Boge I did some extensive research back when I set this forum up with the intention of trying to put something together either for here or for the home page but never got around to doing anything with it.
I picked it up from a variety of sources. Here it is for whatever it's worth. I think I got the source info on most if it was available where I found it.
Texas longhorn arms: Bill Grover 1944-20004
American Handgunner, May-June, 2005 by John Taffin
There are many things in this world we can have way too much of; good friends is not one of them and it always hurts deeply to have to say goodbye to one. I first "met" Bill Grover in the pages of GUNS magazine 30 years ago, and then followed this up by meeting him personally at the 2nd Annual Gathering of The Shootists in 1987. That early article told of his total re-building of a pair of 4Y/' Colt Single Actions for noted speed shooter, Thell Reed. Shortly after that article appeared, Bill went from gunsmith to gunmaker as he opened the doors of Texas Longhorn Arms.
Bill was born in Kentucky in 1944, which explained his definite southern drawl. He was fascinated by guns early-on and his sister told me of his first deer hunt. He was 15, shot a large Texas buck, and then, as many of us have also done, got turned around. He drug that heavy buck a mile and a half to the road not realizing if he had only gone the other direction he was only 100 yards from the road. He never lived that episode down. Bill was a great teller of tales but did not care to hear this one too often.
Grover spoke in loving terms of "ma pistols," his right-handed single action sixguns. He always said Sam Colt was left-handed and built his single actions, beginning with the Paterson of 1836, for lefthanders. All of the percussion revolvers produced by Colt are most easily capped by switching the sixgun to the left hand and then capped with the right hand. Sam died in 1862 and did not see the advent of the cartridge revolvers, however all single actions from Colt, the Cartridge Conversions, the Open-Top, and the Single Action Army are all naturally handled by switching to the left hand which then operates the cylinder as the right hand ejects the spent cartridges and reloads the cylinder.
Bill Grover said this obviously proves Sam Colt was left-handed. If the guns had been built for a right-handed person the loading gate and ejector rod would be placed on the left side so the sixgun would never leave the hand of a right-handed shooter. It certainly makes sense to me as I always switch any Colt, Freedom Arms, or Ruger single action sixgun to my left hand for loading and unloading. To correct this Bill formed Texas Longhorn Arms to produce "right-handed" single action sixguns. On all of Grover's single actions the loading gate and ejector rod are found on the left side and the cylinder rotates counterclockwise.
Right-Handed Sixguns
The "natural" way to load or unload a Texas Longhorn Arms single action sixgun is to keep it in the right hand as the left hand opens the loading gate, and ejects the cartridges as your right hand rotates the cylinder. The problem with all of this is the fact the "left-handed" way seems natural after being in use for nearly 150 years before the arrival of Texas Longhorn Arms. I've had to force myself to learn to operate a TLA sixgun correctly.
Bill, and Texas Longhorn Arms offered three right-handed single action sixguns all chambered mostly in .44 Magnum, .44 Special and .45 Colt and on the same basic platform. They all had several common attributes. Each sixgun was completely fabricated of 4140 steel with coil springs and a frame-mounted firing pin. The cylinder locks into place with a double locking of the bolt, one coming from the bottom, the other from the top. Grover maintained that a properly timed TLA sixgun would stay properly timed if it were handled correctly. This means no line around the cylinder from the drag of the locking bolt.
Texas Longhorn Arms single actions have several distinctive, eye-pleasing features. All trigger guards are rounded, with the trigger also rounded and set far back in the trigger guard and contoured like a shotgun trigger. The three frame screws do not protrude all the way through the frame, leaving the left side of the sixgun clean for engraving. Also all screw slots line up together, a feature that takes a great deal of careful fitting.
The Flat-Top Target
One of the TLA sixguns was the West Texas Flat-Top Target, a 7 1/2" single action with adjustable sights and a grip frame closer to that of the 1860 Army than the Colt Single Action as it is 1/16" longer than the traditional single action grip frame. I find it most comfortable. Bill Grover let me borrow his personal West Texas FlatTop Target with a 7 1/2" barrel and chambered in .44 Special, and after much cajoling on my part, Grover agreed to sell it to me. When I finally caught Grover at the fight time, he not only agreed to sell me the Flat-Top but also offered, if I would send it back, to fit it with two more cylinders, one in .44 Magnum and the other in .44-40.
I agreed to meet Bill in Texas for a hunting trip and try to take three animals, one with each cylinder, .44-40, .44 Special and .44 Magnum. I did, he did, and we did with a most successful hunting trip taking three critters one with each of the chamberings with all three heads now hanging in my family room.
