Getting Ruger Old Army soon

contender said:

We await your report on what it is!

Click to expand...

Ditto.

Ok, it's really the one from the picture, blued, brass grip. The downside is, they took the picture from it's better side. Certainly not new. If I were to pay the original price for it, I'd likely tell them to keep it, but for the discount, I don't mind doing a little gun surgery. The good thing is, it doesn't look like it was shot much, more likely just treated hard. It has several scars, mainly from the right. Right grip has one corner chipped off and glued back. Both grips have some nibs on the bottom edge. The rear edge of the brass grip got also hit in the past and there's a light dent on the front edge of the front sight. Couple minor scratches around the takedown screw. It seems to me like someone was practicing cowboy spinning tricks with the gun and dropped it couple times on hard ground or something. All the scars should allow for careful fixing, maybe the grips should be changed (would Blackhawk grips fit?).
I'll need to check the inner parts as well - as I played with it later, I found out that sometimes it does freeze up when I try to drop hammer from full to half cock. It just gets stucked and there's no help, other than remove the cylinder. I guess the half cock notch might have some burr on it. Or maybe it's just dirty inside. I'll check it out, maybe tonight already.
But anyway, the gun is beautiful and I'll be happy to shoot it.

You most likely STILL got one heck of a deal. Please look at the grip frame once you remove the grips. If it is marked "MR3-DB" that grip is worth $275-$300 by itself.
You will need Super Blackhawk model grips to replace the damaged ones.
Tear that gun down & clean it completely, especially the inside. Carefully inspect the parts for damage & wear.
One note; You mentioned you were trying to lower the hammer from full cock to half cock. The action of that gun is such that you do not need to try & go to half cock from full cock. Always let the hammer go all the way down.
Also, do not lower the hammer from half cock to full rest. That can create a "ring around the cylinder!"

http://www.ruger.com/service/productHistory/RE-OABP.html

This link will give you the production date and the owners manual.

Nice snag. I have a couple of them and use mine to hunt with.

The grip is marked MR-3DB
I took it completely apart and cleaned. Man, it was dirty!
No sign of damage on the parts, not even much wear on them.
So that problem I described is something normal, the gun is supposed to work that way? What I see is that when I pull the hammer from release to half cock, the part that comes from below to lock the cylinder (how do you call it in English?) stays down and the cylinder turns free as it should. But when I lower the hammer from full cock to half, this part stays up, keeping the cylinder locked. At that point, I can't pull the hammer back, can't do anything. It's completely stuck.

The grip really needs to be replaced. Not sure if I'll make new grips by myself or buy some. I have some nice cocobolo. Also many antlers.
Anyone has a pair of grips he'd like to sell or trade?

The part that comes up out of the frame to hold the cylinder in place is called the bolt.

Lowering the hammer from full cock to half cock is abnormal - it's supposed to go all the way down frim full cock. Yes, the bolt will stay in place when the hammer is lowered, whether to half cock or all the way down. The hammer must be lowered to full down for the bolt mechanism to fully cycle and lower the bolt away from the cylinder at the start of the next cycle.

Ok, I don't mind operating the gun as you suggest, if that's the right way to do it. But I'm quite surprised that it's so easy to make it inoperational.
Anyway, I've checked the serial number chart and looks like my Old Army is from 1975. Older than me!

Finally got to take some pics.

Nice! Enjoy! I know I sure like shooting mine!

Any updates?
You are getting good advice here.
Please keep in touch.

Well I got the right size double mold, I throughly cleaned the whole gun part by part, did some minor beauty surgery on some of the nibs and dents it had. Only need to make a holster, but can't get to create one. Too busy moving, building new home and starting new business.

I joked on another forum when another poster wrote he had no room in his safe for another pistol and I told him put it in your sock drawer? Now, that exactly what I'm doing and would like to find a proper Ruger box to store it in. What exactly do I want? My ser.#145-66XXX made in 1993 if I read right? What box do I need to be correct with this and how much should I expect to pay?
thanx, Steve

A good looking brassie! Excellent!

Steve, I believe you need the gray plastic box.

It's a shame, but tomorrow I'll shoot the ROA for the first time since I bought it. Just had no time, only visited a range once since last fall.
Loaded it with BP and roundball I cast myself. Still interested to learn a proper way to make combustible paper cartridges, but right now this oldschool loading is fine.
I'll also testfire my new BP derringer while I'm there.
What to take yet....likely the PC9, .22 Double Nine and maybe some AK.

So happy for you and you will have a great time with it. I now have accumulated four Old Army's and have begun rolling my own paper cartridges for them. Are you allowed to hunt there with handguns and specifically muzzle loading handguns? Congratulations on your acquisition again. Don

Generally BP guns aren't accepted for hunting here and neither are handguns, bows and crossbows. Hunting is complicated here, many things are not strictly forbidden by law, but the hunting community won't tolerate them because of traditions.
It's morning here and I'm leaving in a while. Will let you know how it worked.

I'm just back. Fun fun fun! Very comfortable shooting, even with rather high powder loads. It's not my first BP gun, but first one that has more than two shots and it just feels different to shoot a muzzleloader so fast.
Had some misfires, but those were caused by primers - had some loaded in a capper for couple months and it's quite moist here, so I think they degraded to some point. New ones out of a box worked fine.
Can't say much about accuracy yet, need to do more shooting, but it's not bad. At 25m one-handed, I was able to keep all of the first 6 balls in the military "green bust" target. At 15m, shooting 2nd and 3rd serie, the hits were mostly in the black on a standard pistol target.

I'm really happy with it. It surely deserves to get a new set of grips, to replace the beaten old ones. I'm just trading some with a guy at AK forum, for vz.58 grip and handguard.
Really must make some nice leather for it. Anyone knows about these early revolver holsters, other than army holsters with the top flap?

Now get your pocketbook open 475 cal creeping on 41 mag velocities !

Just got new grips and replaced the beaten ones.

Very nice looking ROA