Maybe not a “trophy” in the Tulsa sense, but there’s plenty worth chasing in that one. The real prize is nailing down who shortened it and when.
The 5.5" cut, blued steel grip frame and ejector housing, plus the old-model Taffin tie-in all point to a custom job with some care taken to keep it looking right.
If you have the serial, any old paperwork, or even a small detail like whether the front sight base looks Ruger-original or re-fit, that’s usually where the trail starts to open up. If you want, I can help you sort likely smiths from the workmanship clues without spinning the wheel too hard.
Neither I nor sixguns.com is liable for any actions taken; you proceed at your own risk.
Several that are close enough that would warrant further inspection, but the front sight didn’t match. So would have to have been shortened and front sight replaced with older model. You could try Hamilton Bowen with the serial number, he has done a lot over the years and would probably be happy to check. Here is a link to a lot of Mr Taffin’s photos:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I suspect the pistol is older than 1969. I bought my first Blackhawk in about 1966-67. It was a 4-5/8” (or at least the “gunfighter” length of SAA’s). found at s later date a long barreled one and was going to have it redone to a .44 Spl but it shot too well, so I kept it. Then a number of years ago a friend of mine swapped me a pretty much unfired long barreled Blackhawk for a S&W Model 10 snubby. I then shot both long barreled guns, thought the newer one shot better, so sent the older one to Horvath to convert to .44 Spl. Got a beautiful revolver back.
My old man point about this whole rambling story is that Blackhawks of that time period were winged rear sights, not flat-top. The true flat-tops were an older variant I believe. I never saw an unwinged flat-top until years later and I was purchasing Rugers in the 60’s. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.
Horvath .44 Spl conversion. Included replacing grip frames and ejector tube with steel replacements, reblueing weapon, custom grips. Barrel is from a Ruger Super Blackhawk I believe.
Long barreled Blackhawk.
TOP one is original real flat top; remainder are winged flat tops.
I promised somewhere to post a pic of my heavily reworked Uberti Navy .36s. These are the guns. If you zoom in on the cylinder area, you will see what a Richard’s-Mason conversion looks like. It has a loading gate, a new backplate with the firing pin in it (still activated by the hammer), and the newer, shorter cylinder. The ramrods are still there but serve no useful purpose.
Technically .38 Long Colt. But brass for that is hard to find and bullets that overlap the case (à la .22 LR) even harder to find and load, so what I do is load a .38 Spl case with a 105 gr lead bullet with only 3.2 gr of TrailBoss. That is a light load and the OAL is short enough to fit in the cylinder (just barely - but it works!). I have an Umberti Yellow Boy (copy of the Winchester 1866) slicker up to shoot the same round. Works great for CAS.
Just FYI, the left revolver has the loading gate open so you can see how to load and unload til Sometimes the cases stick, so I carry wooden dowwel that I can push the empty out, since it doesn’t have an ejector.
