The year was 1955, World War II was over and Colt had discontinued the iconic Single-Action Army that had been displayed to such memorable effect by General George S. Patton. The Corvette, introduced to much fanfare two years before, was hanging on to dear life in the face of lackluster sales, Westerns were popular, everyone wanted a sixgun and nobody made them. Perhaps a little hyperbole on that last part: Great Western, trying to fill the gap left by Colt, had started making single-action revolvers, but variable quality and production challenges kept quantities low. If not for making John Wayne’s pistols in his final film “The Shootist,” they’d have likely slid into total obscurity.
Enter Bill Ruger
Bill Ruger, riding the tremendous success of his Standard model .22 pistol (now the MkIV) and Single Six .22 revolver, saw the opportunity but was not interested in being an also-ran to Colt. Ruger’s first centerfire, the resulting .357 Magnum Blackhawk was not only, you know, available, but broke new ground in terms of strength, reliability, and what it could be used for.
A Brief History of Timelessness
Though Colt had made other models before (and wasn’t the first to make a revolver), the sleek 1851 “Navy” was the first of the gunfighter’s guns. A .36 caliber black powder six-shooter, it was favored by Wild Bill Hickok years after fixed ammunition guns were available. Colt made the grip longer—a mistake, it turns out—and offered a swoopier version in .44, creating the 1860 Army. Metallic cartridges were around during the Civil War in which both pistols played a major role, but Colt was sidelined by patent issues after a former employee, Rollin White, was granted the patent for a bored-through cylinder. White licensed Smith & Wesson to use his design, making them first to market with a breechloading revolver and locking Colt out of the cartridge gun market until its expiration.
Colt’s riposte arrived in 1872, in time for the government trials, which it won. Chambered first in .45 Colt, firing a 250-grain lead bullet around 900 feet per second, the Model 1873 in various versions armed first the cavalry and then pistoleros of all stripes. It has been called the Single-Action Army, the Frontier Six Shooter, and the Peacemaker. It is the definitive Western gun, and if you think of a cowboy gun it will invariably be the one that comes to mind.
Gone was the long grip of the 1860 black powder gun, replaced with the better-feeling handle of the 1851 Navy. The internal action remained basically the same, powered by leaf springs, and with an easily broken half-cock notch, the only thing that kept the hammer-mounted firing pin from resting on the primer of whatever cartridge happened to be beneath it. More on that later.
Sights were improved from the black powder guns, but barely. A larger front blade was aligned with a groove in the rounded top of the receiver, instead of a notch cut in the face of the hammer (only visible when cocked) as on the ’51 and 1860 cap’n’ball guns. It wasn’t much, but at least it didn’t move around.
Adjustable Sights Mean Greater Practicality
While I’m an advocate of fixed sights on working guns, it’s a bit different for a field gun. No one would mount a scope you can’t adjust to a hunting rifle, but that’s what it works out to. The odds that a fixed-sighted gun will line up with what you want to shoot are rather low, especially on a .357 Magnum that may also be used to shoot .38 Specials. With a modern auto, you just tap the rear sight over in its dovetail or screw in a new front sight to zero the gun, but that’s not an option when the rear sight is a slot machined integral with the frame and getting a higher front sight requires welding. In that case, you find the load that hits at the distance you want to shoot, and that’s what you stick with.
When Ruger’s Blackhawk arrived over 80 years after the SAA, the sights were the biggest difference. The frame was the same basic size, but gone was the top that was rounded both from side to side and front to rear, creating a deceptive false horizon when trying to get a good sight picture. Instead, the Blackhawk’s was broad, square, and flat, hence the “Flattop” nickname. Shortly before the .44 Magnum was to enter the world, the .357 Magnum was then among the most powerful handgun cartridges, fully capable of taking most game, and the adjustable Micro rear sight let the shooter adjust the gun to the load they thought best instead of vice versa.
In all fairness, it wasn’t the first revolver with a flat top. Some Colt target models came with them and had drift-adjustable rear sights, including Bisley, SAA, and Double-Action New Service revolvers. Nor was it the first single action with an adjustable rear sight: during its brief life Great Western offered that as an option on their traditional Colt-style sixguns. It was, however, clearly an add-on. The iconic Keith Number 5 custom revolver combined those features in 1929, but the Blackhawk was unique in including both in a new, strong production design.
