Ruger GP100 Revolver 357 Magnum Review

the Ruger GP 100 let's check it out [Music] as in 1985 the ruger GP 100 was introduced and that was when revolvers were king law enforcement carry predominantly revolvers in 357 Magnum and of course backups in 38 but the revolver was reliable and during that time the 357 Magnum was an excellent round for self-defense so Ruger replaced the security six in the revolver lineup with the GP 100 and taking a lot of cues from the Ruger Redhawk this is one of the strongest 357 magnums in the world there are lot of features on this revolver that make it super strong it's built like a tank and we're gonna take a look at the reasons why and this is one of the earlier models with the wood inserts on the grip these are still being produced today with Hogue grips but I'll tell you what guys this to me is the one I've been looking for for a long time so when I found it and my local gun shop I immediately had to pick it up and honestly it was twice the price it was in 1985 even used GP 100 has been produced again since 1985 so it's almost 30 year old design and this is actually the second generation to the security 6 which was Ruger's standby 357 magnum revolver but this is a much more beefier much stronger action and we'll take a look at some of the reasons why of course push button here to release your cylinder and the gun is definitely unloaded and one of the big things about the GP 100 is that they wanted something that would withstand really high pressure rounds I mean you can shoot any kind of 357 Magnum in this handgun because of the way it's designed one of the big reasons we would look at that is when you open up the crane typically the crane was held into place from a small detent here at the front of the ejector rod and that was fine but it didn't give it as much strength as it does if it's right here inside the crane you can see this little push button this locks the crane into place so as you close it down it gets the action or the retention back here toward the cylinder and so that gives it a much stronger action here with your cylinder with the crane fit and so that makes it just a much more superior design now one of the big things about the GP 100 is it actually got its inspiration from the Red Hawks the river Red Hawks and the super red hawks are just phenomenal I mean they can handle any load that you could about put in them I mean they're just built like tanks and a lot of those features came to the GP 100 and for that matter the SPO one it's one of the reasons why it looks like to me a little bulldog now this is the four inch model did come in a three inch which is not quite as popular and then they have the the six inch 6 inch is gonna give you more velocity it's gonna allow you to kind of shoot long longer ranges better really for a hunting pistol but for me I had one of the 4 inches back in the early 90s and so I wanted a four inch model this is the older version so it has these grips they're called santoprene and it's just really a soft recall absorbing material and for those really high pressure loads this really absorbs that recoil really nice and it gives you a good firm grip on the handgun and then with the wood inserts which there were a couple of different kinds and I believe this one's rosewood but now they're made with the Howe grips and guys I was really looking for this model because this is just the one that I had before I like the full shroud that goes on the barrel gives a little more weight at the front and so when you're shooting it it just makes it that much more comfortable to shoot this one does have the adjustable sights which some did come with thick sights but I love the adjustable sights on the rear and the course just black outline on the front this is a double action revolver and that means that when you pull the trigger you see the hammer come back now you can't fire it single action in this position here and it's a really crisp trigger pull but there are some things about the trigger action to me on the ruler that are really appealing now really the proper way to shoot a double action revolver is to pull the trigger through with the hammer down but one of the things about this is it's long and it's typically heavy when you pull it back for single action it's a really short very easy to get more on target you're not going through that long pull and so for target or if I really want to get a long shot just pull that hammer back and then I have that really light trigger pull but one of the beautiful things about the Ruger in particular is that when you pull that hammer back it's long it's smooth then it kind of goes into a click about right here which would be like single action and then you can fire it so it almost gives you the best of both worlds with the trigger action and man again it is super smooth smooth like butter now pushing your cylinder release and just pop your cylinder out right here is your ejector rod and this is going to get those spent shells out fairly quickly one thing of course with a revolver is you know the magazine capacity or obviously the capacity of the cylinder is only six now they did make the 44 special with five and they went all the way up to 22 with ten rounds and then there's some in between there's a number of calibers that this was made in and I think even ten millimeter which I think would be a really cool option in fact I think it's seven rounds of ten millimeter but you can get speed loaders and if you really practice you can get pretty quick with them and a lot of force to improve that over the years now this handgun was actually issued to the Border Patrol and to the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the early 90s this was their issued sidearm and then of course they went to the 40 caliber about 1996 this was also used by a number of different countries for Special Forces with Greece Serbia in the UK and so this handgun has a lot of popularity worldwide and one of the big reasons is just because of the strength of the action now as far as safety goes number one it is a double-action pistol so you've got to really mean to pull that hammer back but if you'll notice right here there is a transfer bar you'll see it coming up and it blocks the action of the firing pin and this is going to keep this drop safe as well you know if you drop this farm and it hits on the hammer if it has a firing pin that's on the hammer which really they kind of did away with that back in the 70s if you'll see a lot of the older Smith & Wesson's that have that firing pin that come out and so this actually keeps the firing pin from breaking which is also another problem with the exposed firing pin of course the heavy shroud here and at the top it really gives this a solid look and you can look at the top now and there are sir a shion's right here they cut down on glare and then of course the black with this sight these have been around again for 29 years there's a ton of holster options there's