How Many Rounds To Wear Out a Ruger Revolver?

[Stantheman1986]

Most people way overestimate their ability to wear out a gun

And overzealous and heroic cleaning is just as wear inducing as shooting . People will take a Bronze brush and scrub 1000 rounds worth of wear into the bore of a revolver because I guess they feel a Drill Sgt will be inspecting it.

I don't take my Rugers apart unless I need to for something like putting lighter springs in. I have GP100s that I've never field stripped in 10-15 years. There's no need. It's like popping the side plate on a S&W, if there's no need , there's no need. I can apply oil with the gun assembled

I've had this .38 Special GP100 for about 5 years now, and I finally put a box through it today after basically just test firing it after I got it . Granted I have other guns that I shoot and some just take a while to get to...this GP100 could fire every round of .38 Special within a 200 mile radius and not even sweat it...but I'll probably never put the first 1000 through this particular GP100. I don't have the time and ammo Funds to worry about that plus I have a bunch of revolvers . I wouldn't make enough $ in the rest of my life to afford to shoot enough rounds to wear out all my revolvers. Most of my guns will spend 99% of their service lives sitting around somewhere

The only people I've heard of wearing guns out are professional shooters, old PPC shooters or hard and long used police revolvers.

 

[Gun1]

Yeah, I was thinking of exactly that, competition shooters shooting full loads of .357 Mag. For competition shooters, is it possible to stretch a GP or SP Ruger?

 

[WV460hunter]

There is barrel life calculator out there I have it but it won't let me upload it here . Just put it in a search engine.

 

[Stantheman1986]

Yeah, I was thinking of exactly that, competition shooters shooting full loads of .357 Mag. For competition shooters, is it possible to stretch a GP or SP Ruger?

I had a GP100 I bought used, that had a significant amount of endshake and bad flame cutting . I added Endshake Bearings and it was fine.

The last owner must have shot the heck out of it with super hot .357 , maybe unsafely hot .357.

I don't think it's reasonably possible. The GIGN has used Manurhin MR73s for decades and fired 100 rounds of .357 every duty day, and those guns are put on the same level as a GP100 for durability .

I think "how" you fire a Ruger revolver is also important for durability. If you lazily thumb cock or fire deliberate, aimed double action with a GP100 , it is treating it a lot kinder than "running it hard" like a Steel Challenge gun where you slap the trigger hard, use light springs and slam the stop notches into the bolt stop trying to fire the gun as fast as humanly possible to get the best time.

When I had a 6-shot .357 Redhawk I was warned not to be aggressive in DA or thumb cock quickly in SA because the heavier cylinder could beat the bolt stop window. I sold it and got an 8-shot snubby

I've also seen some rough looking former PPC guns , usually S&W but some Ruger Sixes that look like they'd seen a zillion rounds and are pretty much clapped out

 

[BloodyThumb]

I will let you know if it ever happens.

I have a 2.75" Speed Six .357 that I have had since 1981 or 82. I shot it a LOT the first 10 or so years until we switched over to issued autos. I still shoot it very regularly. I have no idea how many rounds I have fired through it, or one of my sons when they would take it to the range over the years, but no doubt many thousands. It has a decent amount of flame cutting on the top strap at the throat, but nothin abnormal and certainly not enough to make it unsafe. Typical forcing cone erosion, but still plenty accurate enough for "social work" so to speak. If I had to risk a guess I would say about 60% 38 +p and the rest 125gr .357.

It is an old friend that I will keep and pass down.

 

[contender]

"Yeah, I was thinking of exactly that, competition shooters shooting full loads of .357 Mag. For competition shooters, is it possible to stretch a GP or SP Ruger?"

That depends upon the type of competition.

In something like USPSA,, competitors prefer as light a load as possible, yet still make their power factor. So they don't use "hot" loads.
But a long range silhouette shooter may be just the opposite,, trying to get as much power out of a gun to assure the toppling of the steel with a marginal hit.

Silhouette shooting is not as common as it once was,, so fewer people do it, and not many use a Ruger GP-100. None as far as I know would use a SP-101.
USPSA & ICORE,, the Super GP-100 was built to compete with. But light loads rule,, so I doubt we'd see a worn out gun.

So, back to the OP's question.
In general,, A Ruger is built strong enough to where "wearing one out" to the point of frame stretching or whatever isn't a concern. And as noted,, a well used machine may need a bit of tuning as mentioned above for the minimal wear to certain parts.

 

[Dan in MI]

A wise old owl answered this decades ago.

Ah, one. Ah, two. Ah, crunch! Three!

 

[Bigbore5]

I've "worn out" a Ruger before. An old model 357. But worn out Ruger is not a worn out lesser gun like the Smiths that got that talk started.

I got it as an 12 year old and wore it every day until I left the farm. It was already 15 years old when I it. All those 15 years were also spent on horses and tractors. It got loose from the wear of all the grit and grime of that life when I was about 20. New cylinder stop and pawl and back in business.

I just had the shot out barrel replaced. Figure all those years of work day grit and grime, poor maintenance, and the hottest handloads I could dream up before I learned better. Then add all those more "reasonable" book max loads, albeit with better maintenance.

So replace the internals partially once, fully this time and one barrel. It's taken over 300,000 rounds so far. The frame and cylinder are still going with no problems.

It would probably be half-million rounds if I hadn't gotten into the semi automatic for awhile.

