No detail was missed on this Bowen Custom, including the small pins and screws that were tastefully nitre blued.
October 31, 2024
By Keith Wood
For more than three decades, I have admired the revolvers built by the legendary Hamilton Bowen. The writers that influenced me early on knew and loved the guns of Bowen Classic Arms and, through their words, passed that sentiment onto me. Bowen is the only handgun smith ever admitted to the prestigious American Custom Gunmakers Guild (ACGG), and for good reason. Bowen and his team have, for many years, been the last word in best-quality custom revolvers. Bowen is also a talented writer and author; his book, The Custom Revolver, is the definitive work on the subject. It took me years to get here, but my journey to own one of his creations has been realized. A Bowen Classic Arms Nimrod now resides in my collection. The name Nimrod, known as a “mighty hunter before the Lord,” comes from the book of Genesis. Bowen calls the Nimrod the company’s “finest big-game hunting revolver.” I do a fair bit of handgun hunting and enjoy the challenge of getting into “bow range” with an iron-sighted revolver. The Nimrod is ideal for the task. It’s powerful, accurate, and compact enough to carry comfortably on the hip.
Based on the Ruger Bisley, the Nimrod gets a complete overhaul from Bowen Classic Arms. Almost all of its factory parts are replaced and enhanced. The Nimrod is a five-shot revolver, available in .44 Magnum, .45 Colt, or .50 Action Express, with larger cartridges such as the .500 Linebaugh coming at a slight premium. Mine is chambered in .45 Colt, a chambering I believe to be the most versatile revolver cartridge in existence. With light, cowboy-style loads, it is a pleasant plinker, and with the heaviest cast bullets and large powder charges, it can take any game animal that walks. Unlike the .454 Casull, which was built around relatively lightweight bullets pushed to high velocities, the chambers on this long-cylindered .45 Colt allow for maximum powder capacity with heavy-for-caliber bullets. As Bowen puts it in his book, “No modern replacement will ever be markedly superior.” The Nimrod’s canvas is a single-action Ruger Bisley, heavily modified in Bowen’s Louisville, Tennessee, shop. Blued or stainless-steel models are available. The factory barrel and cylinder are discarded, as are the sights, the base pin, and many other small components. A combination of bespoke parts, careful machining, and excellent hand-finishing result in a revolver that melds the spirit of the legendary Keith #5 single action with the fine English sporting rifles of yesteryear. These guns aren’t just beautiful; they are built to perform. Let’s begin with accuracy. Revolver accuracy is all about alignment. Instead of a single chamber being mated to a barrel, there are six to contend with (or five in this case). If a given chamber doesn’t align with the bore, accuracy will suffer. The tolerance stacking of production revolvers is such that finding one with decent bore-to-cylinder alignment is luck, like putting your mortgage payment on the roulette table. Bowen’s shop doesn’t rely on good luck.
Handcrafted, custom French walnut grips match the Nimrod and boost aesthetics. Bowen re-machines the lock cavity, line-reams the base pin hole, fits an oversized base pin, and installs a bolt bearing block and trigger pivot spacer to create rock-solid lockup when the hammer is cocked. With everything locked up securely and repeatedly, the cylinder blank can be installed and fit. The cylinder is larger than the factory part both in length and width and, since it is a five-shot, the chamber walls are far thicker, adding strength. Additionally, the cylinder notches are located between rather than over the chambers, once again preserving wall thickness. The revolver’s frame is milled to accommodate the oversized, custom-made cylinder blank. The cylinder is timed into place, and the frame is held in a fixture that allows each position to be indicated and a pilot hole reamed through the receiver ring to each of the five chambers. Essentially, the chambers are cut one by one to ensure absolute alignment with the bore. The chambers are also reamed to minimum dimensions, eliminating the slop of a factory revolver and allowing brass cases less room to expand under high-pressure loads. The chamber throats are honed to proper dimensions (.4525 inch) to ensure that the bullet is not undersized when it engages with the rifling, which can be an accuracy killer. The cylinder is counterbored so that case heads are recessed within. A straight-taper, 5.5-inch barrel, in our case made from chromoly, is machined in-house from either a Douglas or Pac-Nor blank. An integral barrel band adds weight at the muzzle and gives the Nimrod a distinctive look. Bowen also credits the band with increased accuracy.