When the Texas Longhorn Arms West Texas Flat-Top Target came back with all three cylinders, Grover also included one of his Texas High Rider Holster systems. The High Rider works with any single action sixgun and is especially handy with 7 1/2" barrel lengths. It's worn high, either strong side or cross draw and consists of a holster proper and a belt slide. The holster fits inside the belt slide and locks into place with the bottom end of a loop on the front of the holster that snaps to the belt slide. To remove the holster simply unsnap and raise the holster out of the belt slide. This same unit is now offered by Ted Blocker Holsters.
That Flat-Top Target went back to Texas one more time for a fourth cylinder chambered in .44 Russian and was scheduled to make another trip to be fitted with a .44 Colt cylinder. Now some may ask why bother since a .44 Magnum cylinder will also handle the .44 Special, .44 Russian and .44 Colt. For those who understand, no explanation is necessary; for those who don't, no explanation is possible. Over the years this .44 Flat-Top has taken a lot a game and I always think of Bill when I use it.
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South Texas Army
Bill's second right-handed single action was the South Texas Army with fixed sights, a barrel length of 4 3/4", and most often found offered as a .44 or .45 Colt. Unlike the TLA West Texas Flat-Top Target, my South Texas Army has only one cylinder, that being in .44 Special. The South Texas Army has Colt Single Action Army style fixed sights again with a grip frame much closer to the 1860 Army than the 1873 Army. The former grip has a slightly different angle, being a little straighter than that found on the Colt Single Action Army and it's also longer, allowing room for the little finger, which no longer has to either dangle in space or be wrapped under the butt. Texas Longhorn Arms grip frames are exceptionally comfortable when shooting heavy loads and both the Flat-Top and South Texas Army are fitted with beautifully shaped and fitted one-piece stocks of fancy walnut and mesquite respectively.
The Texas Border Special was fitted with a round-butted grip long before they became popular on Ruger Vaqueros and custom sixguns. Bill did this for two reasons, to make it easier to conceal and to reduce felt recoil when shooting .44 Magnum loads. This traditionally-styled defensive single action sixgun packs very easily in a hip holster or even behind the belt and the specially designed wide hammer makes cocking for the first shot very fast, and is easy to get to for repeat shots.
TLA Salutes Keith
In 1927, Elmer Keith set out to make the finest possible Single Action sixgun, writing about it in the April 1929 issue of The American Rifleman in an article entitled The Last Word. This was Keith's #5SAA. Keith's Number 5 was basically a Colt Single Action with a Bisley backstrap and a Single Action Army front strap. Grips were ivory, barrel length was 5 1/2", sights were fully adjustable, the base pin was over-size and the cylinder pin catch was a masterful design that operated on the lever principle. The chambering was .44 Special, what else, and it was fully engraved. It was Keith's number one sixgun until moving into town, when he started packing a 4" S&W .44 Special, followed six years later by its .44 Magnum counterpart.
In 1987, Bill set out not to copy the Keith #5SAA, but to really improve upon it and still keep the original flavor. He succeeded in producing a real salute to Elmer Keith as Dean of the Sixgunners. The grip straps, grip contour, base pin and lever latch, are all identical to Elmer's original #5SAA. I've handled both sixguns at the same time and, when it comes to the grip frame, the original #5 and The Improved Number Five feel and look the same. The lever latch, other than being a mirror image on the Improved Number Five, is also identical.
Bill's original plans were to build 1,200 Improved Number Fives in .44 Magnum with 5 1/2" barrels. After testing the original, I ordered serial number K44, which I now have, and also purchased an identical Improved Number Five chambered in .45 Colt. The plan of 1,200 .44 Magnums never materialized, nor did the 1,000 each of the West Texas Flat Top Target and South Texas Army.
In addition to his Texas Longhorn Arms models, Bill also built a very few other custom guns. Two of these for me were both .44 Specials using Ruger Old Model frames. One of these is a 7 1/2" with custom fancy walnut grips by Charles Able and the other a 4 3/4" Packin' Pistol with a Colt Single Action grip frame fitted with one-piece ivory grips by Blu-Magnum. The long-barreled sixgun is serial number JT1. The Packin' Pistol .44 Special is one of seven. The first for Skeeter Skelton was SS1, mine is SS4. SS2 belongs to Bart Skelton, Bob Baer has SS3, Jim Wilson SS5, Terry Murbach, SS6, and Grover made SS7 for himself. There will be no more. As you might understand both of these sixguns are very special to me.
The Best Laid Plans
Dreams help us to maintain hope in this life. Bill and I shared two dreams. The first, and largest, would see both of us hunting Africa extensively using TLA sixguns. This was to happen as soon as Texas Longhorn Arms became prosperous. The second dream was to see me designing what I considered the perfect single action sixgun and Bill would build it. Neither dream ever came true; instead Texas Longhorn Arms closed their doors in the late 1990s. Grover was a master gunbuilder but a lousy businessman. He never expected such a demand for his Improved Number Fives that he would be unable to keep up with production. That hurt his business tremendously. Add to this his trusting in the wrong people, and the inevitable happened.
