Walked into Turner's Sporting Goods (SoCal area) looking for a nice Vaquero .44 Mag and walked out (10 days later) with a nice Beretta Stampede 4 3/4", CCH (or what passes for it) and standard blue with black plastic grips. As it turns out, at $399.00 the Beretta was substantially less expensive than the Ruger, with a nicer trigger and better cosmetics (IMHO).
A few observations:
Lockup is super tight. We're talking bank vault here. No slop.
Trigger is as crisp and light as I've felt on a single action revolver. I haven't put it on the scale yet, but I see no need to mess with it and I'm a stickler.
The stock plastic grips SUCK. They are poorly fit and cheaply made. Beretta should be ashamed.
Finish is very nice, although I note one small casting flaw (?) on the backstrap assembly and two tiny nicks in the CCH on the back of the frame. These were hidden by the packing oil when I initially checked the revolver at the store.
When I removed the trigger guard and backstrap assemblies to have new grips fit, I noticed the bolt spring (if I'm calling it the proper name) is a bent music wire affair instead of the traditional (and fragile) leaf spring. Nice!
Now, on to the saga of getting appropriate grips:
Bought pair of Ajax "Ivory Polymer" grips. Outrageously poor fit. Figured I'd mess something up fitting them myself. Mistake #1. I should have just fit them, but I was worried about mucking it up.
Looked locally for grip fitting services. Cost is twice as much as the dang grips.
Looked online for grip fitting and grips. Found CollinsCraft. Ordered aged white micarta grips. Head honcho Don Collins said fitting was included. Sent bottom metal and money order, plus $10.00 for return shipping.
Metal and grips came back. Grips looked great, but were oversized and were not really "fit" to my expectations. Sheet enclosed said grips would be fit slightly oversized to eliminate risk of negatively affecting grip finish. A two sided emery board is included so you can finish fitting the grips. If that was all I had to finish the job, I'd be even more disappointed than I already am.
Here's the kicker: My frame metal was nicked and cold blued to hide damage. Pretty obvious and a cheap fix. No effort was made to blend in the scuff, it was just cold blued. Not just cheap, but ugly.
Huh? Poor fit AND damaged metal? Guess I just lucked out. And saying that fit is included, then sending a nail file and saying "finish fitting them yourself, I don't want to hurt anything" is nothing short of amazing.
Emailed Don Collins. Am told I can return grips for full refund. This would still leave me with messed up frame. Don apparently does not have a local source for bluing, but will do "whatever I want" and will look for a local source if I insist.
What I wanted was my grips fit right the first time without metal damage. I agreed to keep the grips (they are nice) and fit them myself. Told Don to let his conscience be his guide as to whether or not to send me funds to help cover the cost of rebluing. Haven't heard from Don since.
I've now used my buffer to properly fit the grips to my frame, sacrificing the remainder of my undamaged bluing job in the process. At least I got to buff out the nick CollinsCraft made in my frame... now I have to spend an extra fifty bucks or more finishing a job that should have been right the first time when I find someone to blue the metal.
The verdict? Stampede thumbs up. Collinscraft aged white micarta grips, thumbs up. Quality of CollinsCraft "Fitting Included"? BIG thumbs down. Don was very polite and apologetic, but that hardly helps.
I hope someone can find something of value in my bellyaching. :roll:
