Tips for shooting a SA Blackhawk?

[TargetTerror]

I took my new 44 mag Blackhawk to the range finally, and my capability with it was less than stellar. I'm 99% sure that the problem is me - my grip, and some flinching/anticipation.

I own a 686 and SP101, and can shoot both with full house .357 mags very accurately off hand. I actually traded in a Blackhawk in .357 for Smith b/c I shot it so much better. But, something about the SA platform calls to me, so I just had to get one in 44 mag

The Blackhawk seemed seemed to be EXTREMELY sensitive to my grip. Holding the grip slightly differently, with either hand, and/or putting more or less pressure on certain areas really changed the POI significantly. Have others found this to be the case? Is this a function of the way that a SA recoils? I've never experienced POI change so drastically with grip changes with any DA revolvers.

Is there a recommended technique for holding a SA? I know that whatever works most consistently for me is the best grip, but is there a starting point or general recommendation for how best to hold a SA revolver? At one point, I actually seemed to be getting better groups holding with 1 hand. I then tried gripping the gun with my shooting hand as though shooting 1 handed, and then lightly wrapping my off hand around my shooting hand. Basically, most of the pressure on the grip was from my shooting hand pinching the front and rear of the grip; the off hand was basically just steadying the shooting hand, but not really supporting the grip directly.

 

[ZeSpectre]

Some folks like to put their pinkie finger UNDER the grip on a blackhawk. I have a touch of arthritis in my pinkie so the jarring it gets that way is really unpleasant for me.

The old "plow handled" gun were designed for one handed shooting (cowboy on a horse, gun in one hand and reigns or lasso in the other <grin>). The grip technique is a LOT different from Semi-Auto or modern double action revolvers.

My best suggestion would be to talk to some cowboy action shooters... oh and buy some A-Zoom Snap caps and load your gun randomly with .44 Mag and snap caps. You'll soon see how badly you are flinching and then you can correct that as well.

I just got my .357 Blackhawk. Shooting it at moderate speed (single handed) I managed this at 21 ft.



Of course when I ran it out to 75 feet (just for grins) things changed just a little bit. (Hey, all six hit the paper -someplace-)

 

[DMK]

It could just me that you are incompatible with the standard plow handle grip.

I never could get used to the plow handle. I got a Bird's Head on my Vaquero and I'm in the process of converting my Single Six to a Bisley.

You could try a different set of stocks. Hogue makes some bigger rubber ones. There are some more modern wooden target grips around.

CDNN has a few different ones. I tried these on my Single Six. they are comfortable, but I just didn't like how they looked.

 

[Shawnee]

Hi Target...

Your 686 grip has a "recoil shoulder" - the part of the grip frame that is against the web between your thumb and forefinger. This design feature allows your hand to "receive" the recoil (as well as enables correct DA triggering), and you have apparently learned the right grip for controling the gun in that situation.

With single-action guns there is no such "shoulder" to bring the recoil into your hand. The "plow handle" grip design of SAs rolls up when the gun is fired. With them, your hand does not "receive the recoil" so much as it "rides the recoil" backward and upward. Your single-action gun will instruct you on the grip it needs. If the barrel is recoiling straight back and straight up, you've got the right grip. If the gun is torquing in your hand you're gripping wrong.

Sometimes a DA shooter will try to use the back part of a SA grip as a "recoil shoulder" - thus holding the SA too low on its' grip. That doesn't work and is a good way to get that torque going. But once they feel the difference between "receiving the recoil" and "riding with the recoil" they've usually solved their grip gliches and their accuracy improves substantially. If difficulties persist it may be a sign that the grips are a poor fit for that particular shooter's hands (not too uncommon). The Bisley grip-frame was developed for target shooters to provide a sort of "recoil shoulder".