With the closing of Texas Longhorn Arms, Bill was physically affected greatly. So much so he never really let any of us know just how sick he really was. Diabetes, kidney failure and the amputation of both legs in September of 2004 was more than his body could handle. He went home in October of the same year. So long Bill, keep the campfire burning until I get there.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Publishers' Development Corporation
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group
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TEXAS LONGHORN ARMS IMPROVED NUMBER FIVE
JOHN TAFFIN
Ever get the feeling that you were standing on hallowed ground? I felt somewhat this way last night as I loaded some very special .44 Special rounds. The brass was old, known as `balloon head' style. Dating back to the World War II era, this brass was so called because the primer pocket stuck up inside the case in these pre-solid head cases. The standard heavy load for the .44 Special from the 1930's through the 1940's prior to the introduction of modern solid brass was...., wait we are getting ahead of the story.
In 1925, a young cowboy was celebrating the Fourth of July by firing off his Colt Single Action Army .45 Colt x 4 3/4" sixgun. It was his working gun, the gun he carried every day. "You might forget your trousers but never your sixgun" he was known to say. This particular day something wasn't right and before the cylinder was empty both it and the top strap had parted company with the frame of the old black powder Colt Single Action. The load had been 300 grain .45-70 rifle bullets over all the black powder that could be crammed into the old .45 Colt balloon head case. Perhaps this was the start of the myth that persists even today of `weak' .45 Colt brass.
In all probability, the bullets were oversize and the old Colt was tired and it finally died. But a new idea and career was born that day as Elmer Keith began his search for a stronger sixgun, a .44 Special, a sixgun he had never seen up to this point in his young life. Within two years he not only had his .44 Special, he had the sixgun he called his Last Word, the perfect sixgun. Dubbed the Number Five, Keith's idea of perfection was a 5 1/2" barreled Colt Single Action Army that was a far cry from standard Colt's of the day and was destined to serve as a model for single action gunmakers of the second half of the century.
The best gunsmiths of the time, Croft, Houchins, O'Meara, and Sedgley all had a part in creating Number Five. Keith by now considered the .44 Special the King Of Sixgun cartridges, so naturally the Number Five was chambered thusly. The frame was flat-topped and fitted with adjustable sights with the front sight being the Patridge style. The hammer was the wide Bisley style, and the grip was made by combining a shortened Bisley backstrap bent to a Single Action angle with a Single Action trigger guard. Combined with the wide hammer, a wide trigger followed the curve of the trigger guard and set back as far as possible in the trigger guard.
A very special touch is the treatment given the base, or cylinder pin. Anyone who has shot single actions extensively will relate to chasing base pins that have come loose under recoil. Apparently it was also a problem in the pre-Magnum days of the 1920's as Keith and the gunsmiths on the project took care of the problem. Keith says: "The new type base pin has a large head that is easily grasped to remove the pin, instead of the regular head that one usually had to use the head of a shell on to pull it out. Unless the Single Action is fitted with an extra strong spring in the base-pin catch, the recoil will drive the pin forward, and in some cases tie up the gun. This new catch is a lever that swings into a square cut in the base pin and no amount of firing can loosen the pin. At the same time it is very easy to remove the pin for cleaning. A spring plunger locks the lever."
Being a special sixgun, a real one of a kind, the Number Five was fully engraved and fitted with carved ivory stocks. I have seen and handled and fondled and drooled over and dreamt about the Number Five and it is perfection carried out in a sixgun to say the least.
A new bullet, which is still known as the Keith bullet, was designed to use in the Number Five. First made by Ideal, later Lyman and known as #429421, the semi-wadcutter Keith bullet has been offered by every mold company and is now held closest to the original by some Lyman #429421 molds as well as NEI with their #260.429 Keith and RCBS with the #44-250 Keith. First loaded with #80 powder, the charge became the well known 18.5 grains of #2400 when this powder became available in the 1930's. This charge should not be used with modern solid head brass which has less case capacity.
As I loaded some of these old rounds, I could not help but think of Keith and the tremendous influence he had on sixgunnin'. Born in 1899 and now gone from this life for ten years, the Keith loads live on and any sixgunner knows exactly what the Keith loads are for .38 Special, .357 Magnum, .44 Special, .44 Magnum, .41 Magnum, and .45 Colt. Many a reloading room carries carefully labeled boxes with bullet, primer, powder, charge, etc. and then one stumbles on boxes simply marked `Keith Load'.
Keith offered his improvements on the Colt Single Action Army to Colt sixty plus years ago. One can only wonder what would have been if they had listened. The influence of Keith can be seen in all of the single action sixguns from Ruger over the past forty years. Ruger obviously was a student of Elmer Keith.
