Ruger .45 Old Army: Need The Stuff

[tjiann]

Beautiful gun, and that looks like a great day out! Congrats.

 

[Occam]

What did the target look like?

A couple of rounds shows me it’s a couple inches high at fifteen yards even with rear sight adjustment maxed out, but if you lollipop the target with a purpose, it’s dead on. Off hand with it at that distance, I was getting 1-inch groups using about 20 grains of FFF.

Moved on to a 12” steel plate at fifty yards, and was routinely ringing it at 50 yards shooting duelist style. Delightful! It’s very accurate, and a treat to shoot. Cranked it up to 30 grains and blasted wood blocks tossed down range at various distances. Very fun. A friend’s diminutive wife got her first ever six-shooter experience WITH her first ever black powder experience, and had a hoot. Hit everything she tried to hit, now understands the term “gun smoke.”

But more important Did You Have Fun?

Yes! I even enjoyed completely tearing it down for its inaugural cleaning and a more thoughtful lube. A bucket of hot water with Dawn almost did all the work for me - floats that FFF residue right off. A little bit of scrubbing was all it took. On the way out to the sticks, stopped at the grocery store for clean-up supplies, including a battery powered Unicorn toothbrush, for fun. Here’s the thing, though: that’s basically a sonic agitator, and makes the removed nipples downright sparkly. So all in all, a very positive experience. The cleaned up gun still looks like it’s never been shot, after almost 100 rounds. Damn shame Ruger stopped making these!