Reinforce my Belief of the GP 100

[RevolverGustav]

I know everyone (myself included) knows that Ruger's GP 100 is a great revolver, but we can never hear enough goods things of what we love, am I right? Post your expiriences of the GP100 here--ruggedness, accuracy, and any add-ons you've toyed with. I'd love to read them and I'm sure some others would, too.

 

[Huddog]

Purchased my first Ruger revolver, a GP 100, 6 inch .357 a month ago. Very good trigger out of the box. Bought for two reasons, always wanted a 6 inch DA .357 and needed a heavy duty weapon to take on a hog hunt my son and I have planned for next summer. I have always purchased S&W revolvers before but am very impressed with the GP 100.

 

[.38 Special]

Well it sure is ugly!

HTH!

 

[shooting4fun]

G'day RevolverGustav, and et al.,

My experiences with Ruger revolvers has been great. My GP-100 has handled everything from mild to wild rounds (stout pig hunting rounds). I also work out the GP during the action handgun matches where I'm not sporting a “bottom feeder”. Mr. Ruger and staff have put together what I feel is a great value. They were able to balance good engineering and clever manufacturing to produce products at exceptional retail price points.

There are some that do not care for some of the less refined points of the Ruger's designs. However, I'd challenge them to assess those areas as significant. If it is rough on the inside where it doen't matter or doesn't affect function, it is no big deal to me. Mr. Ruger and his crew have made it great where it needs to be. All that being said, there are some areas that will benefit from additional refinement to bring shooting enjoyment to a much higher level.

My revolvers are still 100% stock components with some slight modifications that make them much more enjoyable for me to use. Some of the modifications are strictly to enhance my “go faster” mode of operations. Note: In my experience the mods that I've executed have not compromised the function or reliability. At least not apparent in all my function testing, and that has been pretty significant over the years.

As a side bar additional benefit, detailed cleaning and maintenance on a Ruger is far more straightforward over other designs using all those screws and delicate side plates. Since I shoot quite a bit, I tend to check out my handguns more often. I'm aways on the lookout for unusual wear patterns or looking for things that need attention. So far with the Rugers, I detail them out, clean, and re-lube. Good to go. Interesting enough, after some initial wearing in, many of the critical measurements have not changed much over the years. So with those metrics I can say mine have aged nicely and are not showing any indication of getting tired. (me that may be a different situation...)

I don't have reservations recommending these revolvers. I also have no reservations about conveying my experience with my “high mileage” GP & SP patterns. They all deliver, and I'm a very satisfied customer.

Rest easy regarding your acquisition selection. You did well! Now get out there and do some turning and burning! Cheers!

 

[big44]

I've owned Ruger's, S&W, and a Colt Anaconda. I had to sell my gun collection when I was getting treatment for cancer. The first handgun I bought back was a Ruger. They are built much tougher than the Smith's or the Colt's, and I do like Smith's. But the Rugers are like Timex. They keep going and going.

 

[Matt-man]

I've got a 4" GP-100. I have small hands, and of all the revolvers I've shot the GP-100 grip fits me best with the added benefit of no exposed backstrap. The trigger on mine is nice and smooth. I've got the excellent Meprolight adjustable night sights on it and so equipped I think it's great house gun.

 

[RustyShackelford]

Ruger GP-100 add ons, products...

I bought a Ruger GP-100 .38spl and use it as my duty weapon. The GP-100 was a NYPD surplus gun and I like it a lot. I bought a Hogue Tamer rubber grip for it but did not get any other add ons yet. I saw some useful front sights at www.natchezss.com . Crimsontrace has a new lasergrip model for the Ruger GP-100 line too, www.crimsontrace.com . Geminicustoms.com does some good custom work to the Ruger models SP-101/GP-100.

I plan to buy a new Ruger GP-100 .357magnum with adj sights and get it "tricked out" , (plate work, recoil ports, lasergrip, etc)

www.robarguns.com www.clarkcustomguns.com www.geminicustoms.com www.apwcogan.com

RS

 

[DWARREN123]

I have a Ruger GP-100 (KGP-161) and it is accurate and easy to handle. Because of my experience with the GP-100 I have purchased 3 SP-101's in 357 mag, 32 mag, 22lr.
I do not think Rugers are ugly but that is me. I especially like the looks and feel of the 3" barrel SP-101 in 357 mag.

