Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Ruger Wrangler - What do you think?

They have been out for a while now so there has been time to put them through their paces. What's the verdict? Good, Bad, somewhere in between?

The little birdshead version has kind of caught my eye. The price is right, it looks like a lot of fun..........but if it's a pos, well...

Mine was/is a steaming heap. It didn't shoot anything close to the sights, and now something internally has broken loose and it's nonfunctional.

I'm going to keep it as-is, because I want to remind myself not to jump into things and let them settle down before buying anything. As it is, I just try to forget I bought the cursed thing. Fixed sights and I have never gotten along very well, this is a stark reminder to spend the bucks and get adjustable sight models.

I could send it back to Ruger, but why bother, it serves it's purpose better now.

My Dad has one, and its..... not great. His eyes aren't good, so I did most of the shooting with it.

It works fairly smoothly and the trigger is decent, but the accuracy with a gaggle of different ammo was middling to terrible at 25yds off a bench, and the POI was beyond useless. It hits about a mile high and left... I had to aim at the bottom right corner of 12" square targets to keep it on paper.

A Single Six, it is not...

I have the Heritage 22/22mag 4.75 with the ugliest dye stained grips in existence...which outshoots my buddy's Wrangler and was $37.00 cheaper. Ymmv.

Not heard good things on either Ruger or Heritage, but for the money I didn't have great expectations.

The Heritage I got had a barrel-cylinder gap you could read a newspaper through, and accuracy... well, you were lucky to get a dinner plate size group at ten yards.

The Ruger Wrangler I have shoots much better, but I haven't shot it much. The mainspring is incredibly heavy. I need to do something about that.

When I got it, the thing would lock up. I discovered that there's a steel bearing surface for the hand to ride on, since it would quickly eat up the lightweight frame. It's a little bit of sheet metal formed into a loop that hooks around one of the pins. It was not assembled right, and the little thingy wasn't in it's proper place and it was jamming up the works. I finally got it in there right, and it works fine now (I'm pretty good with the gunsmithery thing, but I have to say, assembling Ruger single actions is a far bigger pain in the ass than it should be.... they can't even do it right at the factory! ).

Hmm. I guess I am just lucky. I bought two a few years ago. My son and I have ended our range sessions shooting a couple hundred rounds of 22 through the Wranglers. Both are spot on with the sights. We only shot out to 20 yards. I love them.

I just got a great deal on a NIB recent production so my daughter can have one, too. It does not seem to be as good quality as the first two. Bigger barrel to cylinder gap. Fit and finish not as good. But we’ll try it out. It will probably end up being ole Dad’s. Lol.

Have the Wrangler, previously had the Heritage. Not really impressed with the accuracy of either. But to be fair I need to shoot the Wrangler more.

I bought a silver Wrangler a couple of years ago. The action was quite stiff, and the loading gate was hard to open. It was accurate and shot right on for windage, but hit about 4 inches low at 25 yards. I put a Wolf spring kit in it, which made a very impressive difference in both the ease of cocking and trigger pull. It's as nice as any Single Six now. I then filed the front sight down carefully and brought it to exact zero at 25 yards. I leave the loading gate open while it is stored, and that has seemed to tire the gate spring out enough to noticeably ease the effort needed to open it. YMMV, but I really like the little revolver, and the price was sure right.

I bought one that Ruger ultimately had to replace. The replacement they send was ultimately replaced again by Ruger. I guess the third time is the charm, but it doesn’t inspire much confidence. Then again, I tend to have rotten luck with new guns.

Consider Rugers known issues with Blackhawks over the decades.
Little things that h ave spawned a cottage industry to fix.

Chamber throats, choked barrels...

And yet, even with the whole industry aware of it, Ruger is content to
continue to sell customers guns with these easily avoided defects.

You really wanna bet on their cheap "value" revolver?




But, the American rifle series is supposedly good.

I have never had any issues with my 22 RF Single Six's though all are Old Models. All of my 32's have needed to have their throats opened.

If you think you have trouble seeing your new Old Model Blackhawk sights, the Wrangler is a whole different level of hard to see. Stick with a single six.

I've had good luck with the Birds head Wrangler I bought.

It shoots to point of impact. Got a 1-3/4" group at 10 yards with it for the first 6 shot out of it.

For my old eyes, the front sight shows up better with the shorter barrel.

I used a pair of needle nose pliers to bend the legs on the trigger spring, lowering the pull weight to about half.

Virgil B.

No more new Ruger revolvers for me, I think I had 3 or 4 in a row that had to go back......The last one was a Redhawk right when the pandemic started, and I think they took 10 month to send it back....

Must be hit or miss.

My Wrangler shoots about as good as my vintage flat gate Single Six.

Lot of gun for the cost.

DF

I finally saw one of the short barreled versions with the Birdshead Grip at my LGS the other day.
Pointed pretty well and fit my hand much better than my Bearcat Shopkeeper with the Birdshead Grip.

The Birdshead is sure tempting for $220. Don't really expect target pistol accuracy from a 3 3/4" barrel with fixed sights, but it would be nice to have it go bang when you pull the trigger and be beer can accurate out to 20 yards.

These Wranglers are almost like putting your money on red or black and spinning the wheel. 50/50 chance you'll get a decent one.

Mine was a POS. Accuracy was nonexistent

I have or have had a total of 19 Rugers I can think of, from my first (original .44 carbine) to my latest, SR-22 pistol. It includes center fire and rimfire rifles, revolvers, pistols and one shotgun. They have always served me well and I have not had a single problem with any of them (other than a bit of simple work to get a 1B to shoot the way I thought it should.) You might think I'm a Ruger fanboy. A couple of times I looked at the Wranglers in the gun stores, just looked at them in the glass case. It always seemed like the kind of thing I'd buy just because it didn't cost much and couldn't be too bad..... but looking at them alone was enough to dissuade me from buying one. To me, they just have the appearance of junk. I've never handled one, but something about my entire adult lifetime being very involved with guns and with manufacturing, just looking at them set off the alarm bells.