Thanks, I ordered one and it should be in next week. I'll be sure to check timing and lockup before paying.
DS-10-SPEED, what kind of work did yours need?
As I mentioned, both mine and my friends GP's were early models, but that should be no excuse for poor quality. Some of the problems were with poor machining cleanup and some just bad machining. Since we both were capable of repairing them and were going to fine tune them anyhow for competition use we didn't bother sending them back to Ruger. The sad thing is the first GP I looked at another gun store had machining flaws I couldn't fix.
Since you asked, here goes:
The right side of the trigger guard was not finished, still had rat tail file marks, I refinished it.
The hammer was poorly shaped and rubbed the frame real bad, I reshaped, polished and added shims.
The star ratchet was poorly machined on 4 of 10 causing rough DA pull on those 4, I filed and polished it.
The cylinder extractor star had metal curls, I made a tool to clean up.
The gun would not fire reliably with some brands, modified the firing pin to look like my S&W pin.
The front sight dovetail was not machined deep enough, caused rear sight to be at upper limit, not repaired.
The design is very strong and should be reliable, I just find it hard to believe that they would release products this poor in quality knowing that the first ones will be the first ones reviewed.
I'm happy how mine shoots now, very smooth, it's great for target and hunting, but it stays home for speed shooting sports because I'm used to the shorter, faster DA trigger pull of my 617's.
Look yours over, good luck.