The Nimrod’s cylinder is larger than the factory version and is much thicker, strengthening it overall. “These guns always seem to shoot and handle better than anything else we do,” he told me. “While the ovate, octagonal, and S&W-style barrels are perhaps more sophisticated and stylish, I am convinced that the integral barrel band makes for a slightly tighter bore at the muzzle by virtue of the button rifling process used on most of our barrel stock.” The standard length handles well and produces plenty of velocity. The inertia of heavy recoil can often disrupt the base pin upon which the cylinder rotates. To prevent the pin from “jumping” forward, Bowen uses a pin fit with a set screw that engages into the underside of the barrel. The action is hand-tuned for a smooth and slick operation, with the trigger breaking cleanly and consistently at three pounds. The cylinder is made to freewheel, so it can be turned in either direction with the loading gate open. A Bowen Classic Arms Rough Country adjustable rear sight is installed, and the customer has a choice of a white line or serrated Baughman ramp front sight pinned to the express-style base. I chose the white line for hunting in lower-light scenarios. I added a few optional elements to my Nimrod. The first was to have the frame, loading gate, and hammer color case-hardened by Doug Turnbull’s shop, and the results are stunning. The thought of such a fine revolver wearing pedestrian factory grips didn’t sit well, so I decided to have a set built to match the craftsmanship of the gun itself. To that end, Bowen fixtured the grip frame and machined the sides perfectly flat to give the gripmaker a solid foundation with which to work.
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The cylinder and barrel are perfectly mated in such a way that even light does not pass through the two. The grips were made by Rob Rowen, another ACGG member, who trained under the late, great Roy Fishpaw. Rowen let me choose from a selection of highly-figured French walnut blanks and then handcrafted a set of flawless panels to fit both me and the Nimrod. Because the frame and grip frame on Ruger revolvers are cast, the surfaces don’t always mate perfectly. Rowen made the grips slightly larger in that area to cover up that unsightly seam. Details matter. Overall, the fit and finish on the Nimrod are excellent. Hold the revolver up to a light, and you’ll find no gap between the barrel and cylinder. The bluing is excellent, and the small pins and screws are tastefully nitre blued. My eyes can find no flaws. Though this five-shot .45 Colt is capable of handling loads that will best the .454 Casull with heavy, hunting-style bullets, I rarely need that much power. I assembled some loads that combined 325-grain, LBT-style, gas-checked cast bullets with a hefty dose of Hodgdon H110, a Federal Large Pistol Magnum primer, Starline brass, and a heavy roll crimp. Though I could easily achieve 1,450 fps at this bullet weight, my pet load keeps the velocity right at a manageable 1,200. Accuracy was outstanding; one ragged hole at 25 yards was the norm. Recoil is stout but tolerable for an experienced handgunner, especially given the shape of the Bisley-style frame and Rowen’s grips. Some hunting handguns you sling, others you holster — this one is the latter. I ordered a Hank Sloan style holster from Barranti Leather and, despite the wider-than-factory cylinder, the revolver fit perfectly. A revolver that is powerful enough to slay a Cape Buffalo but light and compact enough to carry on your hip all day is a special thing, indeed. The Nimrod is everything that I’d hoped that it would be: classically styled, precisely built, accurate, and well-balanced. This one will be hell on whitetails and feral hogs and may even have an elk hunt or two in its future. Owning it, I do feel a tinge of regret. My other hunting revolvers, save for a maybe a .22, will likely spend the rest of their lives in the safe while the Nimrod does its service afield.