Ruger customer service

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They have great customer service. Because they get a lot of practice. Not intended to bash Ruger, I've owned several and like most of them. I've had to return too many Rugers, and had them ship me parts for free. They have always made things right but it is a hassle.

Over nearly 50 years of buying firearms I've lost count of the small issues with them that they have corrected. In that time I've had one defective S&W pistol that had to be returned. I also returned one Bergara rifle because it didn't meet my accuracy standards. According to Bergara it met theirs, so I sold it.
 
Riomouse911 said:
True. But maybe if Glock made more than basically the same (ingeniously simple) product upsized and downsized, they would have more opportunities for guns to go back for service. (I have a few Glocks, too.)

Not an excuse, as Ruger (and others) could surely do better, but to draw an assumption that their guns aren’t reliable by comparing Ruger and Glock customer service stories is a bit of an apples to oranges comparison, IMHO.

Stay safe.
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Respectively, I vehemently disagree and that is an excuse, and that makes no logical sense in my opinion.

Quality control is quaility control. Glock, HK, Sig, Walther, FN, etc quality control vs Ruger quality control. It's an Apples to Apples comparisons. Ruger and Glock both engineered a reliable pistol. Ruger's pistols all to often veer off course from the engineered design more so than Glock. When everyone is sending their Rugers back to the mother ship for repair or replacement, Ruger is shipping a pistol back in the design and condition it should had been in the first place.

It seems like everyone has a Ruger customer service experince on par with the number of people who have a Taurus service experience. The only difference is Ruger makes it right on the first time and in a timely manner. IMHO, they still seem less reliable and have a bunch of QC issues than some other manufactures. Ruger just gets a pass because of their CS, so people rationalize and make excuses for them.
 
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jmr40 said:
They have great customer service. Because they get a lot of practice. Not intended to bash Ruger, I've owned several and like most of them. I've had to return too many Rugers, and had them ship me parts for free. They have always made things right but it is a hassle.

Over nearly 50 years of buying firearms I've lost count of the small issues with them that they have corrected. In that time I've had one defective S&W pistol that had to be returned. I also returned one Bergara rifle because it didn't meet my accuracy standards. According to Bergara it met theirs, so I sold it.
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Exactly what I am saying. It's like a magic trick. Everyone has their eyes on the great CS that they don't see the back QA and reliability issues.

I've owned over a hundred firearms and it was a Ruger LC9s Pro that failed miserably out the box on the first range trip. It's the only pistol I ever had to send in for repair, and I've owned 8 Taurus handguns. The only other handgun that was problematic was a early generation Dimondback DB9. I sold the DB9 off.
 
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And like Glock, Ruger will send springs and parts to second and third owner's who wear things out on guns many years old. I got a full set of Standard .22 springs when I called them about refurbishing a flood-scarred gun, they sent them gratis. And they tossed in a free magazine. One of our Mini-14’s was damaged in a car crash. They replaced the stock and handguard with no questions asked.

Try getting anything at all from HK. I waited three solid years for Mp5 parts to respring and repair our office guns. They’re sure proud of their stuff and they let you know it with every call. Try getting anything for free to replace worn parts from SIG, FN or Walther. Nope. When my Manhurin Walther PPK/s started doubling on me I had zero luck with Walther. I sent that gun packing and kept a better made FEG SMK380.

I stand by my opinion about your statement every product made by Ruger is “generally not reliable out of the box”. That is an awfully wide paintbrush to wield. But I also respect your right to make that statement, its a free country. :thumbup:

Again, Ruger, S&W, Kimber. Colt, etc. certainly can do better at catching issues before they leave the factory, and I wholeheartedly agree with you that they should. Nothing is more frustrating than buying a new gun and having to send it back. I have been there once with Ruger, twice with S&W.

But if you need parts or service, especially years after you buy a gun and use it a ton, you can’t beat the way you’re treated by Rugers’ staff (Glock, too.). SIG, FN, Walther, and my least favorite H&K, can certainly learn something about that from Ruger.

Stay safe.
 
Riomouse911 said:
And like Glock, Ruger will send springs and parts to second and third owner's who wear things out on guns many years old. I got a full set of Standard .22 springs when I called them about refurbishing a flood-scarred gun, they sent them gratis. And they tossed in a free magazine. One of our Mini-14’s was damaged in a car crash. They replaced the stock and handguard with no questions asked.

Try getting anything at all from HK. I waited three solid years for Mp5 parts to respring and repair our office guns. They’re sure proud of their stuff and they let you know it with every call. Try getting anything for free to replace worn parts from SIG, FN or Walther. Nope. When my Manhurin Walther PPK/s started doubling on me I had zero luck with Walther. I sent that gun packing and kept a better made FEG SMK380.

I stand by my opinion about your statement every product made by Ruger is “generally not reliable out of the box”. That is an awfully wide paintbrush to wield. But I also respect your right to make that statement, its a free country. :thumbup:

Again, Ruger, S&W, Kimber. Colt, etc. certainly can do better at catching issues before they leave the factory, and I wholeheartedly agree with you that they should. Nothing is more frustrating than buying a new gun and having to send it back. I have been there once with Ruger, twice with S&W.