That was then and this is now and now is Texas Longhorn Arms Improved Number Five. This is the sixgun I was loading the old original Keith load for last evening. Bill Grover is also a student of Elmer Keith and he set out to honor him by building an improved version of his Number Five. Grover did not have the original sixgun to work with but did have photos and line drawings and he did manage to keep the flavor of the original sixgun with his added improvements.
The base pin lever, worked out by master machinist Keith DeHart, enlarged base pin, and the grip are perfect duplicates of Keith Number Five. I have held both sixguns in my hand at the same time and the feel is identical. The Improved Number Five is fitted with all music wire coil springs. As with all sixguns from Texas Longhorn Arms, the loading gate and the ejector rod are on the left side of the sixgun to be naturally used by a right-hander. The theory is the gun never leaves the right hand for loading and unloading as it does with right-handers using the Colt, Freedom Arms, or Ruger `left-hand' single actions.
The trigger is rounded with a shotgun style trigger that sits as far back in the trigger guard as possible and moves very little when the gun is cocked. The hammer is low and wide for easy cocking. There is plenty of room in front of the hammer checkering for natural rolling of the thumb as the gun is cocked.
The rear sight is an old Micro-style adjustable fitted into a flat-top frame and is matched, as on the original, with a Patridge front sight. Original Improved Number Five frames were machined one at a time and Grover got so for behind that some change had to be made. All frames now start as castings from Pine Tree Castings the same firm that does the frames for Ruger and Dan Wesson sixguns. Considerable machining is still necessary to bring the casting to Improved Number Five perfection.
The cylinder of the Improved Number Five is double heat-treated and the firing pin is built into the frame. Both the frame and cylinder are made larger than the original as it is intended for use with the .44 Magnum. Keith used the number one sixgun cartridge of his day and Grover did likewise. Although the Improved Number Five is larger than its predecessor it does not feel either large or heavy at forty-four ounces as the balance is perfect.
The first time I ever shot a TLA Number Five, I was totally impressed. Not only did it feel right and look great with its highly polished deep blue black finish, the first five shots got my attention real fast. Yes, this sixgun is a five-shooter and as with all Colt Single Action Armies and Old Model Ruger Single Actions should be carried with an empty chamber under the hammer. That first Improved Number Five was on its way to Master Engraver Jim Riggs to be fully engraved just like the Keith .44 Special sixgun, but I was allowed to fire it first. Five rounds of 250 grain hard cast Keith bullets, naturally, over 20.0 grains of #2400, a load in the 1200-1300 feet per second category, dropped into less than one-inch at 25 yards. Grover had a winner.
As this is written, my long wait is over and I have my Improved Number Five. Grover was buried in orders for his Number Five in the late 1980's followed by a flood that put his shop under water. He now has a new shop built and is up and running and filling orders. Waiting time still will be close to one year as these guns are far from being mass produced.
My gun, serial Number K-44, special serial numbers can be requested, is a real one of a kind as it has a cylinder with long flutes reminiscent of some of the Colt Single Actions that were put together after the turn of the century using New Service cylinders. A really nice touch is the cylinder being serially numbered to the sixgun with K-44 on the front of the cylinder and each chamber is also individually numbered on the back of the cylinder. Polishing and bluing are perfect and all metal-to-metal and wood-to-metal fit is excellent. The guns is timed perfectly and Grover cautioned that I handle the single action correctly when loading to keep from raising a ring around the cylinder.
The correct procedure for loading this single action as with all single actions sans transfer bar is followed for safety as well as maintaining the timing. The hammer is brought back to half cock, the gate is opened. Load one round, skip one chamber, then load the next four. Now comes the very important part. Do Not Let The Hammer Down. Bring the hammer all the way back and then let it down. This not only lets the hammer down safely on an empty chamber, it also protects the finely fitted and timed action.
When holding the Improved Number Five I certainly conjure up spirits of the past and the old time sixgunners that preceeded me. Keith was definitely right. The grip on the Number Five, either original or Improved is the perfect single action grip. Colt's standard grip is perfect for standard loads, Keith took us to the level for Magnum type loads, and the Freedom Arms grip frame with much the same feel is the final development for .454 type loads.
The Number Five grip is quite small with the size being the same as a standard Colt Single Action grip and my little finger curls under the butt. One might feel it is inadequate for heavy loads but I have used it with 240 grain bullets at 1500 feet per second plus and 300 grain bullets at 1300 feet per second plus and it works fine.
