This Beauty Will Reign In Most Any Environment
The top strap, barrel, and sidewalls are built like an armored car. The amount of meat around the forcing cone will keep the steel industry in business.
The cylinder is triple locked for the firing sequence. That is, it locks at the front, the rear, and the bottom. This is about where I have to deliver a confession in order to demonstrate how good this gun really is. I loaded up some 300 grain loads using the latest from Northern Precision Custom Bullets. I crimped them hard, but apparently not hard enough.
A revolver with heavy recoil can cause the bullets in the still loaded cartridges in the cylinder to creep forward, unless they have heavy enough crimps. As one shoots, the cartridges get longer. Since I was trying to punch these guys out at around 1450 fps or so, the gun kicked in a healthy manner. All of a sudden, it wouldn’t shoot. Everything locked. It took me a second for the light in my cranium to go on, perhaps because there were still spots dancing before my eyes from sending Thor’s hammer down range.
My poor reloading practices just added another testing criterion. Ordinary revolvers generally have a little play in the cylinder. A little play would allow me to rock the cylinder open. The Ruger Alaskan has zero play. Zero. I was standing on the range trying to keep from calling any attention to myself while trying to pop open the cylinder. If my buddies caught me, I would not hear the end of it.
I did get the cylinder open and removed the faulty cartridges. Later, I put some of the corrected cartridges into targets, and they performed admirably. I could make some of these bullet holes touch!
I shot some 45 Colt rounds in the Ruger Alaskan. This is an inherently accurate cartridge, and this is an inherently accurate gun. With 45 Colt, it turned into a plinker. I was having a blast poking holes in paper.
If the Ruger Alaskan was not a firearm, it would be a top candidate for a modern art design award. It has all the beauty, simplicity, aesthetics, and sustainability as any other pieces in design awards competition. Since it is the kind of thing carried by the most conservation conscious people in the world, it would also reign in the “ecologically conscious” category. I belong to the category of users who agree with the design superiority, meaning “I have to own one”.
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