 

[Sisco]

I once suffered a major mental malfunction at the reloading bench. I decided to try some Bullseye and loaded up a few rounds at what I thought was 5.3 grains. Took 'em to the range, loaded a cylinder full and thought damn, thats some stout stuff! Starting load felt like my full house hunting loads!
Went to eject the cases from the cylinder and they wouldn't budge. Had to take the gun home and beat them out with a wooden dowel.
Went back to the bench and discovered I had loaded not 5.3 grains but 5+3 for a total of 8. Max load is around 6.
I don't know, a S&W or other may have handled them OK too but I was glad I was shooting a GP.
One endorsement for the strength of the Ruger is when you see a load recipe in the book and it states "Freedom arms or Ruger only".

 

[Legionnaire]

Bought my 4" GP100 second hand and box stock. It had been shot enough to be slicked up already. It's handy and accurate. What's not to like? I don't see any reason to trick it out further than it is. It's a workhorse; my preferred sidearm (backup) when walking the woods during hunting season.

 

[Nortonics]

The nastiest load I've ever shot from a handgun exited my 4" SS GP-100.

Now I handload most all my ammo, and I've worked up some nasty muzzle flipping concoctions in my day for the ol' .357.

Yet I was not prepared for the raw power I was about to experience with a certain commercial ammo - Corbon. Was shooting the Traditional 125 grainers I believe. Good God, lemme' tell ya - if someone were to hand ya these and tell ya they hand loaded 'em, you woulda' said "Christ all mighty, had a little problem measuring your powder throws huh??!!". Even if they're rated at 1400FPS/544FTLBS, I swear these were higher pressure than they were supposed to be!

Ten to a box - loaded six.

What a shock wave! Up until then I've never mouthed the term "pain" in terms of recoil. Finishing the final sixth round was eagerly anticipated. The remaining four remained in the box.

Come time to extract the shells, heh, yeah - these sure weren't coming out using the extractor rod, oh no. These required more. Grabbed the bamboo chop stick and small mallet from the range bag. Two shells I got out by jabbing forcefully with just the stick in my hand - the other four took the mallet with the stick.

I could hardly believe it! I thought for sure I damaged the cylinders - how could it not? Yet scrutinizing them with assorted measuring instruments proved otherwise.

To this day I get a weird feeling in my stomach every time I see those remaining four rounds of ammo that have been sitting in that box for years now.

A freaky testament to the strength of these guns.

 

[Jim March]

You can rely on a Ruger. Period.

One misconception though about ammo saying "Ruger or Freedom Arms only".

Pretty much all of that is in regards to 45LC (usually 45LC+P) ammo. Ruger has a habit of building all their 45LC guns (SA and DA) on 44Magnum-class frames with 44Mag-class heat treatments and metallurgy. These guns could handle "45LC" loads that would grenade many lesser pieces.

The only exception so far is the Ruger New Vaquero in 45LC - it's similar in size/heft to a Colt SAA and should not be fed the "gorilla loads".

For many years S&W was making 45LC N-Frame "44 magnum size" DA guns that had an inferior heat-treat than their 44Mag cousins. S&W did eventually stop this practice and toughened up their DA 45LCs by a decent margin; still not quite "Ruger grade" but at least not crippled. I don't know exactly when the change happened but I'm pretty sure all the "Mountain Guns" in 45LC have the upgrade and all recent-production S&W 45LCs.

Anyways. This doesn't really affect the GP100 in 357...there are no 357Mag loads being marketed as "Ruger only".

 

[RevolverGustav]

What's recoil like with the standard grips of the GP100 (either six or four inch barrel?) I can't find a bad word about them (besides looks, which I think are perfectly fine. May not have the curves of a Smith, but I see no problem) but I was just curious. How's balance with it (again, four or six inch)? And what barrel length is reccomended for standard target shooting and possibly a woods gun (see last.)

 

[Marshall]

My experience with my GP-100 is pretty boring. I pull the trigger, it goes bang and the bullet hits what I aim at, over and over, and over, and over, and over...........

Boring gun.

 

[Legionnaire]

My kind of boring! I have one just like it!

 

[revolverman357]

I have a 6" GP100 and I am very happy with it. It balances fine and the stock grips handle great, I plan on leaving it stock. I did put wolff springs in it to lighten up the hammer a little. Very smooth trigger on mine.

 

[Confederate]

I'm sorry, but I'm very bitter about the GP-100.

It's like a proud parent who has a second child, then kills the first. That's what happened when Smith & Wesson came out with the 686. It caused Ruger to produce the GP-100, but in the process they killed the Security-Six, which I think was a better gun. To boot, the GP-100 didn't even begin to measure up to the 686. It was as strong, but not as smooth, nor as accurate. It was a blocky, overly heavy .357. Fortunately, the Smith 66 survived for years afterwards, so hikers, campers and other outdoorsmen could still pack a comfortable piece.

