Quote:
Originally Posted by 10/22
My Highway Patrolman story is less romantic and more down to earth. When the Highway Patrolman came out it competed on price. My hardware store had the new Ruger flat top .357 Blackhawk for about $85 give or take a couple of bucks.
Weatherby's store in South Gate, CA had a new and...wait for it...cheaper model Smith & Wesson, called the Highway Patrolman. With it's less polished finish and no frills it went for, you guessed it about $85 give or take.
My dad had to buy it for me because I was only 19. He bragged to everyone that his son had a .357 magnum. I was very responsible and learned to load my own. Young studs want HOT loads. I used 14 grains of 2400 over cast Elmer Keith style bullets...had to scrub like hell to remove the fouling.
It shot so hard and battered my thumb web so much...not to mention destroying my hearing, that I could not wait to unload it. I hated that gun.
How times change. Now we all know about protecting our ears and no one loads lead slugs over charges that hot...and of course the Highway Patrolman has become a collector classic. But...so did the Ruger Flattops.
Back then...who knew? Sometimes good things are wasted on the young
10/22
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I wish I had bought a lot of Ruger Flat tops back in the day. I bought only one .44 Flat Top, sometime in the mid-1960s, like new but no box, as I remember, for $60 at a gun show. I think it had a 4-digit SN. I didn't reload .44 Mag at that time, so bravely went forth with factory loads. It took about two shots to convince me that the Ruger was a real handful, as it about split the web between my thumb and forefinger. I hung onto it a few more years without shooting in much, and around 1969 I unloaded it onto a friend for a little more than I paid for it (including a partial box of factory ammo and a holster). When I see the prices these things bring now, selling it had to have been one of my dumber sales, but far from the dumbest. I haven't even seen a .44 Flat top for a very long time.