Hondo, I mentioned my working career as an attempt to explain that I am fully aware that nothing is unbreakable, having seen, first hand, an astronomical number of failures of man made components. Flawless? I doubt that I would know flawless if it is even possible, & I saw it. So, I'm certainly not expecting it. I do agree that it could get expensive, & the consumer would feel the hit, a big hit.
Now, the comments that people make about better quality control raising the price of a product are statements that I cannot get on board with. Returns & repairs are costly. Problem solving within can sometimes be unbelievably simple, I've seen it in action. How much time does it take to see crooked front sites, missing parts, or a razor sharp burr still attached?
I believe that Ruger has an increased percentage of quality problems, not because of my dinky little transfer bar, but from things I hear, not just this forum, but forums across the board, at gun shops, on the shooting range, & things I see with the eyes of a 50 year maker & fixer of things. For a year or two now I've been wanting to voice my opinion on this but avoided doing so in someone else's thread. But this be my thread, so I'm glad it came up. No animosity here, just the way I feel about the matter.
I walked into the local gun shop a few weeks back & my buddy handed me a new Vaquero fresh from the distributor. He said, you'll appreciate this. It was a cute thing, a polished stainless birdshead with wonderfully contrasting dark grips, looked like a hi dollar custom. Then it hit me, & I said a bit above a whisper, WHAT THE .... ? Everybody there was waiting for it & they all broke out in laughter. It had one grip frame screw in it, the front one! While I don't know their assembly process I have to wonder how many hands that gun went through, & nobody noticed? Didn't notice, didn't care, or pushed so hard for quantity that no one had time to care? Wow!
Hope I'm wrong about the increased percentage of poor quality & maybe it is just the same number of complaints per thousand & those numbers have simply increased with the increased production numbers. If I'm right, I hope they fix it, the sleeping giant of decreased customer satisfaction can & will wake up.