In some ways I understand Ruger wanting to divest itself of the Security-Six. It wasn't making much money and Ruger's adverstising team had never fully exploited the s6's extraordinarily strong frame. I even saw on early CP/M-driven computer BBSs where gun users were warning other gun users that full throttle magnum loads should not be used in the 19/66s or the S6s!

Anyway, being a Ruger fan, I saw no reason to buy a GP-100 over the clearly superior Smith 686 (that is, if I wanted to lug that much steel around the countryside). So that's why I've never been enthusiastic about the former.

A model without the underlug would have been much better,
but such options were sorely lacking. This GP-100 is a .38 Spc.
How useless!

 

[Majic]

They should have never dropped the Six series.

 

[Bronco45]

I have a 4" blued model built in the late 70's. It is accurate and strong. I find the GP series easy to customize. As I have small hands and I swapped the adjustable sighted grip for the concealed carry grip. Fits my hand perfectly. Took about a minute. Wolff spring kit, reading instructions and everything incluiding reassembly 10 minutes. Firesight front sight 30 seconds.

Took me longer to fill out the order form to Brownells than to actually do the work of installing the new parts.

 

[HadEmAll]

Just like every other K and N frame S&W I owned, the 686 went out of time after only a few thousand full powered 125 grain 357s, while both GP100s I've owned have never gone out of time. The Python I owned was also out of time inside a couple thousand rounds. I'll state my opinion that the GP100 is stronger and tougher than ANY frame size S&W OR Colt .357 ever made, based on considerable experience with all the above. I don't know what S&W does wrong with the hands or extractor stars, but they still don't do it right, like Ruger does.

 

[10-Ring]

The GP is a really nice wheelgun. Stout, reliable, accurate & well made...what more could you ask for?

 

[Stephen A. Camp]

Hello. I own but one, but it has proven itself nicely. If interested, here is a range evaluation:

http://www.hipowersandhandguns.com/Range Evaluation - Ruger GP100.htm

Best.

 

[Confederate]

Just like every other K and N frame S&W I owned, the 686 went out of time after only a few thousand full powered 125 grain 357s, while both GP100s I've owned have never gone out of time. The Python I owned was also out of time inside a couple thousand rounds.

That really surprises me about the 686. I was told by a number of very good gunsmiths and an NRA gun writer that Pythons go out of time because of a very small pawl/hand that wears very quickly. Getting them hard chromed stopped this wear and prevented the gun from going out of time.

Smith K-frames would go out of time within a couple of thousand hot rounds. It could then be retimed, but if hot rounds continued to be fired through them, the frame could acutally warp, making the gun almost impossible to repair. I haven't heard any reports on the 686 until now and I'd like to know if that's normal or a fluke. Also, was it a 6-shot or extended shot?

Skeeter Skelton published a couple of articles claiming he knew of three Security-Sixes, each of which had in excess of 30,000 hot magnum rounds through them. None needed any parts replacements although one had begun to loosen and was expected to go out of time.

The Rugers have shown that solid-frame designs are the way to go in revolvers. The S6s also benefit from having dual springs. Most of the ones I've seen for sale look like they've been either used or abused. I suspect most of the primo ones are not likely to be sold. The 2 3/4-inch versions make great little camp and hiking guns.

The GP-100s would be better if they had a version without a full underlug. Sometimes people want a lighter .357 that they can comfortably carry in the field. The 3-inch version featured in the article referenced above looks like it would be the way to go. Wonder how much it weighed?

 

[biere]

I have been shooting my 3 inch gp100 lately and all I can say is that it is bone stock and after a couple thousand rounds it has what I consider a decent trigger pull.

I have been shooting it double action since I needed some good practice at keeping the sights on target for the long and heavier trigger pull.

To some extent I still wonder about a 4 or 6 inch gp100, but if I do get one I will go with the smaller grip like what my 3 inch has because I just like how it fits my hands.

Some searches on the 686 here and at the firing line will turn up lots of posts comparing the strength of teh gp100 and the 686.

I consider them about equal from personal experience. I own one of each and have not had any problems with either one yet, unless I caused said problem by doing something.

 

[Confederate]

I did hear a lot of early reports that 7-shot revolvers were going out of time, but Smith has had plenty of time to work that one out. I'd be willing to bet the 6-shot guns will be more trouble-free than extended shot (although an extra round or two would be awfully welcome).

If anyone knows anything about this, I'd be interested in hearing.