From the 1960s through the 1980s Bavarian firm RG Rohm GMBH Sontheim/BRZ built and imported to the USA many cheap firearms, especially single and double action revolvers in .22 Short, Long Rifle and .22 Magnum. Some were dangerous junk, while other models were decent enough, serving on farms, ranches and on hunts to this day.*

This RG Model 66 single action SAA-style cowboy 6-shooter is one of the better ones, probably a late model judging by the useless ‘adjustable’ sight-which I removed in two minutes, and the ‘target grip’ on the left side, both designed to make an impossible to conceal weapon harder to use, but easily fixed.

I bought it from my pal Dennis at Eagle Loan on Vernon Street in Roseville for $100USD, just over that counting tax and fees. My California buyers card had expired after five years so I needed to take the safety test again for $20 as well.

I shot one CB Cap short round in it for function before I started working on it to be sure I didn’t have to return it. Discarding the ‘adjustable sight’ left a shallow sighting grove in the top strap which will be entirely adequate for the gun’s main task of killing tin cans in the woods.

Notorious tightwad that I am I didn’t want to spend real money for a cowboy holster. Luckily, my garage yielded a flea market $15 Krasne’s Triple K (klan?) holster of a sort of ‘Mexican loop’ type made of a single piece of leather. It was made for a 8 3/8″ bbl caliber .38 Special and had a closed (now amputated) toe.

Quick surgery with a carpenter’s razor knife and it fits the RG’s 4 3/8″ barrel for length.

 

 

The smaller RG trigger guard meant I had to relocate the snap-equipped security strap, easily though crudely done in 10 minutes using slot-head screw with nut.

Not bad, but excess leather makes it look like the holster is swallowing the gun.

That’s better. A few minutes work with a Leatherman Wave and a razor knife and the excrescence is excised. Reinforcing stud I added should be a rivet but this anachronistic Phillips head screw with nut will have to suffice. Brown shoe polish concealed new leather cuts.

The plan: replace ugly-ass RG grips with beautiful walnut Colt panels originally made for a large frame double action. Lots of cutting needed, I had just started here when I remembered to take this snap.

More in the future on walnut Colt grip upgrade, weapon and holster function and accuracy, and possible refinish of horrible, soft black paint on the Zamak grip frame.

*Sadly, RGs were also used to wound Ronald Reagan and assassinate Robert Kennedy.

 

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