Chief Rick Posted March 31 Posted March 31 (edited) Did Ruger make any Vaquero's (New or Old) in 44-40. Either regular or Bisley grips? Edited March 31 by Chief Rick Quote
Chas B. Wolfson, SASS #11104 Posted March 31 Posted March 31 (edited) YES-OMV Edited March 31 by Chas B. Wolfson, SASS #11104 8 Quote
No Horse Hair, SASS #77464 Posted March 31 Posted March 31 I have a pair of Old Vaq models and put together a BISLEY pair by swapping parts years ago. 1 Quote
Frontier Lone Rider Posted March 31 Posted March 31 When Ruger came out with their smaller frame, the New Model Vaquero, they elected to no longer manufacture the Vaquero in 44-40. They still make them in 45LC, 44 Special and 44 Magnum. Evidently folks were not purchasing enough 44-40s for Ruger to make a fair profit. These were manufactured with barrels of 4.62 (4 5/8), 5 1/2. and 7 1/2. I currently have several, but none were purchased new. There are other manufactures who continue do manufacture firearms in 44-40. 2 Quote
La Sombra Posted March 31 Posted March 31 @Chief Rick, Dude! 2 pairs of them in my safe that are my regular shooters. FYI Ruger in the OMV also did a 38-40/40 S&W model. (even rarer) La Sombra 1 Quote
Buckshot Bear Posted March 31 Posted March 31 Gun shops down here had NMV 44-40 - 44 Magnum convertible (two cylinders). Quote
Tall John Posted March 31 Posted March 31 34 minutes ago, Buckshot Bear said: Gun shops down here had NMV 44-40 - 44 Magnum convertible (two cylinders). I have an omv 44mag with a second 44-40 cylinder. Quote
Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933 Posted March 31 Posted March 31 (edited) The .44 Mags are built on the old full size frame. Ruger made the NMV cylinders smaller and there was not enough room for the .44-40 rims. Notice the catalog photos of a .357 and .44 Mag. The .357 is marked New Vaquero the .44 Mag just Vaquero. If you look close the difference in cylinder size is apparent. Edited March 31 by Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933 5 4 Quote
High Spade Mikey Wilson Posted March 31 Posted March 31 9 hours ago, La Sombra said: @Chief Rick, FYI Ruger in the OMV also did a 38-40/40 S&W model. (even rarer) La Sombra Yes I shoot with a pard who has a pair shooting gunfighter using the 40 S&W cylinders. Nice pistols! Quote
Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933 Posted March 31 Posted March 31 Ruger also made a small number of OMVs in .32 H&R/.32-20. Quote
Yul Lose Posted March 31 Posted March 31 Here’s a pair of my New Vaqueros that started out as .357 and are now 44-40 with Octagon barrels. 3 1 Quote
The Original Lumpy Gritz Posted March 31 Posted March 31 Ruger made a bunch of OMV in .44 WCF. All had undersized cyl throats. Quote
Cowtown Scout, SASS #53540 L Posted March 31 Posted March 31 Here are my pair of OMV that started life as .40 cal and then had the cylinders bored to 38-40 before I purchased them many years ago. 2 1 Quote
Frontier Lone Rider Posted March 31 Posted March 31 1 hour ago, The Original Lumpy Gritz said: Ruger made a bunch of OMV in .44 WCF. All had undersized cyl throats. I currently own 20 Vaqueros in 44-40, all stainless for shooting black powder. Four are 7 1/2 which I use for Josey Wales. Two are 4 5/8 which are just too short for me. The rest are all 5 1/2-inch. Yes, and they all had Cylinder Throats of .425 or smaller. Ruger said they bored at that size as it was the original throat opening. It didn't matter that modern 44-40 Ammo is .428 - .4300. The under sized Cylinder Throats caused a Safety Issue when firing today's commercial ammo. As the larger bullets tries to go through the smaller Cylinder Throats higher pressures than normal are created resulting in high primers which prevent the cylinder from rotating. The presents an unsafe situation when one is shooting in competition and their cylinder freezes after the 1st shot. When you try to turn the cylinder by hand the revolver can fire a round. Don't ask me how I know, as I was Match DQd for firing over the berm at a state level match. Colorado Coffinmaker determined the cause and told me the solution. Several pards had told what they thought was the cause which I tried correcting, but none had worked. Ruger used to re-bore the Cylinder Throats, but now their Customer Service denies that that ever happened. I purchased my own Manson Cylinder Throat Reamer from Brownell's and now everything is good with the world of Cylinder Throats. I had bought two used American Regulators, which are no longer manufactured by Uberti. They came with two cylinders. One was 44-40 and the other was 44 Spl/44 Mag. It had the correct sized Cylinder Throats. I bought a new pair of Uberti Revolvers in 44-40 and they have the correct size cylinder throats. I continue to shoot Vaqueros as they just fit my hands better. 4 Quote
Three Foot Johnson Posted March 31 Posted March 31 I've currently got six Vaquero .44-40's, three stainless and three blue. I've had eight others, and still fall six short of Frontier Lone Rider. I've got three .38-40/.40 S&W Vaquero convertibles, two consecutive, with the cylinder throats properly opened up - IIRC, Ruger made them .395" for some reason. There's one on GB right now, currently $925 and 5+ hours to go. These were all stainless. And eight .44 Special NV's - 2,023 made in four configurations for Lipsey's in 2010. These are built on the post-2005 NV frame, but marked "Vaquero". The .44 mag run they made a few years back was on the original large frame Vaquero, but marked "New Vaquero". Ruger has made limited runs of .40 S&W only, like Cowtown Scout has, and a small run of .32-20/.32 H&R mag convertibles in 2004 as mentioned above. I've seen production estimates of the 32-20 convertibles vary from "about 250" all the way to one loon who claimed 5,000 were made. 2 Quote
Dantankerous Posted March 31 Posted March 31 20 hours ago, Chas B. Wolfson, SASS #11104 said: YES-OMV Them is purdy! Love the engraving! Quote
Dantankerous Posted March 31 Posted March 31 5 hours ago, Yul Lose said: Here’s a pair of my New Vaqueros that started out as .357 and are now 44-40 with Octagon barrels. I could get used to something like this. I shoot something very similar in 45 Colt, Bisleys. Those octagonal barrels and that engraving... perfécto! Quote
Chief Rick Posted March 31 Author Posted March 31 4 hours ago, Frontier Lone Rider said: Two are 4 5/8 which are just too short for me. You could always PM me if you thought they needed a new home... Just sayin'.😁 Seriously. 1 Quote
Sgt. Hochbauer, SASS #64409 Posted April 1 Posted April 1 I had a pair of OMV in 44wcf that were a NRA special edition that had 6.5 in barrels for whatever reason at the time I did not care for them. Of course they are on my list of guns that I was sorry to sell. 2 Quote
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