.45 Colt has its own problems but can be fixed pretty easy. It has to do with the cylinder and throat size. There is a guy that will ream it to the proper size for like 50 bucks or a little less. If you go with the .45 Colt, get one with the ACP cylinder too. Gives you extra rd to shoot that can be bought over the counter cheaper. Then again, you will end up reloading for it so you can get he full potential of the .45 Colt. The .45 Colt can surpass the .44 mag safely with less pressure.

9mm will never be very accurate out of the BH. The .357/38 uses a .357 bore dia and the 9mm is .355. About the only way to make it work is to use over sized lead bullet in 9mm and then you will have to reload for it too.

hm. how do you feel about the .44mag?

.45 Col will do what a Mag can out of a BH. You can shoot .44 spcl ammo out of the Mag cylinder but it is more costly than the mag ammo when you can find it. I like the .45 Colt BH with the ACP conversion cylinder. Good home defense, plinking, hunting. If you start to reload the Colt is a better cartridge in my opinion to because you can load from puff loads all the way to bear loads. My favorite hunting rd for the .45 Colt is a 255 gr Elmer Keith SWC.

so tell me about this cylinder/throat problem.

On some of the .45 Colt BH, especially the older ones, the chambers were undersized because the sized them for jacket bullets. So a lot of the time they were so tight that they would resize the lead bullets to the point they were not making full contact with the bore--just like shooting a 9mm (.355 dia) through a .357 dia bore. If you go that way, and it needs the chambers worked all you have to do is send in the cylinders to this guy, very well know and respected for his work, and for about 50 bucks and a week turn around you got it up to speed. On any BH, a poormans trigger job is to take the grip off one side and drop one of the dog leg springs. Works wonders. There is a spring kit from Lee's (IIRC) for about 20 bucks that gives you all the springs to make a smoother trigger pull and hammer fall.

.357 is still lookin pretty good.

the 7.5" .45LC's don't come with the .45ACP cylinder. i want that sight radius. big reason i like that model.

i guess .45ACP and compactness are kinda worth it.

There are special runs from places like Lipseys, and a few other people that have Ruger make them for their companies. I understand the sight radius. I would go with the .357 then. Both 357 and 38 are easy to load. Handloading will let you load puffer loads in .38 spcl all the way to 180 gr lead swc bulletd for hunting. 180 SWC is an awesome thing.

5 1/2 is nothing to cough at. Get a lever action rifle in the same caliber and the BH is a companion arm.

okay. now tell me about the quirks of the SKS and saiga. no mods, just outa the box stuff for a guy who'd shoot em stock.

There really isn't any to either. The sks will be a little more accurate because it uses a drop/tilt bolt design instead of a rotating bolt. The SKS will have a bayonet, able to fee through the top, but doesn't lend itself to scoping. The Saiga is a detachable mag for loading , but will have a side optic rail. You can get a good quality mount for a 100 bucks and use quality optics. Both are easily maintained.