Ruger Fit and Finish

[SteveRuger]

I was @ Sportsmen Warehouse yesterday & was looking @ Rugers all New Stuff. I feel they were all great quaility wise even the No.1 I looked at had nice wood stock on it. IMHO

 

[P90]

Here's a new Ruger that came from the Factory with a excellent trigger and finish. It has since been Engraved, but the original finish was good.

 

[Stoots]

Picked this one up this week. Fit and finish is superb!

 

[steamloco76]

I also saw the new S&W's with MIM parts. The MIM parts were not hiding at all. They looked like the hammers off a cap pistol.

So?

Are you familiar with MIM? Or is this a knee jerk "the old ones aren't made that way" respose?
Many firearm makers use MIM. Ruger is starting to. Glock has for a while.
MIM is used in aerospace engineering applications as well. Done properly (as Ruger, Glock, Smith, etc. demand), the resulting part is of incredible strength and precision.
What's the gripe with MIM?

I'm pretty active on the Smith & Wesson Forum. I own and shoot both older and brand new S&W's. The older models have a definite charm and character all their own. The old 'Carbona' blue process gave a finish that can't be exactly duplicated today and the workmanship involved in hand-fitting the old forged actions is impressive.

Guess what- the best overall trigger on ANY of my S&W's is on a recent production model 67-6 .38 Special. MIM hammer, trigger and lockwork. Two piece tensioned barrel and the dreaded (stupid it is) internal lock. The revolver is a joy to shoot S/A or D/A and is far more accurate than I can hold most days. The other newer S&W's I own with MIM part are excellent guns too.

It is a shame that so many gun owners and collectors instantly HATE any new technology introduced to the gun manufacturing process. Ruger, S&W, Glock and others need to find ways to make an incredibly high quality product that the average shooter/collector can actually afford. How many of us can afford a $6,000 revolver (Korth) that is completely hand assembled and fitted? Also. for those of us who purchase the older used versions- can you imagine how high the demand for and price of those guns would go if nobody purchased the new versions?

Try the new guns-you will probably really like them.

 

[41puka]

Mine have been very well fitted and and shoot great, except for one:

• - 357 New Vaquero stainless.....perfect fit...accurate
  
  - 44 Special blued....perfect fit...accurate
  
  - 41 Magnum blued.....poor fit...chipped paint.....but accurate!

Only pattern that stands out has been the ALUMINUM gripframe and ERH used on the 41 Magnum. The first two are steel gripframes and ERH.

In the end, I removed the paint finish on the 41 mag that was put on by the factory. Then, gently filed down the gripframe ears to mate better with the cylinder frame, and finally repainted with rattle-can epoxy appliance paint.

Now the 41 mag looks great too.

 

[stantheman86]

I finally saw an SP101 with the MIM trigger and they really don't look bad at all. Looks like the old cast trigger with a hollow line on the back.

MIM is actually a better and longer wearing material for parts like hammers and triggers. People will complain about MIM all day long, regardless of the fact that the DA pull and SA break will be better than the older cast part guns, the parts will last longer, and new parts can be dropped in without fitting.

I have a few new S&W's, and the actions are great. Also keep in mind S&W no longer services the pre-MIM revolvers, apparently unless you call, use the secret password and say "pretty please" I know a few guys who had older S&W's refused for service, but a couple sent back older forged part revolvers and S&W "found"' some old parts to fix them..........

These days, anyone with a lap top is an instant "reviewer" and a critic, which is a good thing but it is not helpful to anyone when these "reviews" consist of "new Rugers and S&W's are crap". With no info as to their performance as actual guns, just "they look like garbage" 8)

 

[Anonymous]

On my three SAs the frame / trigger guard fits are excellent.

Only fit issue is a tiny bit of barrel thread exposed around the forcing cone on the Bearcats.

My Single Six had exposed threads of the frame hole for the barrel, a least a turn short! And the top strap is lightly "threaded" just above the cone. I guess barrel thread tap was inserted a little deep. I sent it back to Ruger with an .011" barrel / cylinder gap. Got it back .0045, with barrel threading nice and neat.

 

[29 Wheelgunner]

Every Ruger single action I have purchased in the last 10 years has been better than expected for a massed produced firearm.

 

[jhco50]

I also saw the new S&W's with MIM parts. The MIM parts were not hiding at all. They looked like the hammers off a cap pistol.

So?

