Disappointing grips from Shop Ruger

"They should be following Freedom Arms,"

And Freedom arms are excellent. But they cost a LOT more than Ruger & they make a LOT less guns than Ruger.

I have visited the Ruger plant in Mayodan, and I have witnessed the way they make stuff. To meet production, they have machine operators, & NOT gun people, hand fitting parts. And the SA grips are sub contracted out. The assemblers just grab a pair of grips, screw them on & send the gun on it's way.
Hand fitting takes TIME, and they want product produced & want it fast.

Of course, we can go back to the way Bill did things. Introduce a new gun, then not get many in the market for 2-4 years. I remember the MANY years we Ruger fans whined & complained about that very subject. The new lean mfging methods get a LOT of guns in the market FAST.
Are they perfect?
Heck no.
But if you want perfect, spend the $3000 & buy a Freedom Arms. I have visited them as well, & they DO have gun people hand fitting the parts. But you PAY for that kind of work.

Not 100% sure but I believe the Ruger assembly line folks have a daily competition to see which can assemble the handgun grip that draws the most blood when fired.
I don't know for a fact , I just know its true.

contender said:

"They should be following Freedom Arms,"

And Freedom arms are excellent. But they cost a LOT more than Ruger & they make a LOT less guns than Ruger.

I have visited the Ruger plant in Mayodan, and I have witnessed the way they make stuff. To meet production, they have machine operators, & NOT gun people, hand fitting parts. And the SA grips are sub contracted out. The assemblers just grab a pair of grips, screw them on & send the gun on it's way.
Hand fitting takes TIME, and they want product produced & want it fast.

Of course, we can go back to the way Bill did things. Introduce a new gun, then not get many in the market for 2-4 years. I remember the MANY years we Ruger fans whined & complained about that very subject. The new lean mfging methods get a LOT of guns in the market FAST.
Are they perfect?
Heck no.
But if you want perfect, spend the $3000 & buy a Freedom Arms. I have visited them as well, & they DO have gun people hand fitting the parts. But you PAY for that kind of work.

Click to expand...

But I'm not talking about hand fitted, I never have been. You simply took the obviously hyperbolic comparison I made and used it to dismiss the material point - that Ruger's current grip QA is absolutely awful, and in my opinion it need not be so.

Ruger is, hands down, my favorite SA producer, and has been for my entire adult life. I have a Heritage for plinking and think that it was a pretty good purchase at $175 or whatever absurdly low price I paid. But I sure like my Rugers better. I have always been in the market for the ground between Heritage and Freedom - Ruger used to be well placed in between those two price points (and yes, I realize that they are much older than the other two).

What I am saying is that Ruger is trending towards Heritage when they should (based on their ever increasing prices) be trending towards Freedom.

I will reiterate the point that Ruger can do better on the fit of those grips, and they should do better. Were the grips on my original model Vaquero hand fitted? Nope, they sure didn't appear to be - but they were perfectly acceptable for a ~$600 factory pistol. Adjusting for inflation, that is about $1k now, which seems to be roughly the going rate for new production. But the grips sure do bite, now don't they?

Look at the 25 cent grips on a Wrangler........No fit at all. 1/16 in. frame below the grip......Replacements are the same way. Grips from other Rugers are the same 1/16" metal below the bottom of the grip. Wrangler frame must be a bastard size of it's own.

The Wrangler grip frame is Zamak alloy, not aluminum, but it is essentially the "same shape" as the familiar aluminum ones. Perhaps not close enough to avoid the problems we're seeing, but most likely intended to use the same panels.

Kevin, I have the same revolver and bought the same grips. Had the same problem. I have a friend who has his own machine shop. Using the factory grip that came with the gun, we milled the slots into the grips to fit over the bosses. It worked great and grips look great on the gun.