Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Ruger New Vaquero 45 Colt

This is a combination gun-wrenching and range report, so bear with me.

I had little on the agenda today so it seemed a good time for some tune-ups on the New Vaquero. I'm a vocal opponent of internal locks on firearms, so I was prepared to eat crow upon removing the grips. Apparently the previous owner disliked them as much as I do because the lock was gone from this one, replaced by a standard Ruger SA mainspring strut seat. Now I don't have to figure out how to get rid of the damn lock. God bless you, Previous Owner.



This explains the light trigger and slow 'lock time' I'd been noticing. My biggest complaint with this arrangement is that it doesn't fit the frame cutout, allowing the mainspring strut to wander around some. While the current setup works, I'll fabricate a replacement that centers the hammer strut and and sits higher in the frame. This will likely increase the trigger pull a pound, so I'll engineer around that now. The sear and hammer notch and sear were stoned smooth and a slight 45 degree break-away angle was added to the engagement side of the sear. Result? 2 ¼ pound icicle crisp pull and the hammer does not 'push off'. If rebuilding/raising the mainspring seat adds a pound to to the pull, it'll still be a great trigger for a Ruger SA.

After disassembly I noticed the barrel throat was pretty rough; so I fashioned a polishing head from a section of cleaning rod, a suitably-sized conical rubber anti-vibration mount and 400, 600 and 1000 grit wet or dry paper. A drilled out 40 S&W case kept the apparatus centered in the bore. The finished throat looks like this and I was happy to note Ruger got it concentric to the bore.



To correct sight regulation, I rosined the barrel and clamped it in my vise using oak blocks Dremeled out to fit the barrel. Since the gun was shooting left the barrel needed to be tightened and I estimated about the width of a scribed reference mark would correct it. Once that was accomplished the gun was reassembled and I headed for the range. The first few shots confirmed the windage fix, so I filed a few strokes off the front sight to correct elevation. Zero was on a Copenhagen can at 25 yards if you didn't screw up the shot. I figure 100 yards is about the farthest I use this gun, so I fired a couple of the 950 fps load at my rifle gong from that distance. Standing unsupported, the windage was about perfect. I expected the load to shoot a little low.



Finally I rested the gun and fired six at the round gong, also from 100 yards. 5 of 6 shots went into 6 inches, so the throat cleanup was a success. The sun had come back out by this time and I assume the right impact was cause by glare on the shiny front sight.



This one of the best shooting Ruger single actions I've ever had.