Revolvers

I hunted three seasons with Ruger single actions back in my Oregon days but never had a shot. The first year had to have been in the early to mid-1980s as you still had to have your deer tag stamped "Handgun only" at an ODFW office. I hunted up near Diamond Lake, which is close to Crater Lake in the Oregon Cascades. This was blacktail country, and I carried a Blackhawk in .41 Magnum with 4 5/8-inch barrel loaded with handloads consisting of the 210-grain Sierra JHP over a charge of Blue Dot. All I ever had was a glimpse of a buck gliding through those dark lodgepoles like he was on a jet sled. I drew but just didn't have a shot. The next time I handgun hunted, Oregon had relented on the handgun-only stamp. I had gone the opposite direction: 10 1/2-inch stainless Super Blackhawk, Leupold EER 2X, Uncle Mike's barrel-clamp sling swivel stud up front and butt of the revolver drilled and tapped for the other stud. Man, that was a handy rig to carry, but I realized it was terribly unhandy for off-hand work when I jumped a mulie buck out of a stand of aspen in Eastern Oregon and it crossed in front of my brother on the other side. He dumped it with one shot from his 6.5 Swede Mauser. The last time was bear hunting in the Siskiyou Mountains near my home in the Rogue Valley, probably 2011 or 2012. (If you haven't heard it pronounced, it's sis-Q.) I was easing along on a Forest Service logging road looking for fresh sign on the soft dirt banks, when darn if a blackie didn't just lope right across the road in front of me. I bailed out of the F-150 and drew the revolver -- this time another 10 1/2 inch SBH, blued, iron sights, 300-grain hard cast over a load of 296 -- and huffed and puffed up the bank , cut his trail then quickly lost it in the tangle of brush. I got to a vantage point where I could listen and glass, but he had vanished, for all intents and purposes. Thinking back over my time afield with Ruger sixguns, I know that the 7 1/2-inch barrel makes a lot of sense. It gives your powder a chance to give your bullet a good shove, it gives you a very useful sight radius for accuracy and it is reasonably easy to carry -- but not as reasonable as the 5 1/2-inch. I have long thought the best compromise might be the 6 1/2-inch, but for some reason Ruger has only made them in .357 and .41 Magnum that I can recall. This might be the "ideal" barrel length for packability and shootability in a dedicated hunting sixgun. Fun to think about. Maybe someday I'll buy a 7 1/2 in .44 Magnum or .45 Colt and have the barrel bobbed an inch to satisfy my curiosity. I miss that Siskiyou country just north of the California line, but Oregon politics have gone hard left and I'll never go back. In our rural neighborhood in the foothills we had deer, turkeys, and yes, bears. Here was one I caught briefly while heading up the mountain to hunt deer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wMv1lggk4I