ANOTHER 5-SHOT .45 ON A BUDGET

It was august of 1999 and I was restless, suffering from the pre season doldrums and wondering what on earth I could do to prepare a new approach to the Montana deer season. I decided based on the writings of Jim Taylor, Paco Kelly, John Linebaugh and others that I just had to have a stainless ruger blackhawk in 45 colt. I was really taken with the idea of having a gun that conformed to the "three P's" of Portable, Packable Power, the concept just made good sense.

After a good deal more reading of the aforementioned gentlemen's writing, I decided that a whole lot of things they had to say made good sense, thus began my reentry to the wonderful world of single action revolvers.

How many of you find yourself thumbing back the hammer on your double actions without even thinking about it? The idea of shooting a revolver double action just never really caught on with me I guess, but I always seemed to find myself holding a double action revolver, go figure. Well to make a long story short I marched down to one of the local gun shops and plopped down a small stack of hard earned cash and walked out the door with a very nice 4 5/8 inch stainless Blackhawk in 45 colt.

The guy behind the counter at the gun shop was a dyed in the wool 45 colt man and he promised me I was really going to like 45 colt, he was right to say the least. I started with this gun by shooting up two boxes of Remington factory 250 grain ammunition just to get a feel for the gun and it left me somewhat disappointed. I decided to use some of the information that I had gotten from the writings of Jim Taylor, Paco and John Linebaugh and things started looking up right away. 

The first thing I found out was that the cylinder throats on my gun were too tight and I started looking around for a single action smith to open them up. My search led me to a man that is now a good and loyal friend to me and a master gun smith without a doubt. His name is Roger Hunziker and he is the owner of the firm of Phillips and Rodgers in Huntsville Texas. 

I called Roger at his shop outside of Huntsville and after speaking with him for what seemed like only a few minutes ( I later found out it was at least an hour) I felt like I had known him all my life. He's one of those kind of people and a man I'd certainly choose to ride the river with. 

I found out that the price difference between having another smith open up the throats on my six shot cylinder and having Roger build me a 5 shot cylinder, fit it including a new hand was about fifty bucks.  This was going to be a no brainer. 

I mailed my gun via the USPS to Phillips and Rodgers along with a USPS money order for the total amount of the work. During the following weeks I called Roger on a regular basis to keep abreast of the work and to spend more time getting to know him as well. I had decided to not only have the five shot conversion done, but to have a custom gunfighter grip frame from Gary Reeder Custom Guns installed as well.  

The total cost of the work at today's prices is still under five hundred dollars. A simple 5 shot conversion is under three hundred dollars. 

After a suitable period of waiting the joyous day arrived when my gun showed up on my doorstep. Now it was time to get serious and do some testing. I started out by doing a complete tear down of the gun, complete cleaning and a full inspection. I came away saying to myself "man is this guy good". What I found was that my gun had no end play now, zero, zip, nada. It was as tight as could be. I also discovered much to my delight that Roger had  gone the extra mile and installed the silent two way pawl on my gun along with a three click hand that moved the cylinder into the locked position with the last half inch or so of the cocking motion, very nice indeed. 

The cylinder was built from 17/4 stainless and hardened to about a 42 -44 Rockwell hardness. It was very nicely polished along with the rest of my gun. The finishing process that Hunziker did included removing the lettering from the barrel and final finishing was done on a five hundred grit wheel for a non-glare but lustrous finish that I find quite appealing.  

The Reeder gunfighter grip frame was perfectly fitted ( I later found out it was made from the grip frame off of my own gun) and the original grip panels had been recut to a very nice fit. Overall I found myself holding a real gem that fit my hand like it grew there. 

Now it was time for the real fun.  I grabbed two hundred rounds of hand loads and headed for the range, the proof they say is in the pudding right? I started with a load that is to me a time honored classic, 18.5 grains of 2400 under the tried and true lyman/keith 454424 cast semi hard. Groups were good, but not great, about three inches at fifty yards. I moved up to another time honored classic of 22.0 grains of 240 under the same lyman/keith 454424 and my groups started to tighten a bit.

I saw a trend beginning to develop here. I changed to 23.5 grains of H110 under the same bullet with no perceptible improvement. When I moved on up to 25 grains of H110 things started to change and by the time I had reached 27 grains of H110 I knew this gun was a real shooter. 

Hunziker had cut the cylinder throats to .452 as I had requested and the excellence of his work really began to show up when I cleaned the gun. You see, after 200 rounds of some pretty snuffy loads using nothing but cast bullets, I could remove the almost imperceptible leading with nothing but a phosphor bronze brush. My gun had not only turned in some of the best groups I am capable of  shooting at fifty yards with open sights (under two inches), it had done it without leading up like it used to. 

Since my friendship began with Roger Hunziker I have become a part time sales representative for Phillips and Rodgers, due mostly to the extreme excellence of Roger's work. Hunziker is a driven man when it comes to the subject of excellence and customer service. Iit drives his business as sure as the sun coming up in the morning. During the months that have passed since becoming friends with Hunziker he has expanded the single action line of his company to include three different frame sizes of guns along with an almost mind-boggling array of options to please even the most discriminating master sixgunner. 

Hunziker currently offers the only single action revolver in the world available in the new 450 marlin magnum cartridge. This is his maxi frame gun and it also comes in the venerable 375 Winchester cartridge that Paco loves so well. 

The next size smaller than the maxi frame is the mid frame model PR-230 that comes in all handgun cartridges up to and including 500 Linebaugh Maximum. The standard size model PR-110 comes in all handgun cartridges up through 500 Linebaugh and is the same as the Ruger frame in size. 

Hunziker also offers a wide array of custom gunsmithing services including new cylinder manufacturing services to customers as well as other gunsmiths.

Jesse Walton