Are you familiar with MIM? Or is this a knee jerk "the old ones aren't made that way" respose?

Many firearm makers use MIM. Ruger is starting to. Glock has for a while.

MIM is used in aerospace engineering applications as well. Done properly (as Ruger, Glock, Smith, etc. demand), the resulting part is of incredible strength and precision.

What's the gripe with MIM?

No, I am not real familiar with MIM. What I saw looked like a regular hamer that was hollowed out on the sides. The hollows looked like cast finish (rough) and were painted black.

If this is fine with buyers, I'm not going to knock it. I wouldn't care for it, but I am old and my guns are old. I personally think the manufacturers are doing us a disservice by making their products as cheap as they can in order to widen their profit margin. Using what I consider sub-standard materials to make up for the lack of quality workmanship is not going to profit in the long term unless they convince the buyers that their shortcuts are better.

I can only be honest in what I saw, and the feelings I felt on the products I looked at. I did not feel that fuzzy feeling of looking at a quality firearm in either case. I don't mean to upset people and this is just my feelings. If you like where our passion is going, buy them. They will keep making what is purchased. I for one cannot bring myself to let loose my limited money on products I don't like.

 

[Stoots]

If this is fine with buyers, I'm not going to knock it. I wouldn't care for it, but I am old and my guns are old. I personally think the manufacturers are doing us a disservice by making their products as cheap as they can in order to widen their profit margin. Using what I consider sub-standard materials to make up for the lack of quality workmanship is not going to profit in the long term unless they convince the buyers that their shortcuts are better.

Those are fair opinions and you are certainly entitled to them. The manufacturers are doing no 'disservice' my making some parts MIM; in fact, many parts that in the past had to be hand-fitted can now be made to exact specs with MIM, and as such can now be made as a 'drop-in' replacement.

And the MIM process may be cheaper to make an identical part in strength as opposed to cast. As a Ruger stockholder, I'm OK with that. I want American companies to widen their profit margins and make money. I want gun companies to succeed.

You used the phrase 'sub-standard materials'. Below are some links to information and tensile strength tests done on MIM vs Cast, etc. If you have some evidence of mass MIM failures (failures more common as opposed to milled, forged or cast parts of the same make and use) as a result of MIM being sub-standard in any way, post it up; I'd be interested in seeing it.


http://www.theplasticsconsultant.com/library/plastic_articles/all_about_metal_injection_molding.pdf

"MIM reportedly is around 98% as dense as wrought iron so it is better than investment casting for strength in small parts. Tensile strength of properly treated MIM parts is close to that of mill forged steel."

http://www.ssisintered.com/MIM_index.html

http://www.kinetics.com/

http://www.phillipsplastics.com/capabilities/processes/metal-injection-molding-mim

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=5620174

Edit to add: After manufacturing, the MIM parts can (if the end-user wishes) undergo the same hardness heat treating that cast, milled or forged parts can.

 

[jack76590]

I just bought an SP 101 3" barrel and was impressed with fit, finish and both single and double action pull.

While I may special order semi auto and take what comes, I like to inspect revolvers before I buy. That was case with the SP101, 3". It was "on sale" for about the same price I could get special order from small shop. So I gave it an inspection, it appeared great, so I bought it. It has the MIM trigger that is hollow in the back, so I suppose very current production.

Seems sights are regulated for 158 gr ammo. Elevation good for me with this load, but about 1.5" left at 25yds which is not bad. And have to factor in variations in shooter eyesight, ammo, etc. So I would also add sights are well regulated, which is not alway the case with revolvers now days.

 

[stantheman86]

I'll also add that Colt went to Sintered parts, which is very similiar to MIM, in their Mark III series and the King Cobra. If you check the prices for even these later Colts, buyers of these don't seem to care if there's Sintered parts in there. Of course you have to factor in that anything with the Rampant Pony stamped on it is made of gold these days, but still, the Sintered parts aren't keeping the supposed "poor man's Python" King Cobra's from touching the $1,000 mark for the rarer blued models in mint condition.

