When I first saw this thread, I was tempted to respond with something like, "How about a rifle that: 1) doesn't have a rough barrel prone to copper fouling; 2) doesn't have a barrel with an eccentric chamber; 3) doesn't come factory equipped with the sorriest excuse of a trigger imaginable; 4) doesn't come with a floorplate that refuses to unlatch when YOU WANT it to, but has NO PROBLEM doing so when you really, really, don't.......... And so on and so forth.
I know this is a secton for true believers in all things Ruger, and the comments above have probably torqued a few people off.
That really is not my intent.
Perhaps I have been chronically unlucky, but every Ruger firearm I've owned except for two has been a chronic disappointment.
My first Ruger was a 10/22 Deluxe Sporter. I should say "is" because I still have it. I have been highly satisfied with it for the last 27 years. It shoots 1/2" groups at fifty yards all day, and slightly tighter with WW Super X ammo. It is sufficiently precise for the small game hunting that I've done with it over the years and is accurate enough to be fun at the range.
My second Ruger was a Number 1 B in .270 that had a rough barrel prone to copper fouling quickly. Next came a Government Target Model .22 pistol that was also a dissapointment, being less accurate by far than my father's late 60's vintage tapered-barrel Target Model .22 pistol. It turned out to have been improperly crowned. Next came a Ruger M-77UL in .250 Savage that had an eccentric chamber. Next came another M-77 in .30-'06 with laminated stock that I could find no fault with. I regret trading it. Next came a .357 Bisley Blackhawk that liked to let screws loose, which in turn became lost (And did so even when thread locker was applied). Next came another No.1B but in .300 Weatherby. It had an issue with the extractor and a lever that wouldn't stay latched. Next came an M-77MKII in .270 that had a crappy barrel, crappy trigger, insanely stiff safety, and a floorplate latch that was practically impossible to use when I wanted to use it, but came undone when I didn't want it to. To top it off, it was an even worse grouper than my Mini-14 Ranch Rifle, which I forgot to mention. Talk about a major dissapointment -the Mini-14 is one of the things that most regret ever purchasing. Since it seemed to be a scaled down M-14, I expected it to shoot kind of like one, but it wasn't even close. The best it would do was 2.5 MOA and it wouldn't do that very regularly. 3-4 MOA was more like it.
I think William B. Ruger was a superb designer, and by design, I find Ruger products to be very aappealing, even now. The problem is that in my experience, they've been lacking in execution. Sometimes the issues were petty but annoying, none the less. Sometimes they were what I'd consider major. Almost all the Rugers I've owned were disappointing.
I guess I'd like to see Ruger build something that I could buy confidently, knowing that it would FUNCTION as well as it ought to by design.
If fairness to Ruger, I am probably the only person on the planet to ever own a M-700 Remington that didn't shoot worth beans, so maybe I've just been unlucky. I know a lot of people swear by Ruger's stuff. My father is one such fella. I mostly swore at the Ruger stuff I've owned, and swore I wouldn't be giving Ruger any more of my money, except as needed to keep my 10/22 running for the rest of my life.
-JP
