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Ruger’s big boy Redhawk Revolver has always come in .44 Magnum and .45 Colt flavors. Now they’ve added a 4.2″ barrel stainless version that will let you launch .45ACP rounds (with the help of three included moonclips), too. The wheel gun features a rounded butt frame, checkered and textured hardwood stock, and an adjustable rear sight. Specs and price after the jump . . .

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64 COMMENTS

  2. Uh oh, already feeling the wallet getting lighter.
    Any word on a blued version though?

      • Exactly. What’s the deal with the price? I’d buy a .45 ACP 5-shot on a GP 100 frame for $500.00. As it is,no sale. Too big to carry.

      • This is built on the Redhawk frame, the same frame that fires the .44 Mag. It’s built for high pressures and recoil and thus requires a lot more work, inspection, and attention to detail when they’re made.

        You want a cheaper revolver, get a Taurus.

    • Admittedly, I don’t remember every feature of the redhawk specifically, but in my experience with Rugers, and I have a few, the difference here is the full length exposed steel butt(I think that’s what it’s called) the better grips, and the fact that a little more machine work has to go into the recessed cylinder. Smith and Wesson still makes moon clip revolvers with recessed cylinders, but the reason that most stopped doing that is that it was expensive and didn’t add much function. Here it does add function, but it still costs more to do it.

  4. I don’t wheel-gun, but my interest was piqued after reading: “CA Approved: No”

    Who the hell asked CA for approval?

    Might have to buy one just to support CA’s “bad” guys. CA has been supporting most of my “bad” guys since before I was born.

    • I was born and raised there and I left all of my friends and family behind and moved out. It is the best decision I’ve ever made.

      • It is the best decision to make. Unfortunately, I can’t leave just yet. I blame the wife and the freaking weather she likes.

    • I believe to be CA approved, double action revolvers are far too dangerous normally. CA approval requires adding a grip safety, a thumb safety/de cocker, safe action trigger, reducing the cylinder capacity to 3 rounds, foam padding on all sharp edges, flashing safety lights, audible alarm when being handled, dual airbags in case it is dropped, and encoding of the shooters DNA onto every round.

  6. Is that butt frame different then the other redhawks? It sure looks different. I have a month old redhawk in .44, it is really fun to shoot.

  7. I am old enough to remember when the Ruger brand meant quality firearms at affordable prices. That all went out the window when they jumped into the AR market with a rifle priced at $2K. At this rate a Luger will cost less than a Ruger.

    • You mean the piston driven SR-556? You can get in a Ruger AR-556 these days for less than $600

      • IF you can find one! I have been looking for an ar 556 for 6 months and cant find one. The guys at my lgs just laugh when i ask and the next 50 my Gander mtn will get are already spoken for!

        • use this sire gunwatcher.com. when I searched on ruger ar556 I found 51 available for purchase, the least expensive was $584.99.

        • There are several NIB on armslist from FFLs in that $625-700+ ballpark. You’d have to pay shipping and transfer fee, but from out of state, with the savings on sales tax it’d be about a wash. You may even come out a few bucks ahead.

        • Just buy an M&P15 Sport unless you really need a dustcover and forward assist. You will not regret it. All my handguns are Rugers and I love em, and want about four more Rugers right now, including the one this article is about, but I am glad I chose the M&P15 sport for my first AR. It is a great rifle for the price, and it has given me zero problems.

    • I got a piston driven SR-556E for 899. Their 9E platform I’ve seen for 309, and their regular SR-9 for 399. Their 10-22s can be had for under 300. The Rugers often sell for far less than their MSRPs, and everything I’ve owned from them has been rock solid and well made (especially my SR-556 and my LCR .357).
      They still make good stuff at a reasonable price point.

  8. I’ve been jonesing for the 2.75″ snubby version in .44Mag, a .45LC/.45ACP version of same would be even sweeter. Unfortunately for me, my wallet has already been on a crash diet, with spectacularly grievous results.

    Tom

  9. I got the TALO edition in .44mag a few months ago, love it.
    Price complainers need to check the prices on 629s – they’re still a couple hundred dollars more.

    • And I have to admit that I first read this article on my phone and didn’t see the 4-digit MSRP on this gun – wow. More than the S&W Model 25 ($1009). For the record, I payed less than $800 for my (very similar) TALO .44.

    • I think you can shoot much stouter .45lc loads in this gun than you could in the governor if that matters to you. I like the flexibility of the ruger. Light .45 ACP that a beginner can shoot. 45 colt and hot .45 colt loads too. Since I already shoot .45 LC and 45 ACP this is a big win over buying a 4″ 629 where I would have to buy into two new cartridges.

      • Having a higher pressure big bore revolver is nice, but I don’t see much use for such a powerful round. It’ll blow through a person in a defense situation and against large game regular pressure heavy hard cast .45 Colt will work. Hunting I could see the extra power being useful, but rifles are still better.

        The biggest reason I lean towards the Gov is that .410 chamber adapters can be used to fire 9mm and .32 H&R/S&W Long/ACP. They’re not accurate past 10 yards, but six shots of something is better than no shots of nothing.

        That and having shotshells to play around with is nice.

  14. I want one!

    I’m also curious what kind of energy levels I could get with .45 Colt +P from that 4″ barrel. This could be a cool combo self defense / deer hunting rig.

    • Accur81,

      If you go with the hottest loading ammunition manufacturers, .45 Colt +P should be darn near the same as .44 Magnum. Thus, whatever velocity you get for a given bullet weight out of a .44 Magnum you will get with .45 Colt +P.

