Six of One... Half Dozen of Another, or

I’ve always been a Ruger Blackhawk fan, owning, shooting and reloading for 41 Remington Magnum, 44 Remington Magnum and 45 Colt versions. Excellent guns that have seen a good deal of use at the range and, occasionally, have seen back up duty while rifle hunting, but rarely used as a primary firearm. Other than some experience with single shot break action handguns, I’ve not felt as through I had the eyesight, or critical trigger control, to consider big game handgun hunting. Recently, however, a 454 Casull Ruger Super Redhawk based project altered my perceptions.

I think I was surprised that the combination was relatively easy to shoot and not punishing in recoil or report. The metallic sights were precise to twenty five yards, even with my less than stellar eyesight. With the addition of a Bushnell handgun scope and a little practice, my reach with the gun was extended to fifty yards, well within range for woodland deer, black bear and hog hunting. The longer barrel generated solid ballistic performance, the integral scope mounts made scope installation a snap, so the only question became, which is better for hunting, a Super Redhawk or the Blackhawk?

45 Colt or 44 Mag?

I could have compared the revolvers by using my 45 Colt Ruger Blackhawk Bisley and 454 Super Redhawk, both loaded with the same 45 Colt ammunition, as both guns have a 7.5″ length barrel. But the Bisley doesn’t have integral scope mounts and wouldn’t allow a scoped side by side comparison and I wanted to shoot performance factory ammo that wasn’t considered specialty factory loads, as is the case with boosted pressure .45 Colt ammunition. So I decided to work with a 44 Magnum Ruger Super Redhawk and a .44 Magnum Ruger Super Blackhawk Hunter.

The Super Redhawk, with its frame extension, appears to be a very large revolver, but it actually is not. It is smaller than a S&W Model 29 and about the same size and weight as the Super Blackhawk Hunter. In more quantified terms –

A Bushnell 2-6×32 Elite handgun scope was mounted on both the Super Blackhawk and Super Redhawk for longer range shooting assessments. This scope was used for a 454 Casull project and this project. A couple hundred rounds of each type ammo had no adverse effect on the scope.

Same barrel length, same ammo… almost same results

Test barrels vary within a SAAMI allowable length, typically between 4″ and 6″ for the 44 Remington Magnum. So I am not suggesting that this pair of Rugers magically deliver higher velocity, but I am suggesting the 7.5″ barrel length gives a meaningful boost to .44 Remington Magnum performance.

Metallic sight groups shot at 25 yards; Redhawk, left, Blackhawk, right – 1.2″ and 1.0″ respectively. yes, both were shot from a steady handgun rest, well supported barrel and grip. I did not adjust sights for bullseye and shot each to center as group size was the only interest.

Bushnell Scope

Same rest set up, but with the addition of the Bushnell 2-6×32 Elite handgun scope mounted with the hardware supplied with both Ruger revolvers and shot at 50 yards. The Super Redhawk’s best group was 0.8″, the best Super Blackhawk was 0.6″… or about one quarter the size of the first groups I shot while getting familiar with the guns and the scope set up. All groups were shot out of my supply of 180 grain Federal Classic ammo, but none of the ammo noted shot much differently. The Speer 270 grain shot the largest group, but only about 50% larger and much of that could be attributed to the effects of heavier recoil.

Indecisive is such an ugly word…

I guess we can thank Ruger for making two guns, one double action and one single action, that can deliver essentially equal performance. Both guns are tough, both are of a modern, modular design and without an excessive of tiny parts or flat springs. Subsequently, reliability and durability wouldn’t be an issue with either. Accuracy is excellent with both, scope mounting is easy with both and, apparently, grip shape is workable with both. Maybe Ruger makes this decision easy, 454 Casull, the Super Redhawk. 44 Remington Magnum, the Super Blackhawk. Yeah. I’ll go with that.