Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Ruger and MIM parts

Does Ruger use any MIM parts in their current day GP100 and SP101 revolvers?

I am guessing the answer is "yes".

If they do, does anybody know about what year they started using them?

Yes, I do not know when Ruger changed from cast to MIM parts. Frankly I do not know what the difference in manufacturing processes are because I do not care. I read someplace it was ca. 2013.

Prior to MIM Ruger's internals were investment cast. MIM is MUCH more precise than investment casting. This crap that there's something wrong with MIM just has to stop. 20 freaking years now. Its a BETTER process than investment casting for internals, don't whine.

MIM this, MIM that.

Reminds me of the arrogant price lecturing me that anything not wood and steel
was a POS.


Geezers, Status guys, talking about guns they mostly collect or shoot occasionally,
talking about how bad MIM is.


Meanwhile every America serviceman is armed with guns full of MIM parts.
Even Seals, Delta, Recon....

Doing the Lord's work. In the worst places, with the least time
to baby abused (by the situation) equipment.

Given a choice, I wouldn't choose MIM over forged heat-treated steel. Generally, I guess MIM failure rates are very low but I personally have had an MIM part fail. The magazine catch on a Kimber 1911 crumbled into dust in my hand while firing the gun. That dumped the magazine out of the gun and of course with no mag catch that is an awkward single-shot pistol afterward. Thankfully that didn't happen at a critical time. I replaced that Kimber MIM mag catch with an Ed Brown forged steel part.

I have personally had a forged/milled part(parts) fail...I don't condemn the entire process. Well over 20 years ago a few makers were trying to skip the hardening step because all the MIM sales people said it wasn't necessary...and they were wrong. So 25 years ago more than one company had outsourced their MIM (mostly to Israel back then) to companies that lacked the engineering sophistication to fully understand the application; and what do you know, they had a number of failures. Now we're left with all these people who still scream bloody murder about MIM...I think they just jump on a bandwagon to try to make themselves look better gun educated, but its just ignorant at this point. MIM is SO proven.

S&W's factory return rates PLUMENTED when they switched to MIM over the old "superior" forged/milled process...yeah, that sure sounds like an inferior part.

Thanks so much for the MIM votes, or voting to stop the slander & miss info.

MIM, like any other process can be good or bad, usually depending on the persons or companies that do it. Yes, there have been some failures, but only an inkling of what the net would have folks believing.

Many parts, reasonably high stress parts might be made with the MIM process. GM used MIM connecting rods in some engines. UH, but that's government motors they might use anything. Well, OK if ya think that, but guess what, TOYOTA uses or has used them as well. It's that common.

Getting back to the use of it in guns. Some would argue the original series 70 Colt auto was the best of the best in the day. One of those presented me with more broken parts of any firearm I've owned, and even if MIM had been invented, it wasn't used much at all. Nope, a 1979 Machinery's handbook has no mention of MIM.

Relax, buy good products & hope it pays off. But keep in mind that any manufactured product can & will fail at some point in time.

good post.. Agree about MIM. food for thought-- most of Glocks parts are MIM -- and they have an incredible reliability/useage rate. soooo. is it because of the MIM parts or despite the MIM parts.

You know why gunsmith's loved series 70 Colts? Because they were the ones least likely to work. Also, until CNC became affordable for people other than large, long established manufacturers could afford the technology, Colt was by far the best game in town; even at their worst. Trust me, I worked at Vega!

Series 70 internals were strong parts that were actually made to spec. But they were FAR from smooth or consistent. Colt's barrel fitting left MUCH to be desired, and their solution, while clever; just failed. The '70's and early '80's were ROUGH economic times. Economists didn't know how to deal with inflation like we do now, so it just kept going, and going, and going. That VASTLY reduces disposable income for things like Colt's. Colt had high labor costs, high taxes, VERY worn equipment... They just weren't at their best. I'm not saying Series 70's were bad guns, far from it. They were just FAR from Colt's best effort, in fact...I think it was their worst effort, just my opinion, and I think Series 80 guns were just better...even with cast parts <GASP!>. Even at their worst, there are some absolutely stunning Series 70 guns out there that I'd commit many crimes to get my hands on. I LOVED how Colt did their bright nickel guns during the Series 70 era, those are so cool.

