Ruger Bisley barrel swap

1911A1 fan

New member
I already own a RB with a 7 1/2" and a Tasco Pro point and it's great for deer hunting but I would love to have one in 4 5/8". Will Ruger sell me a barrel or will I need to have my gunsmith cut one down and re sight it? I went to Rugers web site and they have no contact information. Thanks for any help you can give.
 

Jim March

New member
The ultimate upgrade from where you're at would be to have a good gunsmith put a custom barrel on it, and at the same time do a linebored cylinder matched to the barrel. Accuracy would be *killer* :).

One question you need to ponder: do you want a front sight at all, or just run the Tasco?

Second, is this a Stainless gun, or blue?

If the accuracy with the current barrel is good, the cheapest solution is to chop the existing barrel, or have a gunsmith do it. Regardless of whether or not you use a factory 4.6" barrel, a custom barrel or chop what you've got, the front sight needs to be totally re-mounted regardless. If your current barrel is stainless, the job won't take very long because there's no re-blue job needed.

If it were my gun, I'd call Ashley Outdoors and get one of their revolver front sight mounts, on which you can put a small dot or large dot Tritium front sight as you prefer (the mount is dovetailed for the sight, allowing quick swaps later). This is a far superior setup to the stock front sight. That's if you even need it, as you say, you've got the Tasco.

Ah, another point: what is your barrel to cylinder gap set at? If it's huge, .007 or some such crap, the custom barrel option will fix that, or you can have the factory barrel turned in at the same time it's chopped.

Last: if you're going to do a custom barrel, you can also have a caliber conversion done at the same time. A .45 barrel will cost the same as a .44/.357/whatever, and boring the factory cylinder up to .45LC won't cost that much. The .45LC is in my opinion and that of many others the best hunting caliber for Blackhawks available.
 

1911A1 fan

New member
I'm looking to buy another Bisley for this project and keep the one that I have for hunting and use the project gun for packing, The Bisley IMHO is the best for managing recoil, and the 4 5/8 barrel would be more pack-able. What would be a good after-market barrel?
 

Jim March

New member
There's a lot of barrel makers out there; I'd use whatever barrel one of the better SA smiths like Linebaugh, Jim Stroh at Alpha Precision, Clark's, Gary Reeder or whoever is using. In .45, you have a choice between 1:16 twist for conventional loads, and 1:20 which can only stabilize 300grain and up at fairly serious velocities (1,200fps or more, I think).

The Ruger factory .45 barrel is 1:16, same as almost all 1911 barrels.

If you're going to have a new gun seriously upgraded with custom barrel and the like, start with a smaller caliber than what you want to end up with, and note that stainless will speed up the process via lack of bluing needed. If you want a .44Mag, start with a .357 - for a .45, start with a .44. That way, the cylinder that's already fitted to the gun gets up-bored to exactly the spec you want; one issue with Ruger .45LC cylinders is that they're a tad oversize. By starting with a .44 or smaller cylinder, you can have it internally polished to perfection for easy ejection (drop-free with good brass) without going even bigger on the cylinder bore. Polish a factory .45LC cylinder and if you take it too far, the brass will be seriously distorted on firing, in a few cases dangerously so.

Linebaugh and Jim Stroh both mention which barrels they use. Jim is at http://www.alphaprecisioninc.com I think it is, and Linebaugh is linked off of www.sixgunner.com
 

JoeHatley

New member
I wanted the same thing. Had to build my own. Started with a short barreled Blackhawk and swapped out the grip frame, trigger, and hammer with Bisley parts.

fe3ba4c1.jpg


Fun project...

Joe
 
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Steve Smith

New member
You're looking for what I just bought

A FACTORY Ruger 5.5" barrelled stainless Bisley. Yeah, I know "they don't make them." They made a few hundred for a company called Acu Sport a year or so ago...I just bought one!! (sorry, I'm stoked, I can't help but gloat)

I'd been looking for something like it for three years, off and on. One day I just got lucky and someone told me he had a brand new one for sale, I did not blink.

The only other way to ge tthis primo combination, is:

Buy a 4.5 or 5.5" Blackhawk, then have the Bisley grip frame added, (cheapest route)

Buy a Bisley and have the barrel shortened, and have the front sight re-attached and adjusted for the new sight radius. (expensive)

Buy a Vaquero Bisley at the correct length.

Good luck with your search. Don't forget to look for a Acu-Sport edition factory model. No, mine is not for sale! :)
 

1911A1 fan

New member
Thanks you all

It looks like I'll buy the BH and get the Bisley grip, hammer, and trigger and do it my self. You know Ruger should read the firing line, if they did I could have had the wheel gun of my dreams years ago. The Vaquero is out because I would like to have more than one load shoot point of aim. Oh well, off to my project.
 

Jim March

New member
If you're gonna modify a Ruger SA...

I set up a thread with the best upgrade goodies and tips, at:

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=80872

I would particularly recommend checking out Power Custom's Bisley hammer and trigger setup. It'll be more expensive than factory bits, but far higher quality and with some interesting side effects, such as a half-cock mode that allows lining up the cylinder with the loading gate right on each click as youspin the cylinder. This helps SASS people load five correctly as per SASS rules.

There's a ton of other neat stuff in that thread.
 
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