The Shining - A SP-101 Story

[gglass]

I have never been the type of guy who could leave well enough alone, and the purchase of my new SP-101 gave me th opportunity to make plenty of changes.

I began work on my new Ruger by doing a complete trigger job to smooth and lighten an otherwise crumby trigger. By polishing all the essential trigger and hammer components, I was able to utilize the 10lb Wolff hammer spring and the 8lb Wolff trigger return spring. My ignition is 100%, my trigger returns are fast and crisp and my DA/SA trigger weights are perfect.

For better target acquisition, I added the MePro night sights, and I have to say that anyone with an SP-101 really needs to invest in these sights.

The grips that come with the SP-101 are alright, but I think that the Hogue grips really tame the recoil of the full-power .357's. This is another essential upgrade for anyone who just can't enjoy the kick of the mighty .357 magnum.

To rid myself of the ugly owner's manual that Ruger feels we all need on our firearms, I did a complete shine job on my pistol. This included shaving material from the barrel to remove the roll marks, deburring all the sharp edges and buffing the whole pistol to a mirror shine.

I'm now content!

 

[22lr]

Sanctified bovine that looks freaking awesome! I feel the need to buy another stainless revolver....... Very very sharp looking, has real class.

 

[ramick]

That is a very nice revolver, gotta the love the wheel guns. On a similar note I just picked up a GP100 and was thinking of working over the action. Would you recomend it if so any tips?

 

[printcraft]

Beautiful!

I've contemplated going after my wife's 101 with a buffing wheel as well.
It already wears the Mepro sight and the hogues. 2" DAO

Nice work!

Oh, what exactly entailed the "shave"?

 

[LEO IN TRAINING]

father has the same gun, nice up and close gun, nothing done to his beats the heck out of my hand, beautiful gun though....

 

[Colt556]

Very Nice! How did you remove the Roll Marks?

 

[gglass]

Beautiful!

I've contemplated going after my wife's 101 with a buffing wheel as well.
It already wears the Mepro sight and the hogues. 2" DAO

Nice work!

Oh, what exactly entailed the "shave"?

Thanks for the nice words folks.

The "shave" on the barrel is used to describe the use of successively finer grit sandpaper to reduce the depth of the barrel enough to erase the ugly lawyer mandated roll-marks. This is done while maintaining the existing contours and lines.

This is a pic of the SP-101 before the mePro night sights and the erasure of the barrel rollmarks... And the Shave & Shine!

 

[Colt556]

Did you sand both sides of the bbl to keep it symmetrical?

 

[shooter521]

That is SUPER hot. We need more "after" pics!

 

[JohnP82]

Wow! I love the way the sp101 looks as is, but that is just awesome! That is amazing. Very nice work, looks great

 

[cosermann]

I've always liked the 3" version of the SP101. Good choice and well done!

 

[gglass]

That is SUPER hot. We need more "after" pics!

Ask and ye shall receive...

Colt556
Did you sand both sides of the bbl to keep it symmetrical?

The above pic shows the other side of the barrel, and as you can see it is relatively unmolested. I'm sure that there exists a piece of scientific equipment that can measure the difference in the symmetry of the two sides of the barrel, but to my eye everything looks to be perfectly in balance. From the front and above views, everything looks perfect... If I do say so myself.

 

[BSUrugger]

It's beautiful!!!

 

[Jeffrey]

Wow

That looks awesome. I'm pretty sure that's the best looking sp101 I've ever seen. About how many hours of work do you have in it?

 

[gglass]

Jeffrey
That looks awesome. I'm pretty sure that's the best looking sp101 I've ever seen. About how many hours of work do you have in it?

Thanks for the compliment Jeffrey.

I would estimate that I have at least 8 hours into the trigger job over a few days, which takes a lot of disassembly and reassembly to do a little at a time. It would be very easy to take off too much material and render the pistol a glorified paper weight. I have about 1/2 hour into the MePro night sight installation, which entails drilling a matched whole in the lower portion of the sight. I have approximately 12 hours into the roll-mark removal and polishing... And I'm still not quite done.

So just over 20 hours of slow-as-you-go smithing.

 

[Amishman44]

V.E.R.Y. N.I.C.E. looking SP101 revolver...I've had mine for over 15 years (2.25") and I'm wanting to get a 3" 'bigger brother' to go with it.

Mine sports the Mepro Night Sights (as does my wife's) and mine has a Badger Custom Boot Grip while her .38 sports the Trausch Grip.

Compliments...

 

[Zoub]

Wear it on a lanyard and it can double as a signal mirror in survival situations. Love the removal of the safety verbage.