Bearcat said:
Many people have wondered that. As noted above, my 'failure rate" with Special Editions is 100%. Had one of the flattop .45 Colt/ .45 ACP Blackhawks in stainless. visible burrs on the cylinder ratchet and in the lock work. Also arrived very dirty....Like it had been used as a "range day" gun. Very disappointed. It may be general Ruger QA/QC nowadays, but I think that they give less attention to the batches that they make on a distributor order compared to their general production. Everybody says I am wrong about this, but personal experience trumps everybody else's opinion in my book.
Hi,
I'd accept your personal experience and suggest the problem's nothing new! At the risk of being repetitive and beating that dead horse some more:
I went to work for a gunsmith in 1980. He'd just bought the trap & skeet range I'd worked at on and off from about 1967 when I'd just gotten out of high school and first met him, and I ran the range for a number of years. He moved his gunshop to the range shortly after, and I was in and out of the shop daily. Sometimes it was just a quickie trip, taking in guns brought in for repair after hours at the clubhouse, or picking some up to be delivered later that evening. There were plenty of other times I had time to watch and learn, too.
Over the years, I got a real earful about Ruger's supposed "quality control." The gunsmiths working in the shop had a saying that "Rugers are kit guns. Buy one, bring it to us, and we'll finish putting it together." Our pistolsmiths were evenly divided between whether they preferred S&W or Colt camps, the old Ford-Chevy thing, but preferences aside, they all had steady work with Rugers. They did a nice job of it, too! The same job "Ruger should have done at the factory," according to everyone from my boss on down... and they very seldom had "come backs."
Since 1980, I've owned a few Rugers, and shot many more, though nowhere near what some folks here have. I currently own five Rugers, a 10/22 and four handguns. My Redhawk was bought used, the rest new, and it's the ONLY one that hasn't had "problems." The four new ones all had QC problems, some of which I could take care of using bits and pieces of knowledge I'd picked up in the shop, but shouldn't have had to! My Bisley never should have left the factory, but it did, and fixing its problems rise to real gunsmith level at the least. A trip to the factory would probably be in order for most owners, but I'm one of those guys who figures if they couldn't make it right the first time, how well are they going to fix it? So it sits locked up and I don't shoot it much any more. That's too bad, cuz it could be my favorite gun minus the grief.
Ruger has lost me as a "new" purchaser because my "failure rate" is 80% on those guns I have, and I'm just selfish enough to put my own experience in front of other people's when it comes to spending my hard earned money. One of our pistolsmiths retired and went to work as a salesman at an LGS for a couple of years. Talking with him about buying a new Ruger one day--they sold a lot of 'em--he joked that buying a Ruger's never dull: you just never know what you're gonna get! Pretty bad joke, isn't it? At least for me, as I have neither the money nor inclination for gambling, on the tables, at the track or with new guns at the LGS.
Even so, I still like a number of Ruger's guns so I try to remain an optimist as some of my old boss' words echo in the background, and hope someday he'll be proven wrong: "Ruger's designed a lot of really good guns. They just haven't made one of 'em yet." So when folks ask me whether they should buy a Ruger, I try to explain my experiences with the caveats I've learned over the years while trying not to bad mouth the product. Some do buy Rugers, but a number of other manufacturers have benefited from my stories. I wonder how many other people's stories have cost Ruger sales, too?
Remember Ford's advertising campaign some years back: "Quality is Job One"? Without getting into arguments about whether they really delivered on it, it's something I believe every manufacturer should keep as a goal. I've written Mr. Fifer about this issue, and sadly, it appears Ruger's selling enough guns he doesn't much care. Maybe if EVERY Ruger owner who has a problem, even minor, would apply the same criteria to their guns they do to many other products, and started sending the guns back "to be finished," things would change? Y'all pay enough for a product that works properly from the get go, demand it be so!
Sorry, dead horse, I'm afraid you're gonna take a few more licks before we can let you rest...
Rick C