Little more progress that will lead to a bit more work as well.
Grips redrilled for locater pin, pin put back into the grip frame and grips assembled to frame. As you can see in the pictures there will be a good bit of file work to bring the frame to the grips and smooth the transition between them.
As I thought may be the case the thinner new model xr3 frame and the thickness of old xr3 grips aren't playing well together leaving a bit of a gap where the mainframe and grip frame meet. Pondering on fixing this, maybe a liner between the frame and grips to space them out a bit.
Upon reassembly noticed the loading gate had more resistant than I'm used to. Disassembled and reassembled a couple of times and still no love to be had. Didn't see any burrs, or glaringly obvious defects either. Off to the parts box we go and swap in a replacement and all is good in Rugerland again. Seems the spring included was not to spec. Not sure how I missed this before, but it's fixed now.
With the spring issue corrected, everything went back together slick as can be and other than the narrow grips she's quite the looker. Very smooth and a very nice trigger pull.
Any ideas from you fine fellas on a liner material to space the grips out? Was thinking g10 knife handle liner material .060" should space them enough to clear the frame, but what color? Thinking of black as it would provide a bit of contrast rather than sticking out as a patch job like a white or tan would.
While thinking on this, I'm going to load up some rounds and see about bringing the front sight to where it needs to be. If it shoots half as good as it's looking so far I'll be one happy fella.