There's a sad story first.

After Doc got out of the Army, he moved to Florida to "find himself" and "begged" me for my GP-161 (Ruger GP100, 6 inch barrel w/full barrel shroud) so with 't missus' full knowledge I was going to get a new KGP-161 I let him take it. While he was off on "walkabout" his boat  (actually the one next to it was "struck by lightning") caught fire and burned to the waterline and we thought all was lost (boat yup gone) but a couple years ago when we were down "moving in" to the Florida house the gal from the Marina called me and asked if I wanted Doc's guns!!!

Uh, YEAH!!!

So we went down and picked them up. There's more to the story, but I won't go into it.

Here's what she looked like before her "sea voyage"



She was a bit stiff, but after a good scrubbing I had her shootable, so I did. Holding nothing back I loaded up some of the hottest loads I felt safe with and shot and shot and shot and shot and shot, some 250 plus rounds of 158 grain XTP's and some 200 rounds of 357429's. She built up a little copper, but there was no leading to speak of and she still shot better'n I can hold her so I figured I'd try re-bluing the old hag. Can't screw 'er up any more than she already is and I wanted to try 'n make a silk purse out of a sow's ear so I took her clear apart, clean down to the little spring loaded button thingies that hold the whuchamacallits in, yeah those.



Anyway here's the old gal after the massive clean-up and rub down starting with 120 grit (to remove  as much of and many of the pits as I could) then 400, 800, 1500 grit paper then finishing with crocus cloth and 0000 steel wool:. .  . . . .  .



I have some Montana mountain mahogany I'm going to make some grip inserts out of, but not today . . . . .

I should go shoot her now, but it snowed some last night so maybe tomorrow . . . . . .



RJ

Looks great!

What Bug said.

Yeah good work RJ. It's always rewarding when you can bring one back with a little love and work.

Marcus

I'm curious about the 'reblack'. You didn't mention that, so I'm wondering how you used 120-grit sandpaper and didn't remove bluing/blacking. Or if you did remove it, what you did to replace it.

Regardless, great job!

Paul

20 plus coats of Birchwood Casey's Super Blue with a rubdown of 0000 steel wool between each one. Try as I might I couldn't get the trigger guard to match the rest AND I was pleasantly surprised that it's all as close as it is!!

Dad and I used the same stuff on my muzzle loader barrel over 40 years ago and it still looks like the day we finished it, so I'm hoping this will last as long.

I shot it some yesterday. Empty propane bottles (the little ones for lanterns and such) fear me!!!

I will say that there are some tricks to getting at the innards of a GP that are just enough different that the tricks learned on a Redhawk don't work. F'rinstance, the cylinder to crane release spring pawl thingy that has the front crane latch pinned in with it? Yeah, it will fly out and bite your nose and get stuck in your manly mustache and you SWEAR TO HEAVEN that it's on the floor until 't missus is enlisted to help find the wee blighter and she starts giggling.

RJ

Looks good in the pictures! I've heard mostly good stuff about BC's cold blue. I think it depends a great deal on the metal. I think it works well for 4140. The trigger guard is certainly different metal.

Paul