Ruger SP101..the range report.

I had the day off today so a coworker and I loaded up and went shooting. I bought the Ruger on Saturday and was excited to ring her out. I fired aprox 100 rounds. Half .357 and half .38. It was an overall good time. I do know that anyone who thinks shooting full load .357 out of this gun is fun, well they may have a screw loose. It's not tons of fun for sure. One handed is less fun.:blink: The .38s where loads of fun though. I'm so very happy with this gun. I would have pictures, but broke the cam dropping it from the truck first thing today. Overall, I have a snubbie problem. They are just great guns. :hand10:

Thanks for the report!

Thanks for the report...I agree....357 mag out of the 2.5" is no fun. I did the same thing when I first bought mine. I had 100 rounds of MC and 100 rounds of JHP .357 and I thought I would spend the next hour or so shooting all 200 rounds. I found out right away that I didn't want to do that. Now I shoot 25-50 rounds of .357 and 50 of .38 cal and I'm happy with the results. But all in all the SP101 is a great gun and is one of two of my primary carry pieces. Built super tough but IMHO, it has its' own quiet elegance. Good luck with it and be safe.

If you want to have REAL fun you need to try shooting .357 mag out of a scandium framed snubbie.

congrats on the new ruger can never have too many rugers! i guess i'm a bit nuts then b/c i like firing .357 mag out of my dad's snubbie security six (predecessor to your sp101 snubbie), and its 6 shots and lighter than your 5 shot if i remember correctly. I haven't really held the sp101 much but yeah. i'm a little off i guess. same goes for .45 +p from my ruger p345, buddies won't touch the stuff in their 5" 1911 taurus's but i'll fire it in my smaller and lighter p345 :-D

hope you have that gun long enough to pass it down to your grand kids...and they theirs

Recoil is an odd thing.

I actually liked shooting the HOT Double Tap 158s,

http://onfinite.com/libraries/1395060/4c1.jpg

over the faster 125 gr. CorBons.

Neither load gave perfect control, but were picked for defense needs in a rural
setting.

Plus, they were fun to shoot!

http://onfinite.com/libraries/1343503/03d.jpg

http://onfinite.com/libraries/1351072/905.jpg

Some of the the fun I get out of shooting .357 mags are the peoples reaction to it that are near me. And if shot at with a dang .357 mag and it misses The fireball may well near cook 'em and the concussion might scare the fight out of 'em JK :smile:

Hi, I'm Haywood and I must have a screw loose. 99% of my shooting is done with snub 357s. Taurus 617, Taurus 605, Ruger SP101, Rossi 971. The Two Taurus guns needed a grip change but, the Ruger and the Rossi have good Factory Grips. I practice with 357 loads that I get from Mastercast Bullet Co. They are not screaming hot like some of the Factory stuff but, they aren't wimp loads and shoot point of aim in my guns. You get used to the recoil and I very rarely shoot 38spl. in my 357s.

I have a Ruger SP101 and it is the smallest and lightest .357 Magnum I will shoot.

They are great little guns, and one that, while I may not "like" it, would not hesitate to take to a week long shooting school if that was what I carried. I sure as heck wouldn't take a J-Frame .357 magnum, and don't even own one.

I'm a firm believer that one should carry what they train with. When I'm carrying Revolvers, I train with them. When I'm carrying an Autoloader, I train with them.

Biker

My Ruger SP101 327 Magnum. Observations and questions.

Caveats:
I do not have any particular firearm or gunsmith expertise. In fact, I am rather new to the field.

Let me start with the .327 magnum caliber. I've heard the arguments that it's a solution looking for a problem, we don't need it, get a 357 instead, it's a girly gun, it won't last, yadda yadda. So let me start with a general answer to all of these, "I don't Care!" I like the caliber, it's a good compromise of control and punch for me. I can only suggest that you should try it before discarding it as not viable, you may be surprised.

In addition to the .32 S&W, .32 Long, and .32 H&R magnum rounds the Revolver can shoot, there are currently three .327 Magnum rounds available:

85 gr Federal Hydra-shok (Hollow point)
100gr American JSP (Jacketed Solid Point)
115gr Speer Gold Dot JHP ( Jacketed Hollow Point)

This provides a range of relatively cheap low recoil plinking .32 ammunition that is widely available up to a pretty significant recoil self defense round on the high end. The .327 ammunition is definitely not cheap, and not widely available. The 85gr Hydra-shok runs me about $1.10 per round, the 115gr Speer JHP runs me about $1.20 per round, and the 100gr JSP costs about $.60 per round.

"Shooting Times" numbers will give you a good idea of where the .327 rounds fall in energy and recoil. Note that even the lightest 85gr load is in the 38+p range.

.327 Federal Magnum "Shooting Times" Apr 2008
Data from 3" barrel gun

.Muzzle Energy
.32 H&R Magnum 185 ftlbs
.327 FM 85gr Fed Hydrashok 334 ftlbs
.327 FM 100gr Am Eagle 100gr JSP 435 ftlbs
.327 FM 115gr Speer Gold Dot JHP 431ftlbs
.38 Sprec 129gr HS JHP 245 ftlbs
.357 Mag 125gr JHP 470 ftlbs

Free Recoil Energy in ftlbs
.32 H&R Magnum 1.46
.327 FM 85gr Fed Hydrashok 3.08
.327 FM 100gr Am Eagle 100gr JSP 5.58
.327 FM 115gr Speer Gold Dot 5.62
.38 Spec +p 129gr HS JHP 3.00
.357 Mag 125gr JHP 7.22

I like the double action on the SP101 .327, it's very crisp. The single action seems to have an odd hesitation or mush just before firing. Is this feel what's referred to as "stacking"? As I stated up front, I'm new to this, so perhaps this is normal and I just need to adjust to it? I've seen many posts suggesting "Wolf Spring" replacements on the SP101 357 version, but the .327 is only a 9 lb single action pull so would "Wolf Springs" still be a recommended replacement?

One very weird surprise I had was that my best groupings consistently came from the 115gr Speer JHP, not the much lighter recoil 85gr Hydra-shok. I still don't understand that?

As I previously stated, I really like the round, but I'm also experiencing some irritations with the Ruger. I think that they are having some manufacturing quality control problems. Spent casing ejections are not smooth. Generally the 85gr Federal ammunition requires only a little bit of pressure on the ejector. Unfortunately, most of the other rounds require a good deal more. The 100gr JSP takes a significant amount of force from my index finger before it suddenly gives and dumps. The 115gr JHP sticks so badly, I have to shift to using my thumb on the ejector to dump it, my index finger isn't strong enough.

There's a post on the Ruger Forum where someone said that the cylinder chambers were different sizes and that they determined this by trying to put the spent casings back into the different cylinder holes. This seemed like a good test, so on my most recent range trip I carefully bagged a set of spent casings for each of the three .327 rounds.

It occurred to me, that even if there were a small variance in cylinder size, why would that matter unless you were trying to reuse the brass, why would it effect sticking? What I found on mine was that if I gently rolled a casing along the edge of a flat table, with the flange hanging off, all of the casings had a very slight wobble indicative of being slightly out of round. To eliminate the possibility that I might have deformed the casings in transit, I re-inserted them into the Ruger cylinder. This is where things got interesting. All of the casings, including the mostly smooth ejecting 85gr, tended to stick in varying degrees going back in, but it wasn't because of different cylinder sizes, I found that if I rotated the casing a little and retried, eventually I found a rotation that allowed the casing to go back in smoothly.

It seems that the cylinder holes are very minutely out of round. This may be well within spec, I don't know, but again so what unless the casing is rotating? I don't know how much of this is normal and acceptable. The revolver shoots well, and while the ejector requires a little effort, it does eject. The end result is one of acceptability. Is this annoyance worth going back to Ruger? I sent them an e-mail and they said they'd get back to me within 72 hours. That was a week ago!

Update, I just received a response from Ruger:
------------------------------
Contact our customer service department at 603-865-2442. Your firearm will need to be returned for service, we can have UPS pick up the firearm.

contact info yadda yadda

Sincerely,
Ruger Firearms
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I spoke with Ruger today. They are offering three options. Ship back the revolver for:

1. Full refund
2. Replacement with another caliber
3. Repair

I asked about repair and how long it would take. She said that their normal turn around time for repairs is 4-6 weeks, but that they did not have any replacement 327 cylinders at this time and they had no projection as to when they might get some. I asked if they were discontinuing the 327 line and she assured me that they were not.

This has become quest for me. I shipped it back to Ruger and asked for REPAIR.

Derrin33 :
Try a Hogue grip on it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nn

Derrin33 :
Try a Hogue grip on it.

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I have the Hogue grips on mine and love em, the only problem I have with .357 loads is trigger bite, which I don't get with .38 or .38+p The gun shoots best with the .357, with the .38 it shoots a little low.