Strength Above All
And was it ever strong: the 45-sized frame created a broad safety margin (so much so that the guns are safely convertible to .44 Special and other big bore calibers) to which the broad top only added. Similarly, the .45-sized cylinder allowed the cylinder walls to be extra thick surrounding the much smaller .357 charge holes. Even with its rim, a .357 Magnum cartridge easily drops down the bore of a .45, which gives you an idea of how much more material the big cylinder had to safely contain the pressure of even hot .357 loads.
This wasn’t only speculation: each of the six charge holes in the cylinder was tested with proof loads operating at 60,000 PSI, far above the .357’s max average pressure, which, if I’m reading the SAAMI specs correctly, is 35,000 PSI.
The .44 Magnum Flattop had a frame that was similar to the .357 but larger (a still larger one was to come later with the Super Blackhawk) and shared its use of coil springs instead of the more fragile leaf springs of the Colt SAA. Both kept the ’51/Peacemaker size grip frame, which Ruger internally called the XR3, and, less fortuitously, both kept the Colt lockwork with its dangerous firing-pin-on-primer feature.
…Except for Safety
For serious sixgunners, something is charming about the early lockwork with its four clicks, a sound so distinctive it’s said to spell out “C-O-L-T.” Some even claim they can tell by the sound whether or not the gun is loaded. Logical—the bolt snapping into place over a hollow, empty cylinder would sound different than if it was dampened by having a cartridge stuffed in it—but you can’t prove it by me. Cool, but dangerous: if you leave the hammer down on a live cartridge, a blow on the hammer can discharge it. Put it on half-cock, and only a light blow can break the fragile notch, again discharging the cartridge. Not only that, but there is no interlock between the hammer and loading gate, so the hammer can actually be dropped on a loaded chamber and fire the gun while it’s being loaded, which sounds like a pretty bad time.
This has been a known problem as long as the sixgun has been around. Colt literature warned against carrying the gun with six rounds, and the usual practice is to load one chamber, skip one, load four, then cock and lower the hammer on an empty chamber. It’s the only safe way.
I don’t know exactly how many lawsuits were filed against Ruger as a result of accidents with the original lockwork, but it was enough to suggest a substantial redesign which was incorporated into New Model revolvers in 1973. The three screws upon which the hammer, trigger, and bolt pivoted were replaced with pins (which is why the early Blackhawks are called “three screw” guns), and Ruger’s transfer bar safety was introduced.
Transferrence
Long since standard on all Ruger single-actions (and with a similar version included by Colt in 1999 on its Cowboy single-action), there is no direct mechanical connection between the hammer and the firing pin unless the hammer is cocked and the trigger is pulled. Instead, the hammer rests on a solid shelf in the frame and there’s a flat bar connected to the trigger that rises between the hammer and the firing pin as the trigger is pulled. The new mechanism also interlocks with the loading gate so the hammer cannot be cocked while it is open. The New Model guns thus became safer in every way, including being safe to load with all six cartridges, a not-insubstantial capacity increase of 20%.
In 1980, Ruger designed a retrofit kit. As with many things, even if later guns are safer or better, unmodified originals are more desired by collectors. Ruger, anticipating that some owners may reverse the modification, wisely stamped the frame with an “r” so that if it was returned to the less-safe configuration later it would be clear that Ruger wasn’t the one responsible for it.
Another change adopted by the New Model, but which started during old model production, is the addition of a pair of protective ears on either side of the rear sight, reducing the risk of it getting knocked out of alignment, even when cranked up high for long-range shots. A subtler change is the substitution of the XR3-RED grip frame, which varies dimensionally from the original Colt-style XR3.
Despite these changes—and the unquestionable added safety of the new guns—as the first of them all, the original Flattop has its charm, with its deep blue finish (often with a plum-colored load gate), crisp trigger, and nostalgic mechanism. Just repeat after me: “Load one, skip one….”
