USFA and Black Hills Ammunition Win the Day

The year 2005 was a milestone - the Twentieth Anniversary of The Shootists! The 2005 Shootists Holiday was marked by a number of special events including a special Twentieth Anniversary Shootists Sixgun. The Shootists sixgun was specially commissioned as a tribute to The Shootists and to John Taffin who founded the group.

The United States Fire Arms Mfg. Co. of Hartford, Ct.,( www.usfirearms.com ) was

contracted to produce the Anniversary sixgun for The Shootists. USFA started in the old Colt plant in the early 1990’s. Their first guns were assembled with Italian parts imported from Uberti. By the middle ‘90’s they started manufacturing their own guns and in 2004 moved into a new plant. All USFA guns are now 100% American made with a special emphasis on quality AND historical authenticity. The USFA single actions hold to the original design closer than the 3rd Generation Colt’s do. They are the original design using better steels than were available when the original Colt’s were produced.

These guns are built correctly. Many of the imported copies of the Colt SAA are made with a frame that has no recoil plate. The firing pin comes through a hole in the frame, but there is not a removable bushing that the firing pin comes through as in the originals. While this works, it is an area of potential problem. Should the recoil plate get peened or hammered out, there is little recourse since the job of fixing such a problem would outweigh the cost of the gun! The USFA guns are built like the original guns, having a removable bushing.

Tolerances are held tight also. The barrel/cylinder gap on my gun was would allow a .003" feeler gauge, but not a .004" gauge. The fit of the grips to the gripframe had no gaps. The gripframe and trigger guard mated up to the frame of the pistol without gaps or edges hanging out. As I said earlier, they are built right.

The caliber chosen for the Shootists Anniversary gun is one of Taffin’s favorite and a classic, the Smith & Wesson .44 Special. Barrel length of all the guns is 5 ½ inches. The pistols are inscribed “1985 Shootist Holiday 2005” on the left side of the barrel, just ahead of the caliber designation. Each handgun was finished with beautiful case coloring by one of the Master’s, Doug Turnbull of Doug Turnbull Restorations ( www.turnbullrestoration.com ). Only fifty of these fine sixguns were built. All the guns have special serial numbers beginning at serial number SH001 through SH050.

The front sight is wider than those found on most of the imported guns also, making it easy to acquire a sight picture. The grips are "slimmed" in the same manner as the early Colt's. All they would need is a rampant Colt and you would not know the difference.

In addition Kelye Schlepp of Belt Mountain Enterprises ( www.beltmountain.com ) produced fifty numbered base pins for the guns. Each corresponds to the serial number of the particular sixgun. The base pins are made in the style that Elmer Keith designed for the Keith #5 sixgun.

I must confess that in nearly fifty years of shooting and hunting with sixguns I have never personally owned a handgun in .44 caliber! I have used them but had never owned one, so this was a first for me. I did not have any .44 Special ammunition or brass or reloading dies for that matter. Prior to receiving the USFA Shootists sixgun I took matters in hand and obtained a set of RCBS ( www.rcbs.com ) loading dies for .44 Special (which happen to work for .44 Magnum also). In addition I called Jeff Hoffman at Black Hills Ammunition in Rapid City, SD ( www.black-hills.com ) and ordered a case of .44 Special Cowboy loads from him. Black Hills Ammunition makes some of the finest ammo in the country. I was familiar with them having known Jeff and Christy Hoffman for some years as well as having used their ammunition for quite a long time also. The Black Hills .44 Special Cowboy ammo is loaded with a 210 grain bullet in contrast to the standard weight bullet of 246 grains. What the lighter bullet means is less recoil and a point of impact somewhat lower than the standard bullet.

When I received my Shootists Anniversary sixgun I was excited as a little kid! I did not have a chance to shoot it until after Church. The sun was going down but I wanted to see what it was like so grabbing some ammo I made my way to the range. It was already dusk and the light was fading, but at 15 yards standing using a two-hand hold the Black Hills ammo printed basically point-of-aim. I fired about 25 rounds before it became too dark to shoot, but I was tickled!

Over the next few days I cast bullets for the USFA .44 using an RCBS .44-250-KT mold. This mold makes a copy of Elmer Keith’s 250 gr. semi-wadcutter bullet that he originally designed for the .44 Special. Weighing 250 grains, the RCBS mold dropped good bullets right from the start. I loaded these over light to medium charges of Bullseye and Unique. I chose these powders since I have used them for so many years in other sixguns and am familiar with them. I had decided before the USFA .44 had even arrived on the ranch that I would not “hot rod” this gun. Loads would be kept in the range of factory loads. I have other sixguns that I can load hot if I want to, so the handloads are in the range of 700 fps to 850 fps. When the handloads were assembled I took them to the range for more formal accuracy testing. I was not sure where the point of aim would be for the different loads so I stapled sheets of paper above and below the targets in case the shots would ‘stray’ off.

Firing was done from the 25-yard line using an Outers Pistol Perch for a rest. My aiming point was a 1-inch black square that seems to work pretty good for my old eyes. I was in the shade, sitting down and comfortable and took my time. I was pleased to see the USFA sixgun hit fairly close to center with all loads.

Handloads using the Keith 250 gr. SWC & Unique

These were not the best of the day but show the average of what I was doing. The "stray" shots are the shooters fault, not the gun or the ammo.

My handloads proved to be accurate with the loads in the 850 fps range giving me the best results. Groups averaged around 1 ¾” center-to-center for 5 shots. The Federal hollow points did not do quite as well, averaging 2 ¾”. There really is nothing wrong with that other than it was larger than my handloads. The Federal loads would work just fine for most applications. The Black Hills cowboy loads were in the middle averaging 2” or shade over. The handloads with the 250 gr. Keith bullet hit point of aim both vertically and horizontally at 25 yards! There will be no need to make any adjustment to the sights. How cool is that?

The Black Hills 210 gr. loads hit about 3” below the aiming point and the Federal 200 gr. hollow points hit 5” below the aiming point, again, all at 25 yards. Since the targets in Cowboy Action shooting are considerably closer than 25 yards sight adjustment is not even a consideration.

Early one Saturday morning I packed up my guns and gear and headed out to be a cowboy! The Honey Creek Pistolmen were holding a Cowboy Action shooting match and I figured it would be a great time to break in the USFA .44 Special Shootists Anniversary sixgun. The Honey Creek Pistolmen is a local cowboy-shooting group that we started in our community. It is small, averaging about a dozen shooters, but it is attracting interest and is growing. We have a few props, plenty of targets thanks to Denray Machine Co. and we are able to put on a good match. The group uses SASS rules, though we have not yet affiliated with SASS.

I used Black Hills ammo in both the .44 Special and in my .32-20 Marlin levergun for the match and was not disappointed. The Shootists Anniversary sixgun ran flawlessly and as long as I did my part all targets were hit. When the match was over and the scores were in I had managed to take Overall Winner. I think I took all but one stage also.

Thanks goes to United States Fire Arms Mfg. Co. for a fine sixgun, and to Black Hills Ammunition for great ammo.



Above - Original box of .44 Specials - they now reside with John Taffin

Above - LEFT: solid head modern cartridge compared to an old balloon-head cartridge CENTER - handloads in balloon-head cartridges RIGHT - handload in a modern cartridge and handload in balloon-head cartridge. Note the lack of a groove just ahead of the rim in the balloon-head cartridges. These old cartridges will not be fired. Having survived all these years they deserve a place where they can be admired.