One of my real problems with sixguns is that they normally shoot too high for me as they have too little front sight. Before shipping the Number Five, Grover called to let me know that he felt this front sight would be right on. My first five shots with Bull-X 240 grain bullets over 8.5 grains of Unique at 1065 feet per second resulted in a group slightly right and slightly low. A couple of clicks either way and the Number Five was dialed in perfectly for cast bullet loads. Most jacketed bulleted loads still shoot high but no problem as in all probability this will be a cast bullet sixgun.
It almost seemed sacrilegious to use jacketed bullets in this Improved version of the old Number Five but a test would not be complete without using jacketed bullets as well as cast bullets. The above mentioned load of the Bull-X 240 semi-wadcutter over 8.5 grains of Unique is my `workin' load' and does about 95% of what I want a sixgun to do. The same bullet is used over 7.5 grains of Unique in .44 Special sixguns as an every day load. It isn't necessary to always run my quarter century old El Dorado Cadillac with its 500 cubic inch engine at full throttle nor is it necessary to do the same with big bore sixguns. In fact, some of my greatest pleasures experienced with both is when I am just amblin' along.
On my last hunting trip to Texas both Grover and friend and gripmaker Tedd Adamovich used the Number Five to take a Corsican ram and a Catalina goat with Oklahoma Ammunition's 240 grain jacketed hollow point. My Number Five has yet to be baptised. As a hunting sixgun it leaves little to be desired and packs perfectly also in one of Grover's High Rider holsters, a unique system that has solved the difficulty of holstering a sixgun comfortably and easily accessible.
The High Rider works with any sixgun including seven and one-half inch lengths. It is worn high either strong side or cross draw and consists of a holster proper and a belt slide. The holster fits inside the belt slide and locks into place with the bottom end of a loop on the front of the holster that snaps to the belt slide. To remove the holster simply unsnap and raise the holster out of the belt slide.
The Improved Number Five is an excellent handlin' and shootin' sixgun. My standard for a great sixgun is one that with at least one selected load gets right into the five-shots-at-twenty-five-yards in-one-inch category. The Number Five does it with both handloads and factory loads and with jacketed bullets as well as cast bullets. Particularly accurate loads are Winchester's new 250 grain Black Talon's at 1329 feet per second, Hornady's 240 XTP over 25.0 grains of WW296 at 1543 feet per second, H&G's Keith bullet over 10.0 grains of AA#2 at 1226 feet per second, 10.5 grains of Herco at 1132 feet per second, and 12.0 grains of HS-6 for 1041 feet per second. My workin' load of 8.5 grains of Unique with the 240 Bull-X bullet is the second most accurate load in the Number Five with five shots in one and one-eighth inches at 25 yards. It just doesn't get much better than this.
Texas Longhorn Arms Improved Number Five
Caliber: .44 Magnum
Barrel Length: 5 1/2"
Temp: 60 Degrees
Chronograph: Oehler 35P
Groups: Five Shots @ 25 Yds.
Brass: R-P .44 Magnum
Primer: CCI #300
Handloads:
H&G 250 Keith 14.5 GR. Blue Dot 1287 2 1/8"
19.0 GR. #2400 1273 1 5/8"
10.0 GR. AA#2 1226 1 1/4"
10.5 GR. Herco 1132 1 1/4"
9.5 GR. WW231 1114 1 7/8"
19.5 GR. H4227 1109 1 1/2"
14.5 GR. AA#7 1107 1 3/4"
13.0 GR. HS-7 1045 1 3/4"
12.0 GR. HS-6 1041 1 1/4"
23.0 GR. WW680 1004 1 3/4"
Bull-X 240 SWC 8.5 GR. Unique 1065 1 1/8"
Lyman #431244GC 24.0 GR. H4227 1395 1 5/8"
21.5 GR. AA#9 1403 1 1/2"
25.0 GR. WW296 1434 1 5/8"
RCBS #44-300FN 21.5 GR. WW296 1365 1 7/8"
Hornady 240 XTP 25.0 GR. WW296 1543 1 1/4"
.44 Special Loads:
RCBS 250 Keith 17.3 GR. #2400 1254 2"
18.5 GR. #2400**** 1225 2 1/2"
Lyman #431244GC 17.5 GR. #2400 1210 1 5/8"
Factory Loads:
Black Hills 240 JHP 1293 1 3/4"
Black Hills 300 JHP 1178 1 3/4"
CCI 240 JHP 1345 2"
Oklahoma Ammunition 240 JHP 1382 2 1/2"
Remington 240 JHP 1381 1 3/4"
Winchester 250 Black Talon 1329 1"
****Balloon Head Brass
CUSTOM .44 SPECIAL SINGLE ACTIONS
...JOHN TAFFIN
Like so many other teenagers of the 1950's that were budding sixgunners my first sixgun was the relatively new Ruger Single-Six .22 patterned after the late but great Colt Single Action Army. Colt had dropped production in 1941 with the outbreak of World War Two and did not resume production after the war. This was unfortunate for Colt as the coming of T.V. and a whole new generation of viewers for Grade B Westerns from the 1930's and 1940's resulted in a demand for single action sixguns.
