One gent on the Ruger forum went down the rabbit hole with his Birdshead a few years ago https://rugerforum.net/ruger-single-action/65592-evolution-birds-head-boars-head.html I’ve never shot one but fondled one on sale once upon a time and wish I’d have jumped on it.
I've had a standard grip Super Blackhawk and currently have a Single Six Convertible. I've never held a Birdshead but I am seriously jonesin' for a Bisley.
My SBH has the standard plowshare frame. It abused my middle finger against the trigger guard until I replaced the grips with wooden Hogues (the gun in my avatar) and now it’s comfortable with my 270gr cast at 1,290fps load. You probably won’t go there with a birdshead. The cool thing about the .45 Colt is you can find ammo ranging from “cowboy” to bear busters. A friend began having arthritis issues after shooting so he began down loading his 7” Blackhawk with 255gr cast bullets over 6.5gr of Unique. After shooting at steel targets at over 400 yards one day we drove down range to find that his “Colt Lite” loads were penetrating over 8” into packed soil at nearly a quarter mile! You won’t need to worry about finding effective ammo that will be comfortable to shoot out of that little howitzer.
.....old folks like yourself should embrace that old world charm and style I think SA revolvers are as cool as hell, shot many when I was a young'n but have never gotten around to one of my own. Out here there are some additional licencing requirements for over .38cal that I don't want to deal with just to have a SA in .45LC or .44Mag, and a .357 just does not appeal in an oldtimey six gun.
Ruger 50th Anniversary .357 Blackhawk. I gave it the cocobolo grips and swapped in the Super Blackhawk hammer for the better spur shape. It is one of my favorite things. My favorite load is Hornady 180gr XTPs @1000fps. Duplicates the muzzle energy of 180gr .40 and 180gr .45ACP, but with better energy at 50+yds, better penetration, and without the nasty supersonic crack. All at moderate pressures.
I’ve got a Blackhawk in .357 with the 7” barrel. I wanted a single action revolver to go with my .357 lever action marlin. Great gun.
That's a good question, and I haven't tested them in media. That load is more of a 4-legged load than 2 - and generally the consensus is that penetration is more important in that context. It's not quite the large meplat of the really wide flat nose rounds, but similar in frontal area/shape to the classic flat nose softpoints. And they shoot REALLY well in that gun. Not the most cost-effective for punching paper, though...
Thanks. It'd be interesting to see how they stack up against some 180gr hard cast wadcutters penetration-wise.
One of the WFN cast bullets would be a good choice at Daizee’s @1,000fps. They penetrate well and do a lot of damage along the way.
