Well, that's just horrible. And speaking as a Ruger stockholder, I'm kinda pissed.
Jim - it's rather obvious that there is at least one middle manager who is doing the time honored middle management thing of screwing up/off and blowing smoke up the chain of command. If this was my experience, I would go straight to the top and point that person to this thread. I now feel incredibly lucky that my latest Ruger (GP100 Match Champion) doesn't have these problems. I have several Rugers that I love, but until I see some kind of positive response to this trend from upper management that I can verify, it's doubtful that I will be buying any new Ruger anything in the foreseeable future, and I will not be advising anyone else to do so either. But to be fair - I think this needs to be lifted up the food chain by completely bypassing the levels that have been involved so far. This looks like just another in many examples I've seen (and some I've been directly involved with) where the top dog is not aware of the BS being pulled by middle management. Of course - it's possible that there's no desire for excellence at the top either, and if that's the case it will be a long time before I consider Ruger to be worth bothering with - but I rather doubt that is the case.
