Once upon a time before we had a major forums crash I had begun the test review of this gun. All of what I had written about it from my first impressions thru the partial test results was lost and I had deleted my MS Word file on it after posting. DUMB! OK so with the crying and teeth gnashing out of the way IÂ’ll get on with the job of writing the review once again from scratch.
I do still vividly recall my first impressions of this gun. I LIKED IT! Oh yeah. Nice. Made just like the FA83 I had tested earlier except a smaller and lighter version of it made for less potent rounds than the .454 Casull. The one Bob Baker sent me for testing was chambered for the .45 Colt at my request. It wore a 7.5” barrel and adjustable sights. It was a Premier model just as was the FA83 I’d had earlier. It locked up tightly as had the FA83 and I fully expected similar performance from it. I was not disappointed in the lest.
I asked Bob to also toss in a holster for it so I could carry it with me on hunting trips. I did this for two hunting seasons for deer here in Alabama and never once had an opportunity to take a deer with it. Not for lack of trying but it just seemed me and this handgun were not lucky together on game. I even scheduled a hog hunt in TN on which I intended to use the gun and for personal reasons had to postpone it for longer than Bob could allow me to continue to keep the gun so even that didn’t work for me. Bottom line of this sad tale is I have no photos of me and it with dead game to show for the “photo ops” section of this report.
Speaking of which. Here is a photo of the FA97 with the variety of factory loads I tested in it.
A pretty good selection consisting of ammo provided by Buffalo Bore, Black Hills and Hornady. The latter two send me some CAS ammo which was also used in the CAS guns from EMF. Tim at Buffalo Bore send me the two selections he makes that are short enough for use in this gun. The cylinder of it is a bit shorter than the cylinder on guns such as the Ruger BH and so it canÂ’t use some of the hot hunting loads offered by Buffalo Bore. Nonetheless what he has that does fit was plenty accurate and powerful enough for any hunting IÂ’d have done with a .45 Colt. In such a light handgun the recoil was pretty severe with them however.
During the time I carried this gun with me in the woods I really grew to appreciate the light weight of it. Any carry gun is toted a lot more than shot while out and about in the woods. On the hip it was comfortable and never a problem. If you pack a gun on your hip as you wander the woods this is a nice choice. With a shorter barrel it would pack even better but for me at least wouldnÂ’t shoot as well. My tired old eyes need all the barrel length I can get to make hitting easier. For me the trade off for longer barrels is worth the extra weight and less handiness in order to be able to better see the sights. Your mileage may vary. Bob offers it in several difference barrel lengths as well as calibers so we can all find something weÂ’ll like.
So how did it shoot? Better than me. As IÂ’ve mentioned my tired old eyes arenÂ’t up to iron sight shooting like they were even a few years ago. My iron sight groups at 25 yards these days look more like what they used to at 50 yards even with the most accurate of handguns. I didnÂ’t scope this one like I did the FA83 so wasnÂ’t able to actually see just how accurate it could be. BUT the groups I did fire both at 25 and 50 yards were every bit as good as those fired with the FA83 so I feel the potential is there and the limiting factor was my ability to see the sights. With the FA83 I also did a lot of shooting with a B&L 2-6 scope mounted and wow did that tighten up the groups for a fellow with tired old eyes. I have no doubt it would have done so with this FA97 also had I asked Bob for a scope base and rings for it. But I didnÂ’t as I intended it to be a carry on the hip short range gun. For that me and it did fine.
The loads from Buffalo Bore shot way smaller groups than I have any right to shoot with my poor vision. Some groups came in under an inch at 25 yards and folks I don’t see that well. Pretty much all groups stayed under 2” at 25 yards. Let’s not talk about how poorly I shoot at 50 yards. It wasn’t a reflection of the gun or ammo but my inability to see the sights and target to place them. I no longer shoot at game that far away with iron sights as a result. Yeah it hurts for a fellow who used to compete in iron sight handgun metallic silhouette competition to no longer be able to see the sights and nope glasses don’t help. I can’t see up close and any lens with enough correction to help me see those sights blurs the target so badly that it affects groups. Best is an aperture device and I do some times use it and that’s when the groups tighten but it isn’t practical for hunting for me at least.