HTH

 

[MCgunner]

I shoot mine just like my DAs from modified weaver or from isosceles and have no problems. I do loop my little finger under the trip to bring it back down on recoil. If you continue having problems, look around for a larger grip. I have one picked up at a gun show and put on my Blackhawk. It is large, whole hand goes on it, has finger grooves, feels like a DA grip, but the top is more rounded. It's zebra wood, looks a little funky, but shoots well. But, I have no problem with my .45 Colt light or heavy loads and regular Ajax Sanbar stag grips on it.

I don't know, I'm not real good at describing grip or technique, been shooting SAs for near 40 years now. My first was a Hawes SA .22/.22 mag. I'd just say practice, follow some of the above suggestions, and be consistent. Sight the gun in, might help.

 

[MrBorland]

Could just be a bad flinch. For some reason, I tend to flinch when I shoot my Blackhawk, but not when I shoot my DA revolvers. Could be I'm so used to a DA trigger, anticipating the "sudden-ness" of the SA trigger break makes me flinch. I know I flinch because I generally include 1 empty case in the cylinder, and I can see the muzzle duck & dive when I pull the trigger on an empty round. Give this trick a try to see if you're flinching. In my experience, this is better than assessing a flinch by dry-fire only, since if your mind knows there are no live rounds in the cylinder, you won't flinch. Might be a different story entirely if you're expecting the gun to fire.

 

[zxcvbob]

Try shooting .44 Specials or .44 magnum "cowboy" loads and see if the problem disappears. (I think you have a flinch.) I have (had?) a flinch problem when shooting .45 Colt +P, but not .357's. The .45 kicks harder than a full-house .357 Mag, and your .44 Mag kicks harder than a .45 Colt.

I backed off the powder a little, and practiced shooting loading only 4 or 5 rounds and I didn't know where the empty cylinders were. Now my hand is steady when the gun goes "click" instead of "bang!", but I'll bet I still have a little bit of flinch. It'll go away with more practice.

 

[Shawnee]

Hi Target...

MrBorland and ZXC.. are telling you straight and the excerise they recommend works great. Often when a handgun shooter flinches the result is buillets hitting low, more or less directly below the aiming point. Definitely give what they suggested a try !

 

[peacemaker45]

Ok, I'm a SASS shooter, and pretty experienced with SAs. My match guns are short barreled Colt clones, but I do like to play with my big Supers as well.

A few things I've learned:

The gun starts to recoil before the bullet leaves the barrel. That's why different factors such as bullet weight, grip pressure, flinching, etc, impact the path of the bullet the way they do.

.44 Mag has to be approached carefully, if you're used to lighter calibers. For some reason, maybe something as simple as all the talk that goes on about the .44, and other big boomers, the brain refuses to apply a lot of the things that work for lighter calibers. Even if you don't flinch with a .357, or .45 or other "normal," caliber, the brain's going to want to do it with the .44.

There are a lot of things that gunmakers have done to tame the .44. Things like heavy guns, to slow the recoil impulse; porting, rubber grips, recoil shoulders, finger grooves, a lot of things. The standard Ruger Super Blackhawk has none of these things. As big as they are, they aren't really all that heavy. I was at the range recently, and shot another guy's .44, for comparison purposes. His was a scoped Anaconda, with a ported 8" barrel, full underlug, of course, with rubber finger groove grips. It was pretty effective in taming the recoil. When I shot my Ruger again, it was more like a wild animal.

It's still entirely possible to shoot it accurately, and well, however. First, one needs to learn the platform. It's not a DA, and has a lot of characteristics that are different. Before you move into learning to deal with the Magnum level recoil, noise, etc, start with .44 specials. That's a less taxing way to learn how the gun should be gripped, and such.