I'll admit I prefer the cast parts for their appearance, and I still hope Ruger doesn't go to MIM in the Single Actions, but the fact is the parts are far from inferior. Fans of older S&W's have been decrying the MIM in S&W's since 2002 but I have heard of no reports of any failures of MIM S&W parts occuring more than forged parts. Forged parts fail too, there was a retired LEO on the S&W forum who was a range safety officer and he said there were a good number of failures in hard used forged part S&W's. In fairness, a retired NJ State Trooper didn't speak too highly of the formerly issued Security and Speed Sixes used by the NJSP, saying during long range sessions with hot .357's some of the guns got tied up by loose and bent extractor rods.......so everything is subjective and no gun is perfect.

 

[jhco50]

Stantheman86. The King Cobra has Sintered parts in it? What parts are Sintered? I have a King Cobra, unsure of how old it is, but I never new they used these kind of parts.

 

[kelbro]

Lipseys must sort their Rugers. My 44spl Bisley is as nice of a Ruger as I have ever seen. Great blueing. Great frame fitting. Grips are pretty close.

 

[stantheman86]

I'm not a Colt guy, but as far as I know the hammer, trigger, and probably the pawl are sintered. I don't know if the bolt stop is sintered. The only reason I own a 6" blue King Cobra is that it was mis-priced at Gander Mt. and had just hit the shelf marked at $350 so I snapped it up. I have never taken the sideplate off to inspect the "guts" and truth be told I only have put maybe a box of .357 through it in the 3 years I've had it.......Ironically the sintered part Mark III's and King Cobra are the first Colts that don't need as much timing adjustment after heavy use, like the older Colts.

Dan Wessons also use sintered parts, but DW's are based on the Colt Mk III action.

I have a couple DW's too, and they are good guns with the sintered parts, they are known for strength and durability but I don't shoot mine that much. Back in the 70's-80's DW's ruled the range at silhouette matches, and many shooters ran up very high round counts on their DW's, and over on the DW forum no one has anything bad to say about the sintered parts not holding up. I don't see a problem with sintered parts or MIM, except if I had one complaint it's their cosmetic appearance on some guns. IMO the MIM Ruger triggers look 1,000% better than the S&W MIM triggers. As a Ruger nut, I can't gripe about MIM or Sintered parts when 90% of my handguns use Investment Casting

 

[ExMachina]

Lipseys must sort their Rugers. My 44spl Bisley is as nice of a Ruger as I have ever seen. Great blueing. Great frame fitting. Grips are pretty close.

my (new) Lipsey's came with a buggerd gripframe screw and a slightly bent front sight. i'm not upset, just sayin' it's still a Ruger

 

[stantheman86]

This isn't related to the SA's, but a while back on another forum a fella who was an armed guard at a nuclear plant said they were issued blued full lug 4" .38 Special GP100's and he said the fit and finish were pretty bad on most of the guns........they worked fine, as well as any other GP100, but maybe Ruger sells a "service grade" finished gun to customers who ordered them 100's at a time and want the cut-rate price........they might have been like "if you can cut some off the price we'll order 500 of them" and well, ask and ye shall receive I guess! If you want them cheaper, Ruger has to cut some corners in the finishing dept. to save man hours, to bring the prices down.

Related to the SA's, it is possible certain distributors accept only the "cream of the crop" so to speak, and send back the rest and maybe Ruger charges them a bit more for better cosmetics. I have heard this story with the Italian Uberti made Single Actions.......Cimarron orders a "high grade" of them from Uberti and so they cost a little more from Cimarron, vs. someone like Cabela's who just ships out whatever comes in from Italy.

I myself am not a stickler for cosmetics, and if given a choice would rather have a perfectly timed, mechanically flawless New Vaquero with perfectly relgulated sights, that may have some metal hanging off on the frame to grip frame fit, non-perfectly fitted grips and maybe some rough polish on the blue for $500 rather than paying $700 for one that looks a little "prettier".

A lot of my Rugers would make a condition collector vomit, most have spent decades in the holster and have plenty of dings, so my opinions on condition are subjective 8) For example this is one of my favorites, worn in like an old baseball glove, so I'm not the guy who demands perfect condition.

 

[Donaldjr1969]

Of my 3 Rugers I own (P90, 22/45 MkIII, Super Redhawk), I cannot find any problems with their fit and finish. The all looked perfect to me out of the box. Unless it looks like they polished the firearms by rubbing them on the sidewalk, I really do not mind a teeny tooling mark or the like. As long as it is nothing that will affect smooth functioning of the gun, I let minor imperfections go. After all, I am spending more time looking at the sight picture while at the range rather than the polish/sheen on my SRH or the bluing consistency on my P90 and 22/45.