… courtesy of Countertop, who commented:

I got one of their Accusport SS Bisley Blackhawks in 45 Colt with a 5 inch barrel (actually, might be 5.5 inch, I have to check)..

It sure is sweet. Might be my favorite out of all the guns I have.

Looks a bit like this one, right?

Yep, I have one too, and you, sir, are a man of taste and refinement

These revolvers were part of a run of 500 commissioned by the wholesaler AcuSport a few years back. Last year there was another batch made with cylinders for both .45 Colt and .45 ACP. Ruger has only officially cataloged the Bisleys in blued steel with 7.5″ barrels, though those limited runs sold out so fast that they really ought to reconsider.

The Firearm Blog covered Ruger’s poor Q3 results and the CEO’s letter to shareholders.

You can follow the link there to read the full text of the letter. The CEO acknowledges that Ruger completely missed the boat on polymer-framed, striker-fired handguns, the explosion of the CCW market, and the “black rifle” trend, and I quote:

“We plan to develop products for several of these markets.”

Good to hear; better late than never. He also says:

“We have initiated a formal product planning process and we are soliciting and utilizing the “voice of the customer” to help us determine key features on new products.”

Well, since you asked…

• Cool it with the extraneous “safety” features. You don’t need an integral key lock, magazine disconnect, loaded chamber indicator, fingerprint reader, iris scanner, breathalyzer, combination lock, and “DO NOT EVEN THINK OF EVER USING THIS GUN” warning on everything that leaves the factory. Well, okay, I know the warning has to be there because of an old lawsuit. But otherwise, a simple, user-activated manual safety gets the job done just fine.
• Start selling hi-caps for the Mini line. You already make the damn things, so there’s no R&D costs, no need to retool the production line (they’re probably sourced from an OEM anyways), no planning process. Just order up a big batch and get ‘em out to distributors. It’s a cheap, quick, easy way to show gun owners that the bad old days of Bill Ruger’s “no honest man” speech are gone. And they WILL sell.
• .40 and .45 versions of the SR9, and corresponding compact models, just as fast as you can get them in production. That one’s a no-brainer.
• How about a lightweight SP101? Aluminum frame and maybe a titanium cylinder? Worth looking into. See if you can do a .44 Special while you’re at it.
• Staying on the topic of revolvers, start building Bisleys with 5-shot cylinders in .45 Colt, .454 Casull, and .475 Linebaugh. There’s a whole cottage industry of gunsmiths doing custom conversions; I can name a half-dozen off the top of my head. The demand is there. Offer them in stainless with 5.5″ barrels and I’ll sell a damn kidney to get one.
• Do an AR-15 if you must, but I personally think that market is approaching saturation. Put a little effort into refining the Mini-14 instead, for the many AR haters out there.
• And finally, build the No. 1 in .303 British, with a 26″ light-contour barrel, open sights and Alex Henry forend. Well, at least build one gun like that. Just for me. Please?

… thanks to John Snow at Outdoor Life.

It’s been a long time since I took physics, but I think I remember the main points. So the extra lever, the “actuator”, is just a third-class lever that trades an increased pull weight for shorter trigger travel. That would explain why this three-lever design still has a minimum weight of 3 pounds instead of a few ounces.

The diagram also explains the stubby trigger I bitched about earlier; the triggerpiece needs to be balanced with respect to its pivot point. If one end was more massive than the other, the gun would have a tendency to fire if dropped. To fix the stubbiness and make the external part of the trigger longer, they’d have to match it with a more massive upper portion. There probably isn’t much room inside the housing to do that. They could, alternately, make the fingerpiece longer and narrower, but a narrow trigger would feel heavier than a wide one.

It’s a nifty design, though I still don’t see why they replaced the old mechanism.

Looks like Remington will be competing with CZ and Ruger in the controlled-feed big-bore market next year. The 798, of course, is the old Interarms Mark X/Charles Daly Mauser, a close copy of the FN Supreme action made by Zastava in Serbia. The new Safari Grade line comes in .375 H&H and .458 Win. Mag. and adds iron sights, a barrel-band sling swivel and a walnut-laminate stock.

I’m into big-bore rifles and I love the Mauser 98 action (though I’m not a fan of the Zastava trigger/safety assembly), so this is the kind of thing I’d go for. Too bad the stock is an aesthetic disaster. Or something out of a Weatherby wet dream. Gimme an American classic or British-style stock any day.

I also think it’s a little odd that Remington is sticking with the Win. Mag. instead of going to the .458 Lott. If the action can handle the .375 H&H, it can handle the Lott; they both have a 3.600″ cartridge length. The competition, CZ and Ruger, chamber the Lott in their guns; CZ has the big 550 Magnum in both American and Euro-styled stocks while Ruger offers the M77 Magnum with that wonderful integral quarter-rib on the barrel.

Anyways, it’s nice to have some healthy competition in the market. And more could be coming; if the new FN-produced Model 70s do well, the Safari Express line could be revived…

For now I’m happy with my .416 Rigby (built on a CZ action), but I’d be sorely tempted by that Remington if it wore a proper stock.

(Seen at Dave Petzal’s blog by way of The Firearm Blog)