As a gunsmith who worked mostly on 1911's, I found Series 80's with their newly re-designed feed ramps considerably more reliable, and more reliable with more types of ammo. Barrel fitting was consistently better. Metal polishing was different, but WAY more consistent. It was a bit lower grit level of polishing, but I found it to be more consistent, with straighter lines.

Series 80's were dubbed inferior "cast" guns. When in fact, not much was cast metal. Hammers, slide stops, barrels, frames and slides continued the old school processes. The cast parts were all the non-critical, low failure rate parts...and Colt got it right. Series 80's parts breakage or parts failures are really not significantly different from any other series.

Gun people are passionate about their favorite Roscoe's, and they get offended when people go changing their favorite things. High passion, low coping skills/tolerance to change.

OMG!!!! you worked at Vega???

I hope it wasn't in feed & function dept. If so, smack TF out of yourself & go stand in the corner.

I worked in a gun shop when they came out. I was excited to see one of the first stainless 1911's & ordered 2. Only a sample of 2, but both had a lot of problems.

1980?

The 70 Colts were too damn hard, no give, just break. Wasn't that when the slides would crack at the slide release notch. Ya better have a fresh cutter & a steady hand to dovetail one of them, nearly un machinable with conventional tooling.
Wasn't the series 70 that got Bill Wilson started? Trying to make his own gun run.

I did warranty work at Vega...talk about an exercise in frustration. Fortunately, I had bins of replacement parts so it generally worked out. The guys who assembled the guns were about as sharp as a bowling ball, but they worked cheap.


Vega was a half baked idea that was put together over way too many shots of whiskey between an investment cast parts supplier, Bo Clerke, and my former boss. My boss was the "money", Bo was the engineer, and the parts were coming (I can't remember the name of the company) from the same company who supplied cast stainless parts to Randall and AMT. Randall got first pick of the parts, AMT got the next pick, and Vega's were built from parts that were rejected from both...so yeah, very poorly conceived idea for a gun company. They intended to make cheap, crappy guns. Every now and then, they screwed up and made some pretty good ones. BTW, VEGA magazines are first rate.

A lot of turbine blades are now MIM.


On the other hand, SAI made their M1A extractors MIM, and they break all the time.

First thing any thinkin' person does is swap'em out for the identical M1 rifle extractor, a lowest bidder part, that almost never breaks.


So mind your own business, Karen.




GR

Know that Ruger will make anything right, no questions asked except for the serial number.


Had a bad MIM part on a Super-single Six revolver.

Sent it back to the mother-ship, and it came back corrected, with a polished action trigger job ta-boot, gratis.




GR

I have had exactly *one* MIM part fail...ever. (Knock on wood) And look at that - it was about 25 years ago. New gun company too (guess who). And when I emailed them a photo of the broken part, they sent out a replacement quickly. That part has handled many thousands of rounds, and still looks and fits perfect.

Early in production of the SR1911, Ruger had a bad batch of MIM front sights that were breaking under recoil - which they replaced cheerfully. Mine from about the second year of SR1911 production never broke.

Not askeered of MIM.

Yes the start up years of IPSC, get and use what ever you could get your hands on. Bet you know what a Cariville Arms safety strap is. Probably the first Beavertail ever made. Used one on a Nat. Match for early IPSC.

I have two S&W's with MIM that have very high round counts. My 617 has well over 50k, rounds through it over the past 20 years and she has improved like a fine wine. DA on my 617 is just butter smooth. Its smoother and silkier than my 1979 Python. Yet those internals have a lot of cycles through them and are showing next to no wear. I have a S&W LW Commander with MIM hammer/sear with around 20k rounds on it...humming right along, not showing any signs of getting tired. Both of those guns I have had for just over two decades.

I also have tabs on one 1911 I built with a MIM hammer nearly 30 years now. That was on a stainless series 80 combat commander that has about 70k rounds through it...its one sloppy, loosy-goosy gun, but she still shoots straight, and works every time. Poor gun never deserved that guy, he gives it nothing but abuse.

There is all grades of mim.
Some high speed steel is powered
And you cut steel with it

Then There is crappy stuff.

1911 guys and S&W guys hate MIM components.