What's the chances of a special order from Ruger?

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ScottsGT

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I keep wanting a Ruger New Vicaro, but I hate the idea of that big WARNING: YOU'LL PUT YOU EYE OUT WITH THIS THING roll marked/stamped into the side of the barrel. I'm an adult, I know the dangers of not handling a weapon properly, and I don't need some attorney for a mfgr. telling them to stamp my gun for me.
I searched the website, it's even hard to find a phone number to contact someone about this issue, much less an e-mail contact.
Anyone try this with Ruger??
 
Fuggeduboudit.

Seriously, there is NO WAY Ruger will ship a "billboardless" gun.

Ruger has an interesting history with lawyers and lawsuits. See...prior to 1973 all their SA revolvers (which was most of their sales volume) were "safetyless" just like an 1873 Colt. You have to carry them "five up", hammer on an empty chamber...because there was no "drop safety mechanism" whatsoever.

In 1973 they figured out how to graft a modern "transfer bar" automatic safety into the SA line, making them just as safe to carry six-up as any modern DA revolver. (Safer in some ways, because you can't get an "accidental discharge while holstering" type of accident on an SA wheelgun with the hammer down. You can with a DA if anything gets in front of the trigger when you seat the thing home in the holster.)

Well...prior to '73 some morons had carried the Ruger SAs six-up and had accidents...mostly "discharge while in holster" stuff that tends to leave nasty but non-fatal wounds to the outside edge of the leg. (We keep our femoral arteries down the insides of our legs thank God.)

Once the '73+ transfer bar guns shipped, people still carried the older guns the wrong way and accidents kept occurring but NOW the lawyers went nuts because Ruger had proven that the old "zero safety" system wasn't necessary.

By 1976 Ruger had engineered a transfer-bar retrofit to the older series and offered it free on every SA they ever made between 1955 and 1973. The cost was enormous. To this day if you send one of those in for any other repair you'll get your original trigger/hammer/etc. pieces back in a baggie and the gun will be fitted with transfer bar innards.

Upshot: if they sold you a "no warning" gun and you screw up, they will expect you to sue them. So they won't, period, end of discussion. Ruger is more lawyer-wary than any other gunmaker due to the horrific expense of the SA innards retrofit.

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Your solution is to get a stainless gun and polish the billboard off yourself, or if you do this with a blue gun expect to have to re-blue the whole piece.
 
Thanks Jim, I'm wanting stainless, and I have seen this done, but then you have funny shaped barrel. I have seen some that were not stamped as deep, that would be a good one to file down. I guess I can either look at a different mfgr, or keep looking for shallow stamping.

How about an aftermarket barrel? Anyone make one?
 
Yeah, all the major Ruger gunsmiths offer replacement barrels - Clark, Jim Stroh, Jim Hamilton, Bowen, etc. Douglas is one name that is kicked around a lot as a barrel source.

Thing is...the Ruger barrels aren't half bad. If anything is going to make a New Model large frame Ruger SA inaccurate, it will likely have something to do with the cylinder versus the barrel.
 
One major problem with product liability is creeping "safety" features. Once manufacturer A puts a warning or adds something, they open themselves to extreme liability if they remove it. Similarly, if manufacturer B starts doing it, manufacturer A must as well, or else.

My SW1911 has "Warning: Capable of being fired with magazine removed." printed on the frame. No sh*t? Every autoloader I have can be, but heaven help S&W if they remove the warning and some idiot has a ND.
 
First, that "warning" is on Ruger guns because a court ordered them to put it on as part of a settlement in a humongous law suit. They don't like it, but they, and you, are stuck with it.

Plus, I think that if you removed the Ruger "warning" a dealer might not want to take the gun in on trade or sale, since if he sold the gun and someone screwed up, he could be sued for selling the gun without the factory warning.

Same thing with removing any safety devices; most dealers won't touch a gun that has been "bubba'd" by removing parts or deactivating safeties. You may think you are perfect and could never mess up, but if you remove, say, a magazine safety, and you do make a mistake, or the gun gