ROA dropped the loading lever

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Elbert P . Suggins

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Last month I purchased a 1992 NIB ROA stainless 44 with target sights. It definitely is the finest shooting handgun that I own, smokeless or BP. Anyway this weekend I was back in the Red River area of Central Idaho enjoying all of my 44s and on the 3rd round out of the Ruger the lever dropped to my astonishment. The fire level was low after raining most of the weekend by the way. Upon further inspection I discovered that the front latch had fallen off the barrel. I later found it and now will be making a trip to the local gunsmith at Winchester. I was shooting 30 grams of Goex under Cream of Wheat and a size .457 RB. Very surprised to say the least!
 
ya 30 grains is kinda light. i had that happen on my Walker. The latch just slides in place from the side. i took a punch and on the underside where you do not see it i struck the barrel once to pinch it a little more. Now its fine. You could probably do the same thing. Thats pretty much how most latches are put in. the cavity is the exact size then you need to strike it at the seem to pinch it tight.
 
I`ve only talked to one other person that said they had the loading lever fall on their ROA ,,,,what I was told ..he discovered the little spring in the lever slideing catch was rusted into ..so it wasn`t holding tight ..I always spray a little WD40 in the end of the spring catch on mine to displace the water durning my cleaning ...might be something to check .
 
SCRAT, the barrel is smooth underneath the latch and the latch is contoured to fit the barrel. The latch has a small pin about the size of a pin on the Colt cylinders where the hammer rests and the barrel has a hole drilled to fit that pin. It almost looks like they were glued together but that can't be! It had to have been some small stainless steel weld hidden that held them together. It won't be much to repair but I thought Ruger owners would be interested in this breakdown on a gun that is almost troublefree.
 
Elbert P. be sure and tell us what it takes to make the fix ...sounds ..like maybe it`s bonded with something ..odd ...I`ve never heard of anyone else haveing a problem with it comming loose . Can you see any bonding material on the pin or in the hole in the barrel ...maybe silver solder or something .
 
Smooth underside. Yep thats different from colts. Sounds like in need of a gunsmith Silver solder. Any way you can post a picture of it
 
Looks like silver sodder or even a glue of some kind. I'll get my grandson to help me post what you want along with pictures of the rest of my BP arsenal which I have promised several times. Ever since I blew the Walker up if you recall last spring by using 2 pellets of 30 grain Pyrodex and I replaced it with the Dragoon and the GOTC wanted pics.
 
I would be inclined to send the gun back to Ruger for repair. I'd be willing to bet a good chuckwagon steak that they'd do it for free. Give Ruger Customer Service a call and see what they say. That failure is very unusual, so I think they'd be very interested. 603-865-2442
 
I thought that there was a screw that held the latch in place on the Rugers, I was sure that I've seen one of the 5-1/2" barreled models that had it retained by a screw so that it could be removed & then the cylinder pin fully removed from the weapon.
 
about 6 months ago there was a big announcement about it. After that the prices went through the roof. Do a search on it you will see. They stopped making it due to the declining sales.
 
Ruger announced cessation of Old Army production in April of this year. The reason they gave was that they needed to free up production assets for products which provided a better return on investment. In other words, they didn't feel that sales would support raising the price of the Old Army by an amount that would provide the minimum profit target required by their investment in production tools and labor.

I personally suspect the Vaquero now occupies those production lines.

I don't see that prices of new stock Old Armies went up significantly after the announcement. Prices of some already out of production versions did jump quite a bit, but IIRC, the NIB standard 7 1/2 inch blued, adjustable sight version hardly moved; but of course, the MSRP of that gun was over $550 when the line was stopped.
 
naaa it wasnt that high. was it. i remember us talking about it. you would see them jump up to over 400 for used ones on gunbroker.
 
Thanks MYKEAL, I called customer service and repair and talked to a nice gal that seemed to know all about repairs. I described the part and she knew what I was talking about. She answers all repair problems and this was the first latch on a BP ROA that had come off according to her. She said it was a pressed solder binding process. I believe she also inferred that the shorter barreled revolvers had a retaining screw. It would be a simple 2 minute fix for a good gunsmith but if the barrel was damaged she said Ruger couldn't make it right which is understandable. But with my gunsmith from Winchester that does work for people all thru the Northwest and is the best around I think I'll just let him fix it for under ten bucks because I want to get it back to shooting as soon as possible. Believe it or not, I'm not hard on my firearms, but I just have weird crap like this happening once in a blue moon.
 
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