Ruger stepped in with a most sensible answer, a Single Action, a Single-Six that is, scaled down and chambered for the .22 but with a full-sized grip frame. After my initial purchase of the Single-Six, I still remember those wonderful Saturday afternoons shooting the .22 with my friends, single actions came in rapid succession. A pre-World War One .38-40 x 4 3/4", a Ruger .357 Blackhawk x 4 5/8", a Ruger .44 Magnum Blackhawk x 6 1/2". By now Colt had re-tooled and I had to have one of the first of the `new' Colt Single Actions, a .45 Colt with a seven and one-half inch barrel. Every penny I made seemingly went for Single Actions.
Something was about to happen that was to change my direction slightly. First I got married. Then a copy of SIXGUNS BY KEITH was acquired and my wife gave me a Smith & Wesson 1950 Target .44 Special for our first Christmas together. I don't believe in coincidence so I must believe this was meant to be. SIXGUNS was full of the joy of sixgunnin' with the .44 Special as it had been published one year before the advent of the .44 Magnum. Even though the .44 Magnum had been out for a number of years by the time I got my copy of Keith's book, my spirit was grabbed by the .44 Special. My wife could have given me a .45 Colt or .44 Magnum for Christmas but at $80 the .44 Special was much less than the $125 Colt in .45 chambering or the $140 Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum. She made the least expensive choice which turned out to be the wisest choice and I am convinced it surely was meant to be.
That began a long love affair with the .44 Special that continues to this day, a time when none of the major American manufacturers offers a full-sized .44 Special sixgun. Gone are the Colt Single Action Army .44 Special, the Colt New Frontier .44 Special, and the Smith & Wesson .44 Special in both blue and stainless offered as the Model 24 and Model 624.
Forty-four Special sixguns may not be offered by Colt, Ruger or Smith & Wesson but they are easy to acquire via the custom route. Ruger brought out their .357 Magnum Blackhawk in 1955 with a promise to offer it later in .44 Special and .45 Colt which were the reigning big bores of the day. It was not to be as by the end of 1955, the .44 Magnum was a reality. Ruger chambered three test Blackhawks for the .44 Magnum and when they blew one during proof testing, came out with the larger framed .44 Blackhawk that would evolve into the Super Blackhawk and New Model Blackhawks of today. It is a pity that the .44 Magnum came along so soon upstaging the .44 Special and denying sixgunners a fine .44 Special. But, alas it was meant to be.
Not to be thwarted by an unkind fate, I decided to have a .44 Special Ruger made to my specifications after reading of such a conversion by Skeeter Skelton in the 1970's. A number of mistakes were made with my first custom Ruger. I opted for a red insert front sight instead of an easier to see black front sight. At least black is much easier to see these days and a black post sight is the best of all.
The Ruger Old Model or Three Screw .357 was sent of to a gunsmith back East who rechambered the cylinder to .44 Special and relined the original barrel. The lining would have worked fine but I believe he used a section of .444 Marlin barrel as the twist was very slow and the dream .44 Special would not shoot for the proverbial sour apples unless a full house load of a 250 grain bullet at 1200 feet per second was used and I did not build this gun up to shoot only Magnum-type loads.
The barrel was discarded and replaced with a four and five-eighth's inch tube stolen from my .44 Blackhawk which made it shoot fine and the whole gun was then finished in bright blue and fitted with ivory grips. Now this .44 Special wears a mouth-watering pair of Circassian walnut stocks by Roy Fishpaw. A stainless steel grip frame as found on the Ruger Old Army has also been added to give the Special Forty-four a little more weight. Several years ago while Bob Munden was in town doing his Fast Draw show he took the time to do an action job on this .44 Special and it now is super smooooth and slick due to his spring, stone and file work. Munden is a real genius when it comes to slickin' up single actions be they Colts, Rugers, or replicas.
That .44 Special Ruger was to be my favorite for a number of years at least until I met Andy Horvath. I saw his ad simply labeled ".44 SPECIAL CONVERSIONS" and contacted Diagonal Rd. Gun Shop. In talking with Horvath I soon learned that this was a man who loved sixguns in general and particularly single action .44 Specials.
Wanting a very special .44 Special, Horvath was asked if he could do a round-butted, four-inch barreled .44 built on a Ruger .357 Three Screw Blackhawk. A real .44 Special packin' pistol. The answer came back affirmative and off went a like new six and one-half inch .357 Three Screw Blackhawk, a seven and one-half inch Super Blackhawk barrel, and some special items I had been saving for just such a project. From my parts box, I pulled my last Ruger blued steel ejector rod housing, and my last 1960's wide Super Blackhawk hammer. For grips I sent a pair of Rosewood Ruger grips that were from an over-run of .22 Single-Six Colorado Centennial stocks in the 1970's.