 

[Laserbait]

I wore out my stainless 4" 44 Mag Redhawk after about 15,000 rounds, but the frame was fine. The timing went askew, and I sent it to Ruger. They replaced the trigger, hammer, the pawl, the star and the barrel. They also refinished it to make the barrel match the frame. Great service!

 

[41Dude]

I have a 40+ year old Super Blackhawk. It has digested many thousands of rounds. Jacketed, hard cast, gas checked, smoking hot (in my younger days) mid range and plinkers. The rifling is still sharp. Cylinder locks up tight. I agree with the posters about overly aggressive cleaning doing more damage than actual shooting.
Be gentle with your baby and enjoy burning up some ammo.

 

[mirglip]

Ruger, Smith and Colt have made pretty tough revolvers (I can't speak for the Wrangler yet) and I've never heard of frame stretch on any of them. Revolvers by most other manufacturers are generally not designed to run tens of thousands of rounds through them, JMO. Unlike Colt and Smith, Ruger doesn't build revolvers on the cutting edge of strength vs. weight, instead they usually err on the side of weight. When a Ruger revolver reaches a point of "fair" cosmetic condition, it's usually in 97% or better mechanical condition. Ugly Rugers are a bargain.
When I think of a worn out revolver I think of cylinder gap issues and sloppy lock up.

 

[Rclark]

I don't think I have deep enough pockets to actually wear out a Ruger revolver ... nor the time. Also 99% of all my shooting is sub-sonic (yes, even .357 and .44 Mag) and only shoot lead bullets. And ... I shoot different revolvers during my sessions. Ie. I just don't bring the same gun every time to the range, or in the field.... That said, I'll never wear out any of my big bores.

Only those that abuse their guns or shoot many many many max magnum loads have a prayer of wearing out their revolvers ... IMHO.

 

[Stantheman1986]

Ruger, Smith and Colt have made pretty tough revolvers (I can't speak for the Wrangler yet) and I've never heard of frame stretch on any of them. Revolvers by most other manufacturers are generally not designed to run tens of thousands of rounds through them, JMO. Unlike Colt and Smith, Ruger doesn't build revolvers on the cutting edge of strength vs. weight, instead they usually err on the side of weight. When a Ruger revolver reaches a point of "fair" cosmetic condition, it's usually in 97% or better mechanical condition. Ugly Rugers are a bargain.
When I think of a worn out revolver I think of cylinder gap issues and sloppy lock up.

I owned one, a S&W 4" Highway Patrolman that was import marked , it had endshake so bad it rattled if you shook it. I was still able to use Endshake and Yoke bearings to tighten it up, it took I think 5 or 6 bearings. The b/c gap was big but it still shot well with .38 after I fixed it up. I sold it after I got a .357 Redhawk , I probably should have kept it. It was like an old baseball glove....pretty much 0% blue, action was slick. It had seen lots and lots of .357 with whatever foreign agency used it.

 

[Stantheman1986]

I have a 40+ year old Super Blackhawk. It has digested many thousands of rounds. Jacketed, hard cast, gas checked, smoking hot (in my younger days) mid range and plinkers. The rifling is still sharp. Cylinder locks up tight. I agree with the posters about overly aggressive cleaning doing more damage than actual shooting.
Be gentle with your baby and enjoy burning up some ammo.

Ironically, me who is notoriously lazy with cleaning guns , is doing more to keep my guns healthy than the guy who scrubs bores and chambers with a stainless brush until his arm gives out and takes them apart too much

I read a post from a S&W shooter who apparently has OCD and takes every piece of the revolver out and cleans it after every range trip.....I was like, Why???? You're just adding more wear and tear.......

 

[powder smoke]

Ruger Revolvers will out last the vast majority of shooters! IF there ever is a problem
Sturm Ruger will make it right I have no doubt about it!

 

[aciera]

Lee Martin has 4800+(?) full house loads through his 500 max…..still tight.
357 double actions are different……hence why Manurhin made the MR73

 

[Stantheman1986]

The French GIGN have had a huge attachment to their Manurhin MR73s and they really believe in the .357 revolver as an effective CQB weapon, which it is.

I was just reading about the culmination of the 14 months of intensive training the GIGN prospective operators go through which ends with a "Trust Shot" that each man must shoot one of their fellow operators in a steel plate inside a vest, at 15 yards , breaking an attached clay pigeon. To demonstrate complete mastery and trust in their skill with a .357 revolver

 

[mirglip]

They must have gotten that idiotic idea from watching television.

 

[aciera]

The French GIGN have had a huge attachment to their Manurhin MR73s and they really believe in the .357 revolver as an effective CQB weapon, which it is.

I was just reading about the culmination of the 14 months of intensive training the GIGN prospective operators go through which ends with a "Trust Shot" that each man must shoot one of their fellow operators in a steel plate inside a vest, at 15 yards , breaking an attached clay pigeon. To demonstrate complete mastery and trust in their skill with a .357 revolver

The wonder 9s weren't.
At the end of the revolvers time it was 1.8 average rounds to get on target and 5.6 average rounds per encounter
With the Wonder 9s four years later…..12 rounds average to get on target and 17 rounds average per encounter

French GIGN fired 100-150 full house rounds of 357 per day. Every day.

 

[41Dude]

A wise old owl answered this decades ago.

Ah, one. Ah, two. Ah, crunch! Three!

That was evil. I thought where in the heck have I heard that before?
Jeez mental forehead slap to me. Tootsie Pops.