Just a note on how great Ruger customer service is. 18-20 years ago my hunting buddy sold me his Ruger Vaquero 44 mag stainless. It is a fixed sight single action, I could never shoot the thing (apparently my buddy couldn't either) as point of impact was to the left a lot, like 18" at 25 yards.I thought it was just me and so it set in the safe until I got to playing with it the other day . I called Ruger customer service and the lady on the phone asked a few questions then said send it in and they will check it out. 1 week later it comes back, replaced hammer ,hammer pawl,screws, timed cylinder,timed barrel etc. along with a target of a 1" group on bullseye at 15 yards. All for FREE! I didn't expect them to do work for free especially since it was a 2nd hand gun. Now the thing shoot great. They have a customer for life.
Sidearms & Scatterguns Ruger Vaquero
- Thread starter riverside jeep
- Start date
i had 3 super blackhawks....a hunter model, a 10 1/2 stainless, and a 4 3/4. all 3 had the barrels start to unscrew (bullet impact kept shifting left) until the ejecter rod housing screw sheered off and parts went flying. all 3 were sent back to ruger, ruger fixed all 3 of them. i have 3 complaints. #1...obviously there is a defect or issue with the way they are making them for 3 guns to do the exact same thing. #2. they had no interest whatsoever in talking to me about it. i was curious, and they flat out refused to talk about it. #3. my 4 3/4 inch sbh came back looking like it had been dragged behind a truck for a few miles; it wasnt that way when it went in.
so i sold all 3, bought a freedom arms 44. that thing would shoot. but being 7 1/2 inches, it was too long to pack and i sold it a few years later.
these days, i bought another ruger 44...this time a flattop 44 special. i love that gun, no issues yet. i also have a 44 freedom model 97.
hopefully ruger fixed the issue with the guns. i am curious if your gun was impacting to the left?
i also have a ruger sp101 22lr...and i am sorely dissappointed in that gun. trigger is harder than chinese arithmetic and it should shoot more accurately than it does. the ruger sr9’s i’ve seen are dogshit....the triggers are so horrendously long traveled, they make a glock seem like a fine tuned 1911 in comparison. the sr22’s are nice though.
so i sold all 3, bought a freedom arms 44. that thing would shoot. but being 7 1/2 inches, it was too long to pack and i sold it a few years later.
these days, i bought another ruger 44...this time a flattop 44 special. i love that gun, no issues yet. i also have a 44 freedom model 97.
hopefully ruger fixed the issue with the guns. i am curious if your gun was impacting to the left?
i also have a ruger sp101 22lr...and i am sorely dissappointed in that gun. trigger is harder than chinese arithmetic and it should shoot more accurately than it does. the ruger sr9’s i’ve seen are dogshit....the triggers are so horrendously long traveled, they make a glock seem like a fine tuned 1911 in comparison. the sr22’s are nice though.
IIRC, Vaqueros in .44 Mag are getting rare, and were only offered for a short period (everyone wanted the "authentic" calibers). Best to hold on to it if you can.
Ruger is a stand up outfit. I have always been impressed with their customer support pertaining to all aspects as I have some “small batch revolvers from the late 80’s and had a hard time identifying them. I recently acquired a 5.5” vaquero in .44 mag that is blued, no case hardened finish. My understanding is they were only offered in 1994. I’ll call and update this post.
I'd be curious to see what you find out. I have 5.5" Vaq in .44 Rem Mag (color case hardened receiver). It sits in the safe most of the time now, but when I do shoot it, it's always where it needs to be on the target. Great gun, and it saw a fair amount of use when I used to horse back ride (a lot) out in the country many moons ago.
A quick perusing of the internet, and I saw a "only 6800 made" of the old model Ruger Vaquero in .44 Mag...
They still make the Blackhawk and Super Blackhawk in .44 Mag but they stopped making the Old vaquero in 2004 when they switched to the smaller framed new vaquero to get closer to the feel of the Colt SAA. The new vaquero cannot withstand the pressures of the .44 Mag so it is only offered in .357/.38, .45 colt and .44-40.
I recently got a 7.5” New Vaquero to use in a crossdraw for Cowboy matches at my local club. Not sure of the rarity but they were only offered from 2005 to 2006 and I’ve been able to find more old vaqueros in .44 Mag than new vaqueros with the 7.5” barrel.
Very nice! I particularly like the look of the birds head grip on that short barreled pistol, but I’d bet that is a bit of a handful if used with full power .44 mag loads.
Note I said "old model Vaquero" in the post above yours. You might trying reading a bit more closely next time.
Interesting, I didn’t realize TALO had Ruger making a limited run of .44 Mag vaqueros.
It might be easy to confuse my post as a snide comment. That’s not the tone i intended. Let’s not be too thin skinned here.
A nice 44mag Vaquero with a 4.5"-5.5" barrel would be a really fine pistol to own. I'm not really a big fan of the shorter barreled ones. Fortunately, there seems to be a fairly decent supply of them for around $550-650 depending on model. The Bisley models seem to cost a bit more.
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Had a chance to try it out after the fix. They replaced the hammer, hammer pawl, some screws and a spring, retimed the cylinder and the barrel. Now it shoot great! I can even aim at the target now instead of 18" to the right. I was shooting at 60 yards this weekend and it was shooting dead on for windage. Thank you Ruger.
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