Driftwood Johnson wrote: It's a bit unfair to make a blanket statement like Rugers are much better than Ubertis, without a bit of explanation. What should really be said is that Rugers are much different than Ubertis. 'Better' is in the eye of the beholder. You are really comparing apples and oranges when you make such a statement.
Ubertis pretty faithfully follow the original design of the Colt Single Action Army, a design that is 125 years old. As a matter of fact, some elements of the design go even farther back, to the 1836 Colt Paterson. When Bill Ruger designed his first single action revolvers in the 1950s he had the tremendous advantage of new technologies and manufacturing techniques that did not exist in the 1800s. One major difference is coil springs. All the springs in a Ruger are coil springs. Coil springs are virtually unbreakable. Colts and Ubertis use flat leaf springs. When a Colt or a Uberti goes out of commission, it is often because a spring has broken. Ruger springs don't break, but the price for that is that Rugers have more parts inside than a Colt or Uberti. Every spring inside a Ruger has a plunger associated with it to make it work. More parts means more complicated assembly and dissassembly. Ask a Ruger ownere and a Colt owner how difficult it is to take their guns apart or put them back together again. Colts are simpler, there are fewer parts, and they are much easier to take apart and put back together again than a Ruger is.
Because Ruger used more modern technologies to make his revolvers he was able to make many of the interior parts simpler. The bolt is the most complicated part inside a Colt or Uberti. It has a complex geometery that is intricate to produce, in fact it is a fancy spring because one leg has to bend and spring back every time the hammer cycles, and the bolt of a Colt or Uberti generally has to be custom fit to the gun. Complicated, expensive, and needs custom fitting. The analagous part in a Ruger is a cheap stamping. It probably costs about 5 cents to make it, and it pops right into the gun with no fitting at all. This is all possible because the Ruger had techology available to him that did not exist in the 1800s.
There are more differences between an Uberti and a Ruger, I just wanted to name a few. The older technology of the Uberti design is what makes it desireable to many shooters. Yes, it is not as rugged as a Ruger and may break down or wear sooner. But one is not better than the other, one is just older technology.