      Thus, if you get 1400 fps with a 240 grain bullet and a 4 inch barrel in .44 Magnum, expect the same velocity from .45 Colt +P when shooting a 240 grain bullet out of a 4 inch barrel.

      Caveat: “standard” .429 (.44 Magnum) and .45 bullets may come in slightly different weights. Simply interpolate between known .44 Magnum loads to determine what performance you can expect from .45 +P loads.

    • Read some of Linbaugh’s writing on hot .45 Colt. The gist of it is that velocity doesn’t matter as much(in pistol velocities) after about 1250 FPS and a wide heavy bullet is much more important.

  15. A 250 grain bullet with a healthy dose of W296 is a wicked round on deer at 50 yards or so. I’ve got S&W 625 and .44s. Terribly tempting looking at the Ruger.

  16. I bet street price will be $800-$850, not too bad for a really nice wheel gun. Especially if you wanna run the hotter 45 LC rounds through it.

  17. Remington and Colt are having a ton of trouble, and here’s Ruger still producing new firearms almost specifically for the Civilian Market. Go Ruger!

    • And even when Remington debuts “new” firearms, they have to recall them and introduce a 2nd gen version within a year.

      Ruger manufactures new guns that people want that actually work. They clearly have engineers that know how to set up a process to handle the huge variety of guns they make and hire workers with IQ’s above 85.

      Support Ruger, they’re doing things the right way.

  18. A couple of years ago you could get a Hamilton Bowen version of this for near that price, less if you already had a Redhawk to send in for conversion. Prices on revolvers do seem to be getting expensive.

    • Hasbro can make a Glock or AR. It takes skill to make a revolver and skilled people cost.

      The only reason glocks and the rest of the “compressed cheeze whiz” guns are twice the price they should be is fanboism. I’ll bet glock can sell their 19 for 200 bucks and still make a profit.

      Unfortunately, revolvers are more compex and require more fitting, more hands on. I love revolvers and fortunately I got mine in better times when prices weren’t so high.

  20. To add to the hot loads in a Ruger Redhawk stream:
    A range buddy who also hunts deer takes .45 Colt Starline cases, fills them as far as possible with H110, and then stuffs a 325-grain flatnose of his own molding on top.
    We were at the club chronoing this stuff- just about 1300fps for that 325. Good grief.
    The gun showed absolutely no signs of distress. The empties fell out and the primers were a bit flat but that’s all.
    That’s what Redhawk .45s are for.

  21. I bought this today upon seeing it for the first time. I paid $875 for it. It is the answer to my question of what too with all the .45 ACP and .45 Colt ammo I have accumulated over the years but then sold the guns that used them. The moon clips are cool in that they are a special design which makes loading and unloading them easy. I have a few hundred rounds of Federal HST ammo plus 300 rounds or FMJ .45 ACP so I will be buying more moon clips.

    I have some great .45 Colt hard cast black bear rounds for the smallish kind we get around here from the National Forest I live near. Lots of wild hog and coyote too so I always need a handgun for the SUV, able to handle them.

    The gun is pretty good. Still heavier than I like but I like a 4″ barrel. The .44 ACP should recoil lightly and practicing with Cowboy loads of .45 Colt, should be fun. The DA trigger is to my liking since I grew up on revolvers with much worse triggers but the SA is not as light as on my S&W 686 Plus. That can be a good or bad thing depending on how you intend to use the SA mode.

  22. I picked one up. I did this after discovering the joys of shooting 45ACP out of my S&W Wesson Thunder Ranch. I wanted to pick up a stainless pistol that would shoot 45ACP. The bonus to me is the addition of the 45LC. I also have a Redhawk in 45LC and another 44mag, along with a Super Redhawk in 44mag. I am thrilled about obtaining this pistol for my collection and enjoy all the mentioned Redhawks. The only negative is that currently the pistol only comes with 3 moon clips. I did buy 9 more at the Ruger shop but 3 of these moon clips come at 14.00 for three moon clips. To me that is an expensive price when compared to the 325 clips I have purchased. Hopefully will see some cheaper effective options in this pistols future on moon clips. Not to much of a negative. I did get this pistol over the new stainless SW Custom Shop 625 pistols that are out, but I certainly will save up for that beauty as well. Either way no regrets, I for one am enjoying the Ruger and S&W revolvers immensely and I am thankful for both of the companies putting out some quality pistols!

  23. I look at it this way, I’ve never owned a 45 LC, before and now i do. The 45 acp is a bonus since i already own a ruger commander 1911. I’ll probably never use the 45 acp on this anyway. I figure for $759.00 shipped it is cheaper than the ruger 45 redhawk anyway.

  25. I’d like to get one of these. Are reloads of 45lc okay to use in this. The cylinder has been slightly milled out to handle the moon clips. My concern is the small exposed unsupported area of the brass when shooting 45lc, then reloaded the same brass. Glocks suffer from a micro bulge due to a small unsupported area of the brass and if the case becomes weak and would fail in that area, being unsupported, would not the gasses escape encroaching on the other cylinders?

  26. It’s important to remember that when firing both .45 ACP and .45 Colt during a single outing, soft lead .45 Colt will lead the forcing cone and barrel when fired in substantial quantities. If that lead is not wire brushed out before firing jacketed .45 ACP and/or jacketed .45 Colt, the leading could act as a partial barrel obstruction and create dangerous pressure levels. If the soft lead ammo is saved for last, no problem. Also, hard cast lead alloy, especially when gas checked, doesn’t create this leading problem, so firing them in either order in any quantity causes no danger of high pressure. This all applies to all guns, regardless of manufacturer.

    • Good call, would have forgotten about this having not shot wheelguns for awhile. Got the redhawk 45acp/lc. It’s fantastic.

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