Gemini Customs GP100

We take a departure from the endless supply of polymer handguns in today’s First Look. Join Roy Huntington as he shows you around a beautiful custom revolver — the Gemini Customs seven-shot GP100.

For more information, visit geminicustoms.com.

Gear List

• Glasses accessory: EyePal Peep Sighting System, www.eyepalusa.com

• Targets: Self-Adhesive Reactive Targets, www.sportridge.com

Transcript

Hi, friends! You know, not very many things get my blood going like a good custom revolver, and today we have a real treat. This is a custom Ruger GP100 done by Mark Morganti of Gemini Customs. So, let’s take a peek…

I wrote a cover story on this in the upcoming November 2022 issue of GUNS Magazine. The base gun is a limited-run Ruger GP100 seven-shot with Novak Sights. As it stands, it’s a pretty solid .357 Magnum seven-shot kind of fighting, concealed carry pistol.

It’s a heavy gun — it’s all steel — but that also adds a certain amount of charm to it because it means that it’s highly controllable and a real pleasure to shoot. Mark also adds his hybrid ports here, which really helps to lower the muzzle flip and the perceived recoil.

This is a full build, which means Mark removes the barrel, line bores, and re-threads the frame, and then he installs what he calls his ultimate 12-angle profile barrel. He machines these individually from barrel blanks — these are not over the counter.

He does his v8 hybrid porting, which is, you know, ports on the top. He lathe turns the barrel throat at five degrees and polishes it, and lathe turns the crown at 11 degrees. He window cuts the ejector rod slot, and that’s actually important to make sure that’s square and true, and then he does a dovetail cut for Novak 65×300 front sights. He calls this his master-grade extensive dehorning and smoothing for carry.

He does a surface prep to 100-170 fine matte for this black PVD DLC-plated finish. I think that black is really handsome.

Where the real magic occurs, I think, is in his double action tuning. Single action pulls 2.5 pounds, double action pulls about 10 pounds. The trigger guard is skeletonized with the ejector rod serrated at 25 lines per inch there. It’s a full moon clip conversion with TK Custom 7 x .357 Magnum moon clips, also plate in that really nifty PVD copper color.

Cylinder rods are finished, honed and micro-polished. The extractor is face relief cut radiused, and polished charge homes and polished cylinder faces. It’s just beautiful!

Novak three-dot nigh sights go in the double dot white rear and orange outline front. He also has his Gemini Custom Gen 2 full-size world-class wild olive wood fitted and bedded oil rub finish grips. Mark makes these himself in his shop.

The black and copper armor guard, that’s called PVD DLC-plated finish, is by Richter Precision. There’s seven colors available, so check it out when you have Mark build your custom gun.

Okay, I’ve got seven rounds of Black Hills 148 grain target wadcutters — my favorite load to shoot in a .38. It’s a .357, but we’ll shoot a little bit of that later. And I’m set up at about 15 yards, so let’s just see what it does offhand, kind of casual. So all right, here we go…

Sometimes the trigger pull feels so good you just hate to stop doing it. Well, other than the fact I lost my mind and threw one, you can see the gun shoots pretty good. We’ll move things in a little bit here just because I’ve got seven rounds of Black Hills HoneyBadget ammunition .38 Special, which is my favorite carry load. So, let’s just do sort of a cylinder dump real quick and see what happens.

That smooth trigger really makes it controllable, which is pretty cool.

You can see what I mean. I’ll tell you Mark’s double action trigger pulls are legendary — and for good reason.

Now, just because people are gonna ask, I’ve loaded this with five roads of Federal 180 grain. It’s a cast core, they call it. It’s a really heavy .357 Magnum. I mean, frankly, I think it’s something you would go deer hunting with or something, but what I want to show you with this, though, is the fact these ports really keep muzzle flip down and make the gun a lot more controllable. I don’t advocate that you shoot ammo like this in a gun like this. I mean, it can’t hurt the gun, but it’s going to beat you up.

So all right, let’s see what happens here. Five shots, here we go…

Well, you can see it was actually really flat shooting because of these great grips that Mark does. It also doesn’t really hurt you, but like I said before, I would prefer a .38 Special HoneyBadger type personal defense load rather than some full bore .357 Magnum fire-breathing monster.

Okay, well, that was certainly a fast first look, but keep in mind that if you’ve got your heart set on a custom gun, just do it. Go for it! Clean your safe, get rid of some of that stuff you’ve got in there that you haven’t shot in years, sell it, and put that money to work on something. Give Mark Morganti a call at Gemini Customs and let him know that we sent you. And remember, it’s kind of like a buffet — you pick what you want, and then you get what you want. And you can see just how fun something like this can be.

Hey, thanks for tuning in. Remember the four firearms safety rules, take a new shooter shooting, and leave some comments. I’m sure Mark will be paying attention when this video is posted, and if you have questions for him, I’m sure he’d reach right out to you, and I will too. All right, you guys, stay safe, and I’ll see you next time!

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