My technique for shooting a big ruger SA: grip the gun fairly low, so that your trigger finger is straight, not bending down to get the trigger. middle and ring finger spread, somewhat. Pinkie curled under the grip, to anchor the gun in your hand. The wrist should be straight, with the axis of the bore in line with the long bones of your forearm. My stance looks like a weaver, with the shooting arm straight, support arm bent, body bladed away from the target. The difference is that I'm not using the push-pull tension that's the heart of the weaver technique. The support hand is kept mostly loose, with the fore and middle fingers making a shelf in front of the trigger guard to help support the weight of the gun. The support hand thumb is used for cocking the hammer. That's really good for speed, and decent for accuracy. If really fine target work is needed, you can mold the support hand around the shooting hand, isoceles style. Either way, use gentle, even pressure all around the grip. No "hot-spots," of pressure, or gun won't recoil in predictable directions, and consequently, the bullets won't fly in predictable, consistent directions, either. For accuracy, everything is consistency. With your grip, breath control, stance, sight picture, and trigger pull the same, every time, your bullets will hit in the same place every time.

What you do NOT, repeat emphatically NOT want to do is try to "control," the recoil. Do not try to choke the living sh#t out of the gun. Do not try to hold the muzzle down during recoil. Do not use push-pull weaver style tension.

Here's why: A .44 Mag, without any of the fancy modern taming tech, is going to recoil. The harder you grip the gun, the more it's going to hurt you. When you try to hold the muzzle down, what is actually happening is that you're snatching the gun low immediately BEFORE recoil, so your shots are pushed low. I've seen guys try to compensate, by adjusting the sights way up, so that it looks like they're shooting on target, but it's not that consistent. They still wind up with a group that looks like a vertical string, rather than a cluster. When you pull backwards on a gun that's about to recoil like a .44 Mag, it does strange things. The gun usually flies back and to the left, with shots going left as well. It also promotes flinching, because the brain sees something flying in the direction of the left temple, and wants to close the eyes and duck.

Properly done, the gun will recoil straight up and back. With the pinkie anchoring the gun in your hand, you won't be losing your grip between shots, so you can recover straight down. That even works on my buffalo horn grips, which are about as smooth as glass.

Anyhow, sorry for the novel length post, but some subjects push my verbosity button, I guess.

~~~Mat

 

[zxcvbob]

Mat,
I shoot mine (.45 Colt that thinks it's a .44 Mag) better one-handed. I can shoot it faster two handed (not much faster) just because I can thumb the hammer with my off hand. It has the Bisley grip, so that might make a difference.

 

[TargetTerror]

Thanks Mat, that is EXACTLY the sort of reply I was looking for! I'll let you know how I progress.

 

[Steve C]

I just put on these grips last week on my .41 mag Black Hawk. They cost me a princely sum of $3.99 from CDNN. http://www.cdnninvestments.com/rublsixtarug.html
They fill the hand and there's room for the pinky finger, they feel good to me as well as absorb the recoil a bit. I'm quite happy with them.

Tried them out with a new load of 9.5grs Unique behind a 215gr LSWC and got this sub 2-1/4" extreme spread results at 25 yds.

 

[Sun195]

I just put on these grips last week on my .41 mag Black Hawk.

The .41 seems a lot more manageable to me than the .44 does. My friend has an old Blackhawk in .41 that is just a pleasure to shoot even with the wood grips.

 

[peacemaker45]

Mat,
I shoot mine (.45 Colt that thinks it's a .44 Mag) better one-handed. I can shoot it faster two handed (not much faster) just because I can thumb the hammer with my off hand. It has the Bisley grip, so that might make a difference.

Yup. The Bisley gripframe, and the low Bisley hammer spur are optimized for one handed shooting. In SASS, they are one of the most popular guns in the Duelist (one handed shooting) category. I just picked up a pair myself, and they really are different animals from standard plowhandle guns.

Thanks Mat, that is EXACTLY the sort of reply I was looking for! I'll let you know how I progress.

Anytime. If you need any more help, or anything explained better, PM me and let me know. I'll be happy to help.

~~~Mat

 

[Hikingman]

There's nothing wrong with working up from smaller (felt recoil) bullets until you have some time to get more used to it. Hopefully, you will. The 44 mag. Blackhawk is good one.

 

[countryrebel]

I shot a ruger 44 with bisley grip and it was a lot more comfy than the plow grip.