Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Ring around the Ruger

I cannot wait for Ruger to finally announce the commercial availability of the shit that they're smoking at this year's SHOT show. I want to live in their world for a spell just to see what it's like to be absolutely off your rocker crazy high on drugs.

While I do not own a single Ruger product, know that I am not bashing them. It's just that I've noticed a trend among that organization for building stuff that makes zero sense, and apparently I'm not the only one.

So my Bro-in-law has a newly acquired Horus Hawk scope given to him by some magnificent individual that he had proposed putting on a Ruger M77 in 220 Swift, and I attempted to procure the rings necessary to mount it for him. The problem I ran into is that the guys who designed the M77 receiver wanted to ensure that proper mounting of glass upon the blued carbon steel would be not only very proprietary, but complicated as well. The only picture of this phenomenon that I could glean off the internets can be seen here, if you do not know of what I speak.

The Ruger-only mount milled directly into the receiver is not at the same height, as if machining an even plane onto metal was too difficult. Either that or the engineer that thought of this idea was stoned out of his mind. It means your scope rings are two different heights to attenuate this ridiculousness, which severely limits your choices. If you don't subscribe to the belief in a mounting system that's stupid, you can always by bases from Leupold or Weaver, but you can forget getting a one piece. The only clear option is to order weird scope rings from Leupold and hope they are perfect for your application, as you will not find the rings on shelves in any store. It would be different if the Ruger mount is mechanically better or stronger than anyone elses, but it's not; it's built to be overly stupid.

What in the world grips the minds of those folks at Ruger? They must show up to work drunk, snort a line of metal shavings from the lathe, and top it off with a shot of cutting oil before fabricating their wild-assed ideas like $90 box magazines for short barrelled niche rifles with flash hiders. Why can't you folks just be normal?

2 comments:

Daddy Hawk said...

The there's their marketing department. Three straight days of emails a couple of weeks ago hyping a MAJOR product launch. It being 2011, I thought it might involve a 1911 style pistol it being the 100TH anniversary of the design's acceptance by the military and all. Nope, we get ANOTHER pocket pistol, the LC9. I write an email to Ruger to see if, by chance, they have any plans to release a 1911 anytime, you know...to take advantage of all the hype that is occurring this year. The response I received was that they "not aware of any plans at this time for any new products / calibers". I haven't done an exhaustive search, but I'm pretty sure that Ruger is the only major manufacturer who doesn't put out a 1911. Say what you will about the 1911; but, with the way those things sell, I'd want a piece of that action if I were Ruger.

Unknown said...

Right on. Especially sinse they seem to hit it so big copying everyone elses design.