The Ruger Blackhawk is a six-shot,

single-action A trigger is a mechanism that actuates the function of a ranged weapon such as a firearm, airgun, crossbow, or speargun. The word may also be used to describe a switch that initiates the operation of other non-shooting devices such as a tra ...

revolver A revolver (also called a wheel gun) is a repeating firearm, repeating handgun that has at least one gun barrel, barrel and uses a revolving cylinder (firearms), cylinder containing multiple chamber (firearms), chambers (each holding a single ...

manufactured by Sturm, Ruger & Co. It is produced in a variety of finishes, calibers, and barrel lengths.

History

In the early 1950s,

Westerns The Western is a genre set in the American frontier and commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada. It is commonly referred ...

were popular in movies and television. Colt had discontinued the iconic Single Action Army prior to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, and few single-action revolvers were available to meet market demand for cowboy-style revolvers. In 1953, the new firm of Sturm, Ruger & Company introduced the Single-Six, a

.22 LR The .22 Long Rifle or simply .22 LR or 22 (metric designation: 5.6×15mmR) is a long-established variety of .22 caliber rimfire ammunition originating from the United States. It is used in a wide range of rifles, pistols, revolvers, smooth ...

rimfire single-action revolver. The Single-Six proved to be a popular seller, leading Ruger to develop and market a

centerfire Two rounds of .357 Magnum, a centerfire cartridge; notice the circular primer in the center A centerfire cartridge is a firearm metallic cartridge whose primer is located at the center of the base of its casing (i.e. "case head"). Unlike rim ...

revolver similar to the Single Action Army: the Ruger Blackhawk. The Ruger Blackhawk was named after the Stutz Blackhawk automobile. Ruger introduced the Blackhawk in 1955. Chambered for the

.357 Magnum The .357 Smith & Wesson Magnum, .357 S&W Magnum, .357 Magnum, or 9×33mmR as it is known in unofficial metric designation, is a smokeless powder cartridge with a bullet diameter. It was created by Elmer Keith, Phillip B. Sharpe, and Douglas B. ...

, the Blackhawk was a simple and strong design, and it sold well. In 1956, as

Smith & Wesson Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. (S&W) is an American firearm manufacturer headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States. Smith & Wesson was founded by Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson as the "Smith & Wesson Revolver Company" in 1856 ...

was introducing the new .44 Magnum, Ruger quickly developed a variant of the Blackhawk in the new cartridge. Ruger achieved wide popularity with this firearm in a hotly anticipated new cartridge, which was both cheaper and more readily available than the Smith & Wesson Model 29 revolver. According to popular legend, Ruger was able to field a .44 Magnum revolver at nearly the same time as Smith & Wesson due to a Ruger employee finding expended .44 Magnum cartridge cases at a scrapyard and deducing that Smith & Wesson was about to launch a new cartridge. The 1955–1962 Blackhawks are known today as the "Flattop" models, because their adjustable rear sights were not protected by "ears" extending up from the frame as later became standard. From 1962 through 1972, Ruger made the "Three Screw" Blackhawk in various calibers, so called by the number of screws visible on the side of the revolver. The Flattop and Three Screw Rugers were modernized compared to the Colt Single Action Army, in that they had adjustable sights instead of the Colt's fixed sights, and they used wire

coil spring A selection of conical coil springs The most common type of spring is the coil spring, which is made out of a long piece of metal that is wound around itself. Coil springs were in use in Roman times, evidence of this can be found in bronze Fib ...

s instead of the Colt's flat

leaf spring A leaf spring is a simple form of spring commonly used for the suspension in wheeled vehicles. Originally called a ''laminated'' or ''carriage spring'', and sometimes referred to as a semi-elliptical spring, elliptical spring, or cart spring, i ...

Bill Ruger William Batterman Ruger (June 21, 1916 – July 6, 2002) was an American firearms designer and entrepreneur, who partnered with Alexander McCormick Sturm to establish Sturm, Ruger & Company in 1949. Their first product was the Ruger Standar ...

chose coil springs due to their greater durability, saying that it solved one of the primary weaknesses of the Colt design. The early models of the Blackhawk still operated the same way as the Colt, in that the hammer was half-cocked to load and unload and that the firearm was not safe to carry with all six chambers loaded due to the hammer resting upon the sixth chamber. In 1973, in order to eliminate accidents occurring from the hammer jarring against a round loaded in the sixth chamber, Ruger introduced the New Model Blackhawk. The New Model Blackhawk did not require the hammer to be half-cocked for loading and unloading, and it employed a

transfer bar Close-up shot of a safety of an M16A2 rifle In firearms, a safety or safety catch is a mechanism used to help prevent the accidental discharge of a firearm, helping to ensure safer handling. Safeties can generally be divided into subtypes suc ...

mechanism which prevented the cartridge under the hammer from being fired without the trigger being pulled. The New Blackhawk was seen as limiting firearms accidents and legal liability. Ruger then began offering a retrofit program, offering free transfer bar conversions to earlier variants of the Blackhawk. It is worth noting that the Super Blackhawk is capable of operating with much higher pressure handloads than factory produced ammunition in .44 Magnum. Factory produced loads such as Federal Champion 240 gr JSP loads are right around 800 ft-lbs muzzle energy. Loads in excess of 1200 ft-lbs muzzle energy are commonly produced by handloaders for this caliber and the Super Blackhawk can, in fact, handle more powerful loads than any .44 Magnum lever action rifle and substantially more powerful rounds than any double action .44 Magnum revolver. Buffalo Bore makes a heavy load that is in excess of 1500 ft-lbs muzzle energy. These facts make the Ruger Super Blackhawk one of the top choices for handgun hunting. It is capable of reliably taking down deer, elk, caribou, moose, lion, grizzly or brown bear and even cape buffalo. It is commonly used to deliver a coup de grace shot to mortally wounded large game, having the ability to dispatch even an elephant with a conscientiously placed close range shot to the head. The wide availability of .44 Magnum cases and bullets make the .44 Magnum chambering far more practical than .454 Casull or .480 Ruger, while allowing for similar ballistics in custom loadings. The Ruger Super Blackhawk in .44 Magnum is one of the most accurate big bore pistols for target shooting, typically returning 5 shot groups that are one ragged hole from a rest at 25 yards. Work is commonly performed on the action of these revolvers to give a light, crisp trigger pull, thereby contributing to accuracy.

Various models

Over the years the Blackhawk has appeared in a wide variety of models. These models include: *New Model Blackhawk: Produced in blued steel in

.30 Carbine The .30 Carbine (7.62×33mm) is a rimless carbine/rifle cartridge used in the M1 carbine introduced in the 1940s. It is a light rifle round designed to be fired from the M1 carbine's 18-inch (458 mm) barrel. History Shortly before World W ...

, .41 Remington Magnum,

.44 Special The .44 Smith & Wesson Special, also commonly known as .44 S&W Special, .44 Special, .44 Spl, .44 Spc, (pronounced "forty-four special"), or 10.9x29mmR is a smokeless powder center fire metallic revolver cartridge developed by Smith & Wesson in 1 ...

, and

.45 Colt The .45 Colt (11.43×33mmR), is a rimmed, straight-walled, handgun cartridge dating to 1872. It was originally a black-powder revolver round developed for the Colt Single Action Army revolver. This cartridge was adopted by the U.S. Army in 1 ...

; produced in stainless in

.327 Federal Magnum The .327 Federal Magnum is a cartridge introduced by Federal Premium Ammunition and also sold by Sturm, Ruger & Co. It is intended to provide the power of a .357 Magnum in a six-shot, compact revolvers, whose cylinders would otherwise only h ...

with an 8-round cylinder,

, and

. Multiple barrel lengths were offered in many of these configurations. *New Model Blackhawk Convertible: The cylinder of a Blackhawk is easily removed, and can be replaced with a cylinder for a different cartridge of the same diameter. Ruger has offered "convertible" cylinder revolvers in

.45 ACP The .45 ACP ( Automatic Colt Pistol) or .45 Auto (11.43×23mm) is a rimless straight-walled handgun cartridge designed by John Moses Browning in 1904, for use in his prototype Colt semi-automatic pistol. After successful military trials, it ...

.38-40 The .38-40 Winchester is actually a .40 caliber (10 mm) cartridge shooting .401" (10.2 mm) caliber bullets. The cartridge was introduced by Winchester in 1874 and is derived from their .44-40 Winchester. This cartridge was introduced f ...

10mm Auto The 10mm Auto (10×25mm, official C.I.P. nomenclature: 10 mm Auto, official SAAMI nomenclature: 10mm Automatic) is a semi-automatic pistol cartridge introduced in 1983. Its design was adopted and later produced by ammunition manufacturer ...

, and

9×19mm Parabellum The 9×19mm Parabellum (also known as 9mm Parabellum or 9mm Luger or simply 9mm) is a rimless, tapered firearms cartridge. Originally designed by Austrian firearm designer Georg Luger in 1901, it is widely considered the most popular handgun ...

. Other than being sold with multiple cylinders, these firearms are identical to the Blackhawk. *New Model Super Blackhawk: Produced in blued and stainless, with or without a rib for mounting a

scope Scope or scopes may refer to: People with the surname * Jamie Scope (born 1986), English footballer * John T. Scopes (1900–1970), central figure in the Scopes Trial regarding the teaching of evolution Arts, media, and entertainment * Cinema ...

. The Super Blackhawk is built on the same frame, but with a larger grip (in the 7.5" and 10.5" barrels) and unfluted cylinder (except for 5.5" barrel), in order to more effectively deal with the .44 Magnum's recoil. Also, the grip frames are made of

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistan ...

, versus

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...

for those same components in the Blackhawk. Ejector rod housings were originally steel on old model Super Blackhawks. The new model stainless steel versions have steel ejector rod housings. *

Vaquero The ''vaquero'' (; pt, vaqueiro, , ) is a horse-mounted livestock herder of a tradition that has its roots in the Iberian Peninsula and extensively developed in Mexico from a methodology brought to Latin America from Spain. The vaquero became t ...

and New Vaquero: With the popularity of

Cowboy Action Shooting Cowboy action shooting (CAS, also known as western action shooting, single action shooting, Cowboy 3 Gun, Western 3-gun) is a competitive shooting sport that originated in Southern California in the early 1980s, at the Coto de Caza Shooting R ...

came demand for a single-action revolver that was more traditional in appearance. As the standard Ruger Blackhawk departs from the Single Action Army looks due to its adjustable sights, Ruger offered a fixed-sight equivalent to cater to buyers wanting a more traditional appearance. In all other ways, the Vaquero was identical to the Blackhawk, though offered in slightly fewer variants. The original Vaquero was offered in

, .44 Magnum, and

. After some time, Ruger went with a smaller frame to more closely resemble the actual size of the Colt SAA, changed the name to the New Vaquero, and dropped the powerful .44 Magnum from the lineup. While keeping the smaller size, Ruger later went back to the simple Vaquero name. *Bisley: The Bisley grip is a type of angled grip developed by Colt for target shooting at the end of the 19th century. Ruger's "Bisley" offerings incorporated a Bisley-style grip, hammer spur, and trigger. Talo Super Blackhawk

The Bisley features a down-turned grip inspired by the old #5 single-action army grip made up for Elmer Keith by gunsmith Harold Croft in 1929, although it is larger in size. This was in turn inspired by the classic 1894 Colt Bisley revolver, so named after the famous English shooting range at Bisley which was the site of many notable shooting matches in the late 19th century and is still in regular use. The Ruger Bisley has become a popular platform for conversion to even larger calibers by custom gunsmiths such as Gary Reeder, John Linebaugh, and Hamilton Bowen. * Old Army: The Old Army is a

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

cap and ball The percussion cap or percussion primer, introduced in the early 1820s, is a type of single-use percussion ignition device for muzzle loader firearm locks enabling them to fire reliably in any weather condition. This crucial invention gave rise ...

black powder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). T ...

revolver based on the Blackhawk frame.

Calibers

* .32 H&R Magnum/

.32-20 Winchester The .32-20 Winchester, also known as .32 WCF (Winchester center fire), was the first small-game lever-action cartridge that Winchester produced.

Convertible (Single distributor—discontinued) *

Convertible *

.357 Remington Maximum The .357 Maximum, formally known as the .357 Remington Maximum or the .357 Max, is a super magnum handgun cartridge originally developed by Elgin Gates as the wildcat .357 SuperMag. The .357 Maximum was introduced into commercial production as ...

(Discontinued) *

.38-40 Winchester The .38-40 Winchester is actually a .40 caliber (10 mm) cartridge shooting .401" (10.2 mm) caliber bullets. The cartridge was introduced by Winchester in 1874 and is derived from their .44-40 Winchester. This cartridge was introduced f ...

Convertible (Single distributor—discontinued) *

.41 Magnum The .41 Remington Magnum, also known as .41 Magnum or 10.4×33mmR (as it is known in unofficial metric designation), is a center fire firearms cartridge primarily developed for use in large-frame revolvers, introduced in 1964 by the Remington A ...

* .44 Magnum *

.44-40 Winchester The .44-40 Winchester, also known as .44 Winchester, .44 WCF (Winchester Center Fire), and .44 Largo (in Spanish-speaking countries) was introduced in 1873 by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. It was the first metallic centerfire cartridge m ...

* .44 Magnum/

Convertible (Single distributor—discontinued) *

Convertible *

.454 Casull The .454 Casull () is a firearm cartridge, developed as a wildcat cartridge in 1958 by Dick Casull, Duane Marsh and Jack Fullmer. It was announced in November 1959 by ''Guns & Ammo'' magazine. The design is a lengthened and structurally improve ...

(Super Blackhawk Distributor Exclusive) *

.480 Ruger The .480 Ruger (12.1×33mmR) is a large, high-power revolver cartridge, introduced in 2003 by Ruger and Hornady. It was the first new cartridge introduced by Ruger, and when introduced, was the largest-diameter production revolver cartridge, at ...

(Super Blackhawk Distributor Exclusive)

Finishes

* Blued *

Stainless steel Stainless steel is an alloy of iron that is resistant to rusting and corrosion. It contains at least 11% chromium and may contain elements such as carbon, other nonmetals and metals to obtain other desired properties. Stainless steel's r ...

References

External links

Ruger New Model Blackhawk on Ruger.com

An Exploded-View Diagram of a Ruger Blackhawk from American Rifleman

Ruger Bisley on Ruger.com
{{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017 Ruger revolvers Single-action revolvers .327 Federal Magnum firearms .357 Magnum firearms .44 Magnum firearms .45 Colt firearms .480 Ruger firearms .454 Casull firearms .30 Carbine firearms Weapons and ammunition introduced in 1955

History

Various models

Calibers

Finishes

See also

References

External links