"I hear what you are saying, but don't you think we should get a product from any company for that matter that has been built properly to specs and tested to make sure it's right before it leaves the factory.....that's quality control."
Yes,, we should get products from any company that have been built properly.
That said,, having witnessed Ruger's production line first hand,, AND having a long relationship with Ruger products,, (when Bill ran things, and all that followed after his passing,) I can see both sides of how the company is currently run.
When Bill ran things,, yes,, more hands on QC was applied. But that also takes TIME,, and that translates into "Costs money."
But many people forget the fact that quite often,, back then,, Ruger would introduce a new gun,, only for us common folks to not see any for 1-2 years if we were lucky. SLOW production. And combined with fewer numbers produced.
After bill passed,, and Bill Jr ran things for a while,, Ruger stock went into a decline. A big decline. I can recall stock prices under $5 a share. Not a good sign for any company to continue being successful. And for a few years,, Ruger (the company) struggled to fix things. Finally,, the last of any Ruger family broke away from the company. Re-organization happened,, lean manufacturing was adopted,, and demands for higher production numbers as well as getting products into the public's hands a lot quicker.
With that business model,, things have changed. And yes,, you do get a percentage of guns that "aren't quite right" or need returned & corrected. But as things got smoothed out,, we say Ruger break records for production numbers,, with over 1 million guns built in a year. (Actually about 1/25 million.) They followed that year by building over 2 million guns in a year.
And having been to one of the plants,, I can attest to the fact that now,, as a gun is assembled,, it's checked at each assembly station. If it passes,, it moves down the line. The last stop,, is test firing,, inside a special machine. If it fires (2) rounds successfully, it get pulled out of the machine,,then boxed for shipping.
So,, do we get an occasional bad one,, or one that needs special attention? Yes. But no,, and I mean no company that has a mass production product,, will turn out 100% perfect products all the time. But the actual percentage of returns is actually low when you look at the total production numbers. But when you produce 5, 10 or more times the product as before,, and in a faster timeframe,,, you will get more "bad" ones. But you still have to understand the percentages. Build 1 million guns,, and if .5 percent need fixing,, that's 5000 guns. But in general,,, the actual return rate is actually around 1%-2%. So 10,000-20,000 out of 1 million get returned. When you see the percentage thing? But if you are one of the people who got one that needed correcting,, you crow loudly. Most often,, most of us have no problems,, so we don't praise stuff as loudly as those who experience issues. Besides,, human nature causes more response to negative stuff than positive stuff.
Luckily,, Ruger does work hard at fixing customers issues in a good & timely fashion,, at little or no expense.