Background:
Back in the '50's, Steve McQueen starred in a TV western series about a bounty hunter, titled "Wanted: Dead Or Alive".
His gun was an oddball - a Winchester levergun cut down to handgun size, packing five .44-40s in the shortened tube plus one up the spout. It was set up in a speed rig consisting of the gun's saddle ring hanging from a belt hook, and a wildly abbreviated "holster" holding the bottom 2" or so of barrel...a degree of "cutaway" even today's IPSC folk would envy.
McQueen got pretty good with the weird sucker, and recorded several sub-1-second draw/fires by fanning the hammer on the chambered round.
OK, this was all nutso with a cut-up original Winchester.
Pictures of a period toy gun and pics of the actor and gun are here:
http://members.tripod.com/~stvmcqueen/toys2.html
Another good pic of the actor and gun:
http://www.fiftiesweb.com/western-3.htm#wanted-dead
Now obviously, if you took a Ruger levergun in .44Mag with 10rd mags and chopped it like this, BATF would take a sudden interest .
BUT - could Ruger manufacture something like this, with about an 8" barrel, as a brand new handgun?
It would have some damned interesting advantages to anything currently available. #1, 11 rounds of .44Mag is some decent firepower. With the normal Ruger transfer bar in place that's now used in the rifle, you could indeed carry it one up the pipe. With no revolver cylinder gap, you could grip it forward of the action safely, and velocity would be up a bit over a revolver. It would also be easy to control a 10" barrel with that sort of grip.
If Ruger built it, I'd buy it .
Would it be legal?
I don't see why not. Savage sells repeating bolt-action handguns with 12" barrels in .308. The Ruger is at least still a handgun caliber.
Only possible issue I can see is that a midget might be able to actually shoulder it (GRIN!). But it should be possible to cut the rear grip to the absolute minimum and maybe "shape it a bit pointy" so that it's not even remotely functional as a short shoulder stock.
Obviously, it's not much of a retooling problem. The action would be the same as the rifle, only the wood and barrel would be significantly different.
Comments? Has Jim finally lost it ?
Back in the '50's, Steve McQueen starred in a TV western series about a bounty hunter, titled "Wanted: Dead Or Alive".
His gun was an oddball - a Winchester levergun cut down to handgun size, packing five .44-40s in the shortened tube plus one up the spout. It was set up in a speed rig consisting of the gun's saddle ring hanging from a belt hook, and a wildly abbreviated "holster" holding the bottom 2" or so of barrel...a degree of "cutaway" even today's IPSC folk would envy.
McQueen got pretty good with the weird sucker, and recorded several sub-1-second draw/fires by fanning the hammer on the chambered round.
OK, this was all nutso with a cut-up original Winchester.
Pictures of a period toy gun and pics of the actor and gun are here:
http://members.tripod.com/~stvmcqueen/toys2.html
Another good pic of the actor and gun:
http://www.fiftiesweb.com/western-3.htm#wanted-dead
Now obviously, if you took a Ruger levergun in .44Mag with 10rd mags and chopped it like this, BATF would take a sudden interest .
BUT - could Ruger manufacture something like this, with about an 8" barrel, as a brand new handgun?
It would have some damned interesting advantages to anything currently available. #1, 11 rounds of .44Mag is some decent firepower. With the normal Ruger transfer bar in place that's now used in the rifle, you could indeed carry it one up the pipe. With no revolver cylinder gap, you could grip it forward of the action safely, and velocity would be up a bit over a revolver. It would also be easy to control a 10" barrel with that sort of grip.
If Ruger built it, I'd buy it .
Would it be legal?
I don't see why not. Savage sells repeating bolt-action handguns with 12" barrels in .308. The Ruger is at least still a handgun caliber.
Only possible issue I can see is that a midget might be able to actually shoulder it (GRIN!). But it should be possible to cut the rear grip to the absolute minimum and maybe "shape it a bit pointy" so that it's not even remotely functional as a short shoulder stock.
Obviously, it's not much of a retooling problem. The action would be the same as the rifle, only the wood and barrel would be significantly different.
Comments? Has Jim finally lost it ?