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.
