The New Vaq is a damned fine gun as long as you can get around the fact that it doesn't "sound right" (no mid-clicks on the hammer cock) and that the operating drill is a bit off (you leave the hammer down, open the loading gate, eject and reload from there).
Ruger has been doing the cylinders on a different process which appears to be more accurate and isn't producing undersize throats on the 45s. Mine in 357 is an excellent shooter, dead on windage, small groups, just a bit low so you can file the front for your loads.
What the New Vaq does right is that they've put a spring-loaded "dimple" in that aligns the cylinder bores with the loading gate on each click. Modifying the gun for full reverse-spinning while still getting that click is a snap.
The frame and grips are now finally the same size and feel as a Colt SAA. But it'll take all the various Old Vaquero/Blackhawk/Superblackhawk grip frames, triggers and hammers so you can mod the thing to hell and gone
. Belt Mountain is shipping improved base pins for the New Vaq. Basically it's already got more aftermarket support than the Gaucho and Stampede combined and I don't think that will change any time soon.
What else...for some reason stainless New Vaqs are somewhat hard to come by. The color-case artificial coloring process isn't the greatest cosmetically but Ruger seems to have improved it from their earlier process in terms of rust resistence. Their first gen process appears to somehow *accellerate* rust (!) or at least offered no protection at all. Mine is basically a smoky gray all over, looks rather nice to my eye but doesn't look at all traditional
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