Lets get specific on a few groups shot. With the Buffalo Bore 260 JHP at 1450 fps (wow was that a handful in that light gun) my best group was just at one inch at 25 yards. 1.05” to be specific as best I was able to measure it. The worst was 2.5” and the average of all groups shot with this load was just under 2 inches at 1.95”. This is a powerful load for a .45 Colt and should do great on most any deer or hog you’d want to tackle. Groups with the Buffalo Bore 300 JSP which should be up to the task for any game you’d go after with the .45 Colt were pretty much clones of the 260 JHP loads but recoil was a bit less due to the lower velocity and so they were more pleasant to shoot. I found this to be the case with the Buffalo Bore loads for the .454 Casull in the FA83 also. The heavier bullets were more pleasant to shoot than the lighter faster ones. Best group was an even one inch as best I could measure it. Worst was an even 3” which I’m sure was me as only one shot blew that one from roughly 1.5” for the other four shots to an even 3”. Overall average of all groups fired with this load was a hair under 1.75”. In both cases the 50 yard groups averaged closer to 5” but I know I just don’t see well enough for 50 yard shooting any more with iron sights.
The Hornady factor CAS loads didn’t seem to get along that well in this gun for some reason. Average at 25 yards was a bit over 3” and ranged from 2” to over 5” for one really poor group that likely was mostly me as I was having a lousy shooting day that day and quit in disgust of my shooting with several iron sighted guns I was trying to shoot. Still that isn’t a load I’d chose for that particular revolver I was testing. Your mileage likely will vary.
The Black Hills CAS ammo and this gun loved each other. Why the difference in it and the Hornady I don’t know. But I’ve now fired both in several .45 Colt chambered guns and in all cases I’ve found a gun will shoot one of them well but not the other. No gun of several I’ve tried so far have liked both. One or the other but not both. Group averages with this load stayed under 2” and varied but a little from group to group. Best was 1.5” and worst 2.5”. Pretty consistent performance I thought.
I wonÂ’t list all of the reloads I tried in this gun. But over the time I kept it I tried a LOT of them. IÂ’d have tried a lot more IF the cylinder had been longer. I had a hard time fitting a lot of loads to it I wanted to try. The Freedom Arms bullets wonÂ’t fit in a full length case if you seat to the cannelure. You have to shorten a case to do that. IÂ’ll not list the loads I used with shortened cases anywhere as they were experimentation and not from a book as books donÂ’t list shortened cases. This same situation applied to my bullets I cast from the Lyman 452651 mould. I love that bullet for the .454 Casull but the nose is just too long for this gun. Cases have to be shortened to allow a proper crimp and really it just isnÂ’t worth the effort. I tried the Valiant 250 RNFP bullets I had in a variety of loads from mild to pretty hot with several powders. Some shot well and some shot miserably. They are a bevel base hard cast lead bullet with no gas check. Leading with some loads was bad! With others very light.
This was one I’d sure like to have kept but my finances really don’t allow me to pay the tariff on this gun. I’d have tried to talk Bob into trading it to me for advertising but my attempts to do that with the FA83 had already shown me he wasn’t so inclined so I saved us both the trouble and when he asked for the return I just packed it up and sadly said goodbye to it. Some day if I get to where I can see my way clear to owning one of Bob’s super fine guns I’m thinking one of the FA97s in .41 Magnum would be the “cat’s meow” for me. Dunno why but that’s the one I’d really like to own in this light weight high quality handgun. I think it would be well matched to the light weight of this revolver and at the ranges I can see to shoot game with iron sights has more than enough power to get the job done. It sure would be a nice choice to right my right hip on deer hunts here in Bama.
Here is another shot of the gun showing that nice leather Bob send along with it for me to carry afield. Nice holster. It and me went a bunch of miles together and I send it back with a lot more scratches than it had when it arrived.
Many thanks to Bob Baker for the loan of this revolver for way longer than the normal loan period. Guess I should have sent it back sooner but just hated to part with it and knew that Bob knew where it was and when he decided he needed it heÂ’d let me know. Kept hoping my ship would come in and I could afford to buy it but such was not the case. This one is a real winner folks. It definitely gets the Graybeard Seal of Approval. And Bob if you ever decide to trade a handgun for a whole bunch of advertising on my site you have my phone number.
You can visit the Freedom Arms website at:
http://www.freedomarms.com/ If you like finely made revolvers you own it to yourself to at least take a look. Here is an image from that site of the FA97 so ya can see it one more time in this review.
This one looks more like it is set up for CAS than hunting as was the one I reviewed. Now that would be a quality piece of CAS shooting gear if there ever was one.
You can phone or write to Freedom Arms at the following:
314 Highway 239 * Freedom Wyoming USA * 83120
307-883-2468
GB
