test run.

 

[Ohen Cepel]

He does great work! Hope you enjoy it. Seems like a great idea to "revive" your first gun.

Please let us know your impressions after you shoot it and have it a while.

He also seems to be very reasonably priced compared to others in the market.

 

[CSA 357]

now thats a good looking single action!!!!!

 

[gwalchmai]

Very nice!

 

[MCgunner]

Love the grips, too! You could likely shoot handloads in that thing that would make Elmer Keith proud and it could do duty as bear protection in black bear country. Beautiful work. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Give us a range report! Do me a favor and shoot it off sand bags, too. Lots of guys here seem to think that's cheating, not bags in the field and all, but hey, if you tell me you got ten inch groups off hand at 15 feet, all that tells me is you're a sorry shot! I like to know what the GUN is capable of, not the shooter. Sure a sweet lookin' gun!

 

[BlkHawk73]

He does great work. Likely having him do a .44 special conversion for me on a .357 as well. Going with a 6 1/2" or 7 1/2" bbl proberly and having frame and hammer case hardened. hopefully it looks as nice as yours.

 

[Brian Williams]

Nice gun. I would like to get a nice Old model 357 and meybe get it bored to 41mag

 

[Jim March]

Cool! Now fill in the end of the ejector housing with epoxy putty, print out one of the forum smileys or make your own, trim it, paste it over the putty and seal with nail polish .

This would look good:



I'm surprised I haven't seen this before mine:

 

[asknight]

Beautiful work, sir. Do you have contact information for Mr. Clements that you could share? A brief web search turned up countless stories and photos of his work, but I haven't found Mr. Clements website yet.

Edited: Please disregard as I've found him at http://www.clementscustomguns.com/

 

[duckjihad]

Interesting. And timely. Just finished reading on Bowen's similar work on the ruger new models in G and A this weekend. His are $1500 to $2500 projects. If you don't mind, what did Clements hit you up for? BTW, I really like the looks of that revolver. Very nice and congrats.

 

[Gunsnrovers]

Just about $700.

After shooting it at the range on Sunday, I plunked down another $90 for a brass grip frame which I'll fit later this week.

It's going to be an $1100 pistol (including the base pistol) when it's all said and done, but I'm very happy with it.

The accuracy is awesome. The action slick. .44spl is very pleasant to shoot out if it.

 

[duckjihad]

I like this gun more every time I log on. Are those grips Eagle Grips?

 

[RGL01]

As my 16 month old son says, NICE!!!

Thanks for the great photos, and info.

 

[Gunsnrovers]

No, the grips are Altamonts.

 

[Catshooter]

Beautiful gun Jeff.

Can you give us a link to the grip manifacurer? I really like those.


Cat

 

[Gunsnrovers]

I got them from these guys:

http://www.handgungrips.com/

I've also picked up a few sets of S&W grips along them way from them. Good stuff.