there's a ton of site options grip options I mean you can get a lot of different things a lot of aftermarket support now the GP 100 not only came in this stainless but it also came in a blue version as well the blue version was actually discontinued if a number of years ago and the stainless again is still available now one of the big pluses of the GP 100 is the grip design and we're gonna go ahead and remove these grips that's a real small screw right here it just drops the actually the panels out then we have a plug and you can push it through we'll take our screwdriver just pop it and that keeps the grip into place now once we take this off we have a rectangular peg design now the big advantage to this is that we can put on a square bite but we can also put a round butt grip on here especially for concealed carry if you want to kind of bring that down this allows you to transition a lot of times with the Smith & Wesson's they were either square butt or round butt and so you were kind of stuck with either one with this if I want to get around but you know grip I can put that on and it really fits nice and then if I want the full size grip which I really would want especially shooting full Magnum loads this is really comfortable and one thing you're gonna notice is this small little brass pin and this actually there's a little cavity that it fits into so when you pull your panel off this little pin is gonna fall out and this is a disassembly pin now if you want to look and see how to disassemble the GP 100 I mean you can go to the Ruger website and they have tech tips it's really simple and it does break into three parts but we're not gonna get into that today let's drop our pin in the slot and then we're gonna take this side and go ahead and get it into place so that will retain that pin you wouldn't push up on the grip get it into place here and then we can put in this little peg or slug just like that that our grip back on screw it on let's check double action trigger pull with our alignment trigger gauge from Brownells nine pounds seven point four ounces and that's about what we were getting the whole time single action five pounds five point eight ounces and that is pretty consistent with what we were getting and the weight of the GP 104 inch two pounds seven point four ounces this is not a light handgun in fact this Hickok said you can use this as a boat and we have some 38 special this is 130 grain Full Metal Jacket we're gonna try some of the 38 specials this is Fiocchi ammunition and then we're also going to be using one of their 158 grain and this is the cmj 1220 feet per second and we're also going to be doing some other more high-powered but we're just going to test this out for initial testing there's something about taking a revolver to the range that just really slows things down it's a totally different experience than when you're shooting a semi-automatic especially the high-capacity polymer frame striker fire pistols you know there's just something about that double action smooth trigger pull or you know single action just bring it back it's a very versatile handgun and it's very reliable and that's one of the reasons why police units all over the world carried these for a long time now there were a lot of 9-millimeters out there but nine-millimeter really hadn't come into its own as a self defense round until much later in the 357 magnum at that time was king and one thing about the GP 100 is you could load this thing up to the max now it's really soft shooting it's fairly heavy and so the recall really is fairly light now unfortunately I left my full house power loads from my 357 Magnum we did have the Fiocchi 357 Magnum which is moving pretty fast and he gave us an idea between the 38 special and the 357 Magnum but it was such a pleasure to shoot because of the weight and you know that shroud at the front too it gives the barrel enough weight I mean this is not a light firearm but it's definitely comforting with this caliber and especially with the capability that this gun has now while revolvers as far as for self-defense have gotten to be more old-school the kids really enjoyed shooting it because of the weight because of the recoil and it really surprised them how much they liked it it's just again it just slows things down it makes it smooth you have that full double action trigger pull and of course you can shoot it single action as well and it just gives you a lot of options and so if you don't have a good 357 magnum revolver I mean this one is my personal favorite and the accuracy is not shabby either pros and cons you can shoot about any kind of 357 Magnum through this handgun it is built like a tank it is solid the lock-up design the heavy frame no side plate you can take the grip and put a round butt on here easy enough which makes it really nice especially if you were gonna carry this concealed but just our next point this is a very heavy firearm and so it's gonna be a little difficult to carry could do it for open carry but for concealed carry they're guys that can do it but I'm not one of them smooth super smooth trigger pull all the way through and again I really like how it kind of hesitates right there to be able to get that good single action feel to it sights are excellent and again you've got different barrel lengths the grips are really nice but then again you can get the whole grips that are more modern so really there are no cons to this pistol it's really more or less what are you gonna use it for and that really falls into whatever your needs are but for me this is a perfect 357 revolver and I'm really excited about finally having one of these GP 100's so guys if you go into a local gun shop and you see those revolvers over in the counter and you just think that's the old-school that was for a different time I think you'll be surprised at how much fun a revolver can be again it just changes your shooting experience at the range and I think you'll find a lot of pleasure in taking an old double action single action revolver out and putting some rounds through it especially if you get those high-velocity Magnum loads plus it gives you some capability that semi-autos just can't match unless you have a 10 millimeter and I want to thank myself for buying the GP 100 this has been awesome be strong be of good courage god Bless America long live the Republic [Music] boom you will notice right here Emily pull that's horse the safe you might want to hurry because the battery's almost dead okay all right we have some Fiocchi 138 grain unfortunately I lost unfortunately 500 fish like a good video

Channel: sootch00

Views: 524,314

Rating: 4.9240179 out of 5

Keywords: Sootch00, Sootch, Review, GP100, Ruger, Ruger GP100, 357 Magnum, Revolver, Strongest Revolver, Stainless Steel, S&W, Smith and Wesson, 38 Special, Fiocchi USA, Ruger GP100 Revolver 357 Magnum Review

Id: 06PDceE9eWo

Length: 16min 24sec (984 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 10 2019