Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

I don’t particularly like the Ruger firearms company. My main reason is for Ruger’s history of Neville Chamberlain-esque willingness to ‘compromise’ when gun legislation rolls around. For example, Ruger voluntarily pulled their folding stock Mini-14’s off the civilian market. Ditto for the factory 20-rd mags. And Ruger was proud to be the first to suggest to the .gov that pistol magazines be limited to 10 rounds. Their advertising of themselves as “Arms maker for responsible citizens”, has an undeniably, and to me offensive, Orwellian ring to it. To continue the WW2 analogies, Ruger was the Quisling of the gun industry.

But, of course, theres an ‘on the other hand…’

On the other hand, I do like Ruger firearms. Ruger makes some of the most durable firearms around.

I was re-reading Tappan’s opinion on revolvers vs. automatics for self-defense and especially for long-term use. Tappan opined that, by and large, an automatic could be repaired as fast as you could swap some parts. A revolver could be repaired as fast as you could get it to a gunsmith. As usual, there are almost no absolutes in there and the truth is somewhat in the middle. For example, in Tappans book he also goes on about how the 1911 is the finest pistol you can get…once you take it right out of the shipping box and hand it over to a gunsmith for all sorts of modifications. So, apparently, his vaunted automatic was no better than the revolver in terms of being ‘repaired as fast as you can get it to the gunsmith’. On the other hand, I’ve owned and shot revolvers over 60 years old that still seemed to work just fine. Go figure.

But, to be fair, Tappan was right in some ways. Revolvers generally have parts (hand, bolt, etc) that require some fitting by hand. On the other hand, you take a modern auto like the Glock and pretty much any part just drops in with no fitting…a very handy feature for the long term where you never know if theres going to be a gunsmith available. (Or when your favorite gun is verboten and you cant risk taking it in for repairs.)

Personally, I’ve gone past the dogmatic stage of unyielding allegiance to a particular brand of firearm simply because it sound cool to say “Glocks rock!” or “John Browning is my god”. I want what works. For playing at the range and relaxing I have other preferences but for “Holy crap, was that a mushroom cloud?” I want something that I trust implicitly. The main appeal of automatics, for me, is the capacity of the magazine. Ballistically, revolvers appeal to me more.

So wheres Ruger fit into this?

Its my opinion that Ruger, despite their cowardly political practices in the past, make some of the most durable firearms on the planet today. I will also say that they currently make the most durable revolvers. Period.

I’ve been wanting a .44 Mag for a while now. Logistically, it does not fit into my main cartridge hierarchy (.22, .223, .308, 9mm, .38/.357, .45 ACP, 12 ga.) but I’ve been wanting a powerful revolver for stomping around in the boonies as well as for general usage. I’ve owned .44 Mags by  other manufacturers, including S&W, and while they were certainly good guns I do not believe they could stand up to long-term use with full-power loads as well as the Rugers.

Currently, I’m torn between the new 4” Redhawk and the .44 Alaskan model. The Alaskan is built on the Super Redhawk frame and is, in a word, massive. I genuinely believe that twenty years after the bombs go off the only guns still functioning will be AK’s, Glocks and these monolithic blocks of Ruger steel.

At this point Im sure someone is saying “Why not .45 Colt? You can load it as hot as the .44 Mag and you’ll have bullet interchangeability with your .45 ACP bullets.” That’s true. Logistically, I could eliminate the need to stock .44 bullets and brass and simply use .45 ACP bullets if needed. However, I think availability of .44 Mag ammo is better than .45 Colt. Also, the .45 Colt ammo that is available, usually, is the lighter stuff meant for all guns whereas the “.44 Magnumesque” .45 Colt loads are either strictly a handloading proposition or are available only from a limited amount of sources.

Why a revolver? The revolver offers me more power than can be stuffed into the average auto. (Yes, I know theres .45 Win. Mags out there. Im talking about the average auto.) At its best, the .45 ACP puts out around 500 ft/lb of energy (a +p load with 185 gr.) The 10mm, a worthy choice, puts out 600 ft/lb. at its best. A .44 Mag can put out 700-1000 ft/lb. without too much difficulty. The .357 Magnum puts out around 500 ft/lb. so ballistically its as good as any .45 ACP. The attraction to a revolver is that I get an extremely broad selection of bullet choices. I can shoot shot loads for pests at close range, lightweight bullets for plinking or small game, heavy bullets for larger game, and wicked cavernous hollowpoints (or even inverted hollowbase wadcutters) for brutal stopping power. This is not to say I’d run off to WW3 with the revolver on my hip…rather, for everyday use in the boonies the revolver has more appeal to me than the auto.

Is the revolver my first handgun choice for running out the door with when Der Tag arrives? Nope. That would be my Glock. But when Im hunting, or mountain biking, or fishing, or just tooling around in the sticks it would be nice to have something that affords me a large degree of power.

So, I think for a .44 Mag the Ruger is going to be the way to go.

As I was typing this a customer came in and as he was fishing around for his wallet I noticed some speedloaders on his belt. “Packing the revolver today?” I asked. He replied in the affirmative and produced his 4” GP100 Ruger .357. Im a fan of S&W handguns, and have a bunch of them, but that GP100 is a rugged little piece. I may have to get a couple of them too.