But if you need parts or service, especially years after you buy a gun and use it a ton, you can’t beat the way you’re treated by Rugers’ staff (Glock, too.). SIG, FN, Walther, and my least favorite H&K, can certainly learn something about that from Ruger.

Stay safe.
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I never stated that every firearm made by Ruger is generally unreliable out the box, or that all the companies I mentioned have better CS than Ruger. What I am saying is that IMHO Ruger ships out more problematic handguns than other top their firearm companies.
 
plainsdrifter said:
Ive had prolly twenty rugers from a bolt guns 270 3 screw 22 mag fitfty years ago 10/22 mk Ii semi's and revolvers jeez none ever went back.
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Doesn't change the fact that many others have had an opposite experience. To be fair, issues seem to mostly be with their semi-auto handguns. At least that's what I seen being reported
 
JB111
The second time I had bought a Super Redhawk that had had a scuffed up muzzle, sent it in and had it back in 9 days. They had polished not only the muzzle but the entire gun, sighted it in and test fired it 6 times.
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Sounds very much like what happened to a friend of mine when he bought a used Vaquero where the front sight was canted to one side and they determined that the barrel was improperly installed. Only problem was they no longer made that model (.44 Magnum) and didn't have any more barrels for it. So they made him a new barrel from bar stock, installed it, and polished the whole gun (it was stainless) so that the new barrel would match the rest of the gun! No charge for anything!
 
Earlier in this thread, I wrote about the Ruger Security Six I bought used (for practically peanuts) knowing full well it had problems, but also knowing Ruger would fix it for me. Maybe I should have more specific about the problems I knew my Security Six had when I bought it.
The problems it had was some "Bubba" had obviously tried to do some kitchen table gunsmithing on its trigger, and he had only made it what I felt was "unsafe" to use for single action shooting. I could actually make the gun "go off" by putting a little thumb pressure on the cocked hammer without pulling the trigger.
There were no problems with shooting the revolver double action - other than the trigger was a little "heavy" - but no worse than a couple of Smiths and a Taurus I own.
I've probably owned a dozen different Rugers over the years - everything from Ruger 77s to Single Sixes to Blackhawks and Super Blackhawks, and even one large and blocky 9mm that I don't remember the model number of. That one Ruger Security Six (that somebody had done some kitchen table gunsmithing on) is the only one I've ever sent back for repairs.
On the other hand, my wife sent a couple of Ruger "Super Silhouettes" (10.5" .44 Mag Super Blackhawks) back (one time each) when we were shooting IHMSA. However, my wife was running a couple of thousand full-house .44 Magnum loads through each of those revolvers every month. After running about 10,000 full-house .44 Magnum loads through each of them, they each started to loosen up, and their timing was a little off.
Ruger fixed my wife's revolvers, re-blued them, and sent them back for free. The only time Ruger ever charged my wife for anything was the last time she sent one of her silhouette guns back, and that was when she "retired" from the IHMSA game - she had Ruger replace the 10.5" barrel with a more practical 6" barrel.
She's had that .44 Mag Ruger for over 30 years now, and it hasn't been back to Ruger since.
 
Funny. Another thread led me to look up some more info when I came across this comment from Old Fluff back in 2008. Eerily similar to what’s happening today. Just replace S&W in a couple of areas/sentences with Ruger and you have what they (Ruger) is probably facing today. Unabated demand. In constant training mode to bring more employees on line. Due to recent pandemic changing workforce dynamics aforementioned staffing issues significantly aggravated/magnified. Regardless…Interesting read even if you don’t agree with my comparison.
  1. Well the Old Fuff was around, and working within the industry during the Bangor-Punta era, as well as before and after.

    Bangor-Punta did not start out with any intention of cheapening S&W products, but during their tour of duty two important things happened.

    The first was the Viet Nam war, and related anti-war protests and riots on the home front. Also throw in the side affects of the President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations. The net effect of all of this was a demand for handguns unlike anything ever seen before. The pressure on Smith & Wesson was also increased by the fact that no other handgun maker of that time – Colt and Ruger in particular – offered competing models such as stainless steel handguns, high capacity pistols and large-bore double-action revolvers. Thus some of the more popular S&W guns sold for well above suggested list price.

    Smith & Wesson tried to meet this demand by hiring more workers and increasing the factory’s manufacturing capacity, and they did this several times. However it was to no avail, and demand continued to increase faster then they could catch up. In this environment it would be foolish to expect that quality wouldn’t be impacted, and because the number of guns produced was so much greater, the number of those with manufacturing defects would also be larger even if the percentage of defects vs. total production remained the same.

    Second, labor costs kept increasing, and there was little or no time for the new hires to gain the experience and knowledge that was typical in older S&W employees.

    So what’s the bottom line? Were defective guns produced in larger numbers during this period? Yes they were. Were a higher percentage of guns defective? Yes, but only by a small margin. Are all Bangor-Punta guns sub-standard? Not at all. Most of them were equal to those made during earlier post-war years, and most of the defects were minor in nature. I would much rather buy a gun made then, then one being made now. But I would carefully check it out on an individual basis. If I found it to be good it would probably turn out to be very, very good. ;)

    Nov 30, 2008.
 
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