The Gun Digest Book of the Revolver. Grant Cunningham
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Ruger SP101 is a compact all steel revolver, generally five-shot and most often chambered in .38 Special/.357 Magnum. Introduced in 1993, it is for all intents and purposes a baby GP100. It looks and acts very much like its big brother. In capacity and chambering it is most like a S&W J-frame, but there the similarities end. It is larger and heavier than any J, and in fact is almost exactly the same size as a Colt D-frame. Many holsters that fit one will also fit the other. The SP101 is the most comfortable small revolver to shoot with Magnum ammunition, owing to its recoil damping weight and its soft rubber grips. It is the only revolver, save perhaps the Colt Detective Special, where the trigger reach is actually too short even for hands in the medium-small range.
Ruger’s most recent entry is the LCR, which is best described as a polymer (plastic) equivalent of a J-frame. The LCR, which stands for “Light, Compact Revolver,” is made of polymer and an aluminum alloy with a steel cylinder. The LCR is currently chambered in .38 Special and .357 Magnum, and boasts dimensions and weight very similar to the lightweight S&W five shooters. The stock grips are of a recoil absorbing rubber material.
The GP, SP, and LCR revolvers utilize a stub grip frame with one-piece grips. This means that the grip is attached to a narrow protrusion from the frame, not unlike the way a Popsicle is stuck on its stick. This gives a tremendous amount of flexibility for replacement grips, as the trigger reach dimension can be varied over a much wider range than a revolver using a conventional grip frame.
The Six series had a conventional frame, but today the only Ruger double action still boasting that kind of construction is the Redhawk. This is a large frame revolver, the rough equivalent of a S&W N-frame, which uses a traditional frame and grip panels. The Redhawk’s trigger reach is very similar to its S&W counterpart. The Redhawk has been made in .45 Colt, but it is best known (and most common) in the original .44 Magnum.
It’s easy to get confused between the Ruger Redhawk and the Super Redhawk. Other than the name, though, there is no similarity between these two Ruger guns. The Redhawk came into being when the Six series was in production, and it’s not entirely unfair to think of it as an enlarged Six. The Super Redhawk was introduced in 1987 and is very correctly thought of as an enlarged GP100, both inside and out. It uses the distinctive Ruger stub grip frame design and in fact takes GP100 grips. The Super Redhawk has been chambered for some of the world’s most powerful handgun cartridges, including the mighty .454 Casull. Its GP-sized grip frame gives it the distinction of possessing the shortest trigger reach of any large bore revolver currently on the market. Even my stubby little fingers have no problem manipulating the Super Redhawk’s trigger!
Difference in butt shapes: round butt on left, square butt on right. Superior concealment characteristics of round butt are obvious.
Butt shapes
You’ll often see references to square and round butts in relation to grips. Some makers, most notably Smith & Wesson, produced revolvers whose grip frames had different shapes. These shapes refer to the contour of the backstrap of the grip frame, and more specifically the shape of approximately the lower half of that frame.
Square-butt guns have backstraps that are relatively straight in the lower half. After an initial curve outward, the grip frame takes pretty much a straight line toward the bottom corner. Relative to the front strap of the frame, the square butt has a slight flare. The bottom corner is sharp, protruding to a point.
Round butts have backstraps that curve in, toward the muzzle, in their bottom half. They present a very rounded profile to the hand, and there is no bottom corner point. The shape often produces a slightly shorter trigger reach than does the square butt.
The round butt has the advantage of being smaller and easier to conceal.
The square butt has a major contact area in the heel of the hand. This tends to push the muzzle up a bit compared to a round butt, changing the angle of the grip. This increases the trigger reach just a bit, and as a result the square butt tends to be preferred by people with larger hands. It’s also a favorite of those who espouse ‘hip shooting,’ as the square butt grip angle changes the muzzle position in relation to the bones of the forearm. This results in the barrel being parallel with the ground when the gun is below the line of sight.
Square butt grip can be modified to round butt. Using hardened template, gunsmith removes dark areas at top and bottom of picture and files surfaces smooth.
The round butt profile puts the grip’s main contact point into the center of the palm. The grip angle is a little steeper than the square butt. The round butt has the advantage of being smaller and easier to conceal, as the profile is less likely to poke through a covering garment. Its slightly shorter trigger reach is generally preferred by smaller handed shooters.
In the past S&W offered both square and round butt versions in many (if not most) of their models. Today their revolvers are made with a round butt profile, for which grips are available to mimic the shape of the square butt for those who prefer that style. These grips also fit older round butt guns to convert them to square butt. Older square butt Smith & Wesson revolvers can be converted by a gunsmith to the round profile by removing metal from the grip frame, or in some cases by cutting and re-forming the backstrap. Both modifications require skill and a trip to the refinisher, but once done, with grips on, they look like factory round butt guns.
Grip makers, both production and custom, produce a wide variety of grips to fit either round or square butts.
Other manufacturers have produced varying grip shapes, but not to the extent of S&W. Only a few relatively rare Colt revolvers were made with round butts. Unlike their S&W counterparts, the Colt rounding was not dramatic. It usually took the form of a large radius on the bottom corners rather than a reshaped backstrap. Like the S&W conversions a skilled gunsmith can achieve the same effect, but the downside is that grips will need to be custom made. The factory Colt round butts were very uncommon even when they were available, and today there are no stock grips made for those guns. In a way, the result is a gun which doesn’t really exist.
Ruger Six-series guns were available in both round and square configurations. The Service and Security models were generally square butt, while the Speed was round butt. Ruger round butts were somewhere between the S&W and Colt approaches, having the last third of the grip frame rounded off. Square butt Six models can be converted by a gunsmith to the round butt variety, but because the way their square butts curve the work results in a slight depression approximately one-quarter of the way up the grip. That is, if the goal is to fit factory round butt grips; if the gun is to have custom grips made, this depression can be removed and the grips profiled to match exactly.
The later GP100, SP101, and Super Redhawk get their shapes from the grips themselves. The stud grip frame used on these guns doesn’t impact on the shape of the grips, giving the grip makers complete control over the shape the grip will take. This gives the shooter a wide range of different profiles from which to choose.
Grip options
In the last chapter, we talked about the interface between the hand and the revolver, and how grips can affect it. It’s relatively easy to change grips on a revolver to dramatically change how the gun fits the hand and how it feels in the shooter’s grasp. Many times there are grips available from grip companies that will get the feel the shooter wants. If nothing suitable is available from these commercial sources, there is an ever-changing community of custom grip makers who can produce grips to fit even the most exacting specifications.
If you’re not satisfied with the grips on your gun you’ll have many choices in replacements, but you’ll need to make some decisions along the way.
Your first decision will be the material that the grips are made of. The two most commonly available materials are wood and rubber, and you’ll find passionate advocates of each.
Rubber
Rubber