They say you can't improve on perfection, but an exhibition shooter named Bill Oglesby--who does double duty as a gunsmith--has shot holes in that cliché. He recently took what many consider to be the world's most rugged, affordable and popular .44 Magnum--the Ruger New Model Super Blackhawk--and transformed it into an ultra-sophisticated shooting machine.

One year and 38 operations later, the gun emerged with a new persona. Whereas before it grouped like a shotgun, the "ultimate Super Blackhawk" now performs admirably with a variety of factory ammunition.

Don't get me wrong: The standard Ruger Super Blackhawk can stand on its own reputation. It was a natural evolution of the Ruger .44 Magnum Blackhawk, which featured a slightly enlarged cylinder and frame over the .357 Blackhawk in order to compensate for the heftier cartridge. Yet it retained the .357's smaller XR-3 grips, which proved to be uncomfortable as well as uncontrollable for many shooters. Thus, the Super Blackhawk--an improved .44 Magnum version of the regular Blackhawk--was introduced in 1959.

"A masterpiece of power and precision," boasted Ruger's catalog in announcing its newest handgun, ". . .a logical advance in the construction of high-powered single-action revolvers. . . The shape, size and mechanical design of this magnificent firearm have been perfected with the object of taking full advantage of the power of the .44 Magnum cartridge. . .the result is a sporting and defensive weapon of capabilities that have never previously been possible in a handgun."

Initial barrel length was 7 1/2 inches (although a few rare 6 1/2-inch-barreled guns were produced), but more dramatically the Super Blackhawk featured a muscular, non-fluted cylinder; fuller and more elongated walnut grips; and a Dragoon-styled, square-back triggerguard.

In 1973 Ruger revamped its single-action lineup to incorporate the transfer-bar safety, which--for the first time--permitted a single-action revolver to be safely carried with a full complement of six rounds in the cylinder. To load these New Models, as they have subsequently been called, the loading gate was flipped open, which freed the cylinder for rotating and loading. There was no longer a half-cock notch on the hammer, a characteristic that still trips me up after decades of shooting a Colt single action. To this day I will occasionally attempt to put a New Model on half-cock, much to the sneers of some of my younger gunwriting cronies.

The one-piece Gunfighter grips feature a bumped-up swell where the grips join the frame. This aids in control and pointability.

The New Model Super Blackhawk gradually morphed into a sixgun sporting a rounded triggerguard and a less elongated grip frame. But I found myself wishing the Super Blackhawk sported a shorter 4 5/8- inch tube like the original .357 Blackhawk. In 1985 I expressed this thought to Bill Ruger's son, Tom, who was vice president of marketing. I was going on an African safari the next year and thought that a Super Blackhawk with a 4 5?8-inch barrel would make a great backup gun. When I told Tom that the rifles I was taking to Africa were a .58 muzzleloading Kodiak double rifle from Pedersoli and a .45-70 Shiloh Sharps, he readily agreed to make a short-barreled Super Blackhawk for me. "You're going to need a real gun," I remember him joking.

My cut-down Blackhawk arrived in due course, and, packed in an El Paso Saddlery Tom Threeperson's crossdraw holster, this is the backup rig I took to Africa. Thankfully, I never had to use it, my replica 19th century long rifles proving more than adequate for the plains game I was hunting. However, I could never get the gun to print a decent group.

Over the years, I fired a variety of ammo brands and bullet weights out of that Super Blackhawk, voicing frustration whenever I wrote about it. Even so, demand had been created, and in 1994 Ruger finally made the Super Blackhawk available with a 4 5?8-inch barrel as part of its cataloged line. Unfortunately, Tom Ruger passed away in 1992, so he never got to see this idea come to fruition. Over time, I shot the bobbed-barrel Ruger less.