My new stainless bearcat had
a few tooling chatter marks on the spent shell rod housing and someplace else (underside of frame). A little 320 grit sandpaper and scotchbrite and it looks perfect. 10 minutes.
A few of the cylinders were a little tight (2 of em). I buffed em out to the same as the other using a spent shell casing and Flitz. Took 2 minutes.
The rosewood grip frames, although pretty, are uniformly undersized and the grip frame peeks through uniformly all around. Bah! I made new Black Micarta grip frames. This took about 4 days but I like making custom grips.
After shooting a few weeks at paper, I concluded every ammo in the world shot on average 2” to the left at 15 yards. It’s a fixed sight bearcat. Maybe I am being too fussy? Ruger customer service said “box it up, the ups guy will pick it up tomorrow.” I sent the gun and test target. 2 weeks or so later I got it back with a little note that says “Sights within spec. Moved front sight per request” and a test target. Off to the range and indeed it’s dead on now.
I figured I owed Ruger something for their excellent service so when I saw Dicks had 10/22s on sale for $199.98 I bought one. Fit and finish and operation have been astounding except when mounting the Ruger (Weaver) scope rail I found about a .003” casting flaw right near the underside of the rearmost mounting hole that might have made a less than perfect flush mount to the receiver. Honing the part to its place and the receiver to the rail took 15 minutes with 400 grit sandpaper and flitz. Rail is loc-tite blued and screwed to the receiver. The barrel channel was touching the barrel, as was the barrel band. Sandpaper, dowel and Dremel tool... group size dropped from 1.5” to 1” at 25 yards out of the box, no other mods at all.
That Bearcat is the 7th Ruger Single Action I’ve owned. A few Blackhawks had Aluminum grip frames have misfits up to .002” and the paint didnt match the bluing. And they were 4 ounces of weight saved. Triggers can always be improved easily by home gunsmithing (or shooting a sew thousand rounds). I have always looked at Rugers as “best tools for the money and more than good enough, and these will still be goin ‘boom’” in 100 years.
Fixed sights being off by 2” is the only operational flaw I’ve ever had.
I had a Freedom Arms model 83 Premier grade. It was in every way perfect, like gun jewelry that was scary accurate and 100.00000% reliable. When I bought it, it cost as much as 3 Blackhawks. I looked yesterday and they are still the same price- triple a Blackhawk.. I sold mine as for deer hunting and plinking and target shooting my stainless .45 Blackhawk vaquero shot 99 % as acurrate, same reliability and was 90% as much “elitist” factor but I never worried about getting it muddy, wet, holster worn or scratched up.
My perfect pistol now is a Bowen reworked Blackhawk. It matches the Freedom Arms gun, trigger is better and might have more snooty points.
Bottom line: HOW DID THEY SHOOT?
I bet they went “boom”, functioned reliably, and were decently accurate. If you want S&W fit and finish, you have to pay s&w prices. Many of the issues listed can be polished out at home or simply ignored by dropping it in a holster and shooting for a few years. My only S&W experience was a beautiful airweight kit gun that had the barrel so crooked the sights didn’t have enough travel to even get poi on the paper. How did it leave the factory that way? It shot like a .410 from a sandbag an S&W denied it had accuracy issues. I was terribly disappointed and although I would like an old model 10, I won’t buy anything new from them. Sort of like eating a bad clam. I paid top dollar and this gun couldn’t hold a candle to a little Rossi other than it weighed a lot less.
Sometimes a fella can save six hundred bucks or more with some sand paper, scotch brite, a diamond hone, some files from Harbor Freight, and a couple of Wolf springs.
I’m a Ruger fan. They send me the base gun and how much you want to do for cosmetics is up to me.
