Ok, so I got to the range with my Ruger 45LC/45ACP and shot it a lot. Developed a practice load I'm happy with and a serious load for walking around the woods with. Learned a bit and hopefully I have some insights that might prove useful to others who would purchase this particular firearm.

The Ruger "thing" with the iron sights: I've owned a few Ruger revolvers over the years in both double and single action weapons and have an observation. It appears to me that Ruger put the irons on their handguns according to what they, and in the case of 45LC their lawyers think should go on using only common "factory ammo". The 45/45ACP is a case in point. The front sight, though taller than the one on my 454 SRH, was still too low for anything except anemic "cowboy action" loads, well it does say "NO RELOADS" right? Shorter the barrel the worse the problem, I had a 4 and 5/8" SBH in 44mag that was fine with 240gr any bullet, but put 300 + stuff way too high to even adjust to. I was not impressed with the irons that came with the gun, OK, so I'm 62 and near-sighted, what did I expect?

I had the Ruger up-grade sights on my 454 so tried a switch, hum front sight not as high as original, now everything hits way too high. Now this is not a strictly "hunting rig" for me. It's a curser, walking around, pop a rabbit, maybe, blow the brains out of an aggressive bear, fox, coyote, badger, raccoon or snuff a snake with shot fun gun and defensives tool for the world in general. It's not going to do anything perfectly but will do damn near anything pretty well and 25 yards is going to circumscribe its world, 25yds is the target distance.

As such I really wanted to put an XS Big Dot Tritium sight set on this handgun; I have it on my RCR 357, really nice in the dark. Reason, a bear in camp at night is probably there to kill and eat you, not an option in my book. Talk about too high, 6 o'clock hold and rounds are hitting right at the top of the target!! Kitchen table gunsmith time, some file work, problem solved. (Will detail if anyone is interested) Everything is perfect, now.

So, the loads: As I had mentioned I wanted a load that was good with Laser Cast Silver bullets and fast enough so as not to have any significant difference between practice sight picture and serious hit it now sight picture. After a bit of work I found that 10.2gr of WW231 with and large pistol primer with a 250gr SWC Laser Cast did great. With that out of the way I had some 265gr LBTWFNGC's and some 300gr Hornady XTPs (NON_MAGNUM) to try out. 23gr of H-110, large pistol magnum primer did very well and the POI on both was close enough for my shooting skill. The Laser Cast clocked in at around 1050fps with a low teens SD. Both the 265gr and the 300gr were nice and smooth with 1250fps and the LBTs had a high single digit SD, what more could I ask. Yes, I could get more speed out of the 265gr and the 300gr, but I can actually control these and the Ruger is, for its cartridge "potential", a rather light platform for pushing stuff over 1200 fps.

Did I mention I was messing with making my own shot shells to work in the moon clips with the 45ACP rounds, let's just say it was a "learning experience" and move on to more .useful" information? Buy whatever 45ACP round you like or have on hand, none for me since I'm not an auto pistol guy at all. The POI at 25yds with the 45ACP rounds was well, what did I say about too short front sights, yeah, so the 45 ACP rounds shoot right on at like 5yds, which is probably where I'd actually have some theoretical use for them as finishing shots on something, or maybe if I wanted to carry the Ruger concealed the 45 ACP rounds would be excellent for that application. The regular 45LC shot shells are hell on snakes at snake distance so THAT problem is solved and done.

One last bit. Every Ruger I've ever owned and shot has ended up with after- market grips, Ruger factory grips may look cool but absolutely really, really suck in my hands. Bad, inconsistent grip equals crap accuracy and I have enough to struggle with as it is. TA-DA, factory grips are actually very nice, for me at least, a happy occurrence since the design of the handgun and to a certain extent its whole design purpose seems to indicate a reserved and compact style of grip that integrates into the whole, which it does beautifully in my opinion.

Oh, and yes the cancer prognosis is for 100% recovery, after a lot of work getting back in shape, lost nearly 40 pounds, unfortunately mostly muscle. Damn it is beautiful day today isn't it?