The .44 Special Ruger is a superb little Ruger. The bluing is deep and matches well with the round butted stocks. Horvath had polished the standard aluminum grip frame and round-butted it so it slipped into my hand perfectly. Horvath also jeweled the sides of the hammer and trigger and made a cylinder pin with a flat face to allow maximum ejector rod travel to fully extract empties. At the present time my Horvath L'il Ruger has been engraved by grip-maker Tedd Adamovich and wears the standard grip frame and ivory grips from my original .44 Special Ruger. My passion for .44 Specials on Ruger .357's had been so inflamed my these two fine .44's that I began squirreling away both Flat-Top and Old Model, or Three Screw, Blackhawk .357's for conversion to .44 Special at a future time. Old Model and the original Flat-Top Blackhawks are built on a smaller frame than the .357 New Model Blackhawks available since 1973. The latter, as all Blackhawks, are now all built on the Super Blackhawk .44 frame size.
Ten years ago I saw a very special .44 Special on a Ruger Old Model. The barrel was 4 5/8" in length, the grip frame was polished bright and the grips were made from the horns of a bighorn sheep. The gun was showed to me by Bart Skelton and it had been commissioned by his dad Skeeter before he died and now belonged to gunwriter John Wootters. That sixgun made my heart pound even further for other .44 Specials and so over the past several years, six .357 Magnum Rugers have been sent off to two top gunsmiths for conversion to .44 Special. Two of these went to master gunmaker and gunsmith, Bill Grover of Texas Longhorn Arms and the other four went to top gunsmith Hamilton Bowen. Apparently Bowen's fire has also been lit by the bug as he began experimenting with Old Model Rugers himself and I had the pleasure of shooting his latest creation, a fixed-sighted .32-20 on the Old Model frame. A sweet shootin' and handlin' sixgun to be sure.
Six nearly identical Rugers went off to these master 'smiths but they would all take a different turn except for the two destined to be a matched pair. We look at the sixguns from Bill Grover first with the understanding that Grover no longer accepts custom work at this time.
Grover had been instrumental, along with Bob Baer, in building the Skeeter Gun as they call it, the .44 Special sixgun that Skeeter Skelton had commissioned. Its serial number is SS1. As related earlier John Wootters now has this sixgun. I now have SS4. The second Skeeter Gun, SS2 in the series, is now in Bart Skelton's hands, Bob Baer has SS3, Bill Grover has SS5, friend and fellow writer Terry Murbach has SS6, and Sheriff Jim Wilson also a good friend and fellow writer has the last gun SS7. The Shootists held a special seven gun salute and memorial service to Skeeter in 1992 and there will be no more .44 Specials built in this series.
Although all seven of us have SS sixguns they are all quite different revealing the individual tastes of the owners. My particular SS4 started life as a .357 Magnum Ruger Flat-Top Blackhawk from the 1950's. Lest any collectors out there take me to task, it was not a collector's item and had been re-blued at the factory. None of the other .357 Blackhawks that were used for conversions to .44 Special were anywhere near the collectors item status either.
Grover and I put our heads together on this one so a double influence can be seen. The cylinder has been re-chamberd to .44 Special tightly to allow the use of .429 inch diameter bullets but kept to minimum dimensions for long case life. Barrel/cylinder gap was set at .0025 inches. The Ruger XR3 grip frame and steel ejector housing were not discarded but put back for use on the other .44 Special Grover was building. In their place Grover fitted steel Colt parts, a Colt backstrap and trigger guard and a Colt ejector rod along with a Bullseye headed ejector rod.
With the installation of the Colt backstrap and trigger guard, it was necessary to machine a special hanger to accept the Ruger mainspring and strut and Grover also replaced the trigger return spring with a new coil spring. Grover says he made the one-piece walnut stocks "...to the likeness of Taffin. Thin, gives better control and fast handling, they make the gun point like your finger plus gives the gun better looks. Not only do you want your sixshooter to shoot good but look good also." Amen to that Brother Bill!
For sighting equipment, Grover installed a Number Five front sight, bold, flat, and black and a Number Five base pin with a large easy to grasp head was also installed. Now it was time for Grover to turn the gun over to the man that does the final polishing and bluing and Robert Luna did the match polishing to a mirror finish resulting in a very beautiful sixgun to say the least. Grover trained Luna himself and holds him in high esteem as one of the best in the business today. I agree wholeheartedly.
The front of the cylinder was beveled as on the old Colt Single Action Armies and the gun was engraved by Rod Ford to read "SKEETER SKELTON .44 SPECIAL" on the left side of the barrel and "TEXAS LONGHORN ARMS INC, RICHMOND TEXAS" on the top of the topstrap. Serial number is marked S.S.4 in the same three places as the original Colts. Namely on the front bottom of the backstrap, in the front of the trigger guard and on the frame in front of the trigger guard screw.
Grover is justly proud of his work and thinks this is one of the finest sixguns in existence and I again wholeheartedly agree. I expect to enjoy it the rest of my life and then pass it on to one of my grandsons. This is truly a classic single action. It now wears mouth-watering one-piece ivory stocks by BluMagnum.
The second sixgun .44 Special style from Grover was built with a seven and one-half inch barrel using a ten-inch Ruger Super Blackhawk barrel. The XR3 grip frame of SS4 now resides on this sixgun along with rosewood stocks by Charles Able. This long range sixgun to compliment the SS4 packin' pistol also wears a Number Five front sight and a Number Five base pin. The cylinder has also been beveled with the barrel/ cylinder gap set at .0025 inches and again Robert Luna has done his polishing and bluing magic.
The top of the frame reads "TEXAS LONGHORN ARMS, INC. RICHMOND TEXAS" and the left side of the barrel is marked "44 SPECIAL". Serial number is JT1 and it is also marked in three places as with the SS4 sixgun. Both of these .44 Special sixguns shoot my everyday working load of 7.5 grains under a 240 grain Bull-X bullet superbly. Bull-X not only makes fine bullets, they are also now in the leather business and my seven and one-half inch Grover .44 Special now rides in one of their Chaparral rigs. This is an 1880's style rig and one of the best I have seen. It fits my .44 perfectly, the workmanship is superb, and the design is excellent.
Hamilton Bowen is well known to the readers as we have show-cased his work numerous times. He is not only a top gunsmith and president of the American Pistolsmith's Guild, he also is one of the handful of gunsmiths in the country, along with such men as John Linebaugh, Bob Baer, Bill Grover, Dick Casull, Bob Munden, Brian Cosby, Dave Clements, and Andy Horvath, that really understand single action sixguns.
Three Flat-Top Ruger Blackhawks and one Old Model Blackhawk .357 have been sent off to Bowen over the past several few years. Spelling my JT1 .44 Special x 7 1/2" sixgun from Grover is a Bowen built seven and one-half inch .44 Special. Both fit the Chaparral rig perfectly. The sixgun done by Bowen also has a post front sight, polished grip frame with black micarta grips by Charles Able and blued, rather than polished hammer. The left side of the barrel is marked ".44 SPECIAL CAL." The barrel is from a Ruger Super Blackhawk and the bluing is a little more subdued than the Grover sixgun as this was designed more as a working gun than a highly polished presentation sixgun. The blue finish matches quite nicely with the dull black micarta stocks.
Bowen, of course, did all his niceties on this sixgun as on all the others, namely remove any excess endshake, smooth out the action and tighten where necessary. I really do like seven and one-half inch single actions for long-range shooting and this one now proudly joins my Flat-Top Blackhawk .44 Magnum, Colt New Frontier .44 Special, Texas Longhorn Arms West Texas Flat-Top Target .44, and JT1 as some of the finest long range forty-fours extant.
One of the Flat-Top .357's sent to Bowen was fine mechanically but had been ridden hard and put up wet so to speak and the finish was pitted as a result. Our choice was to either do major surgery in the form of much polishing and filing before bluing or take the easier and more practical route of a bead blast finish. The latter choice made a whole lot of sense to me and this fine little packin' pistol wears a real working finish. The XR3 grip frame used on this sixgun was bead blasted and nickled by a previous owner and along with standard Ruger walnut stocks from the 1950's mates up fine with the subdued blue finish. This is the gun that will go in the holster when the going is likely to be anything but easy.
The final pair of sixguns from Bowen are all blue and wear perfectly executed and fitted stag stocks again from Charles Able. At first glance they look like standard .357 Magnum 1950'ish Flat-Top Blackhawks. Close examination reveals the Texas Longhorn Arms Number Five front sight, the larger holes in the cylinder and barrel, and ".44 SPECIAL CAL." marked on the left side of the frame. Some long cold winter I will be carving a special set of leather for this gun and its mate. I haven't quite decided to go totally traditional and make a double set 1880's style with a wide belt with a double row of cartridge loops or perhaps a 1940's type Hollywood rig such as worn by Tim Holt or Wild Bill Elliot or....If the Idaho winter is long enough perhaps I will come up with several outfits. That is part of the great pleasure of sixgunning.
I do believe I have all the .44 Specials on Ruger .357 Blackhawks a man needs. Lest the .357 Blackhawks in existence think they are finally safe, remember I did shoot Bowen's proto-type .32-20 on a Ruger frame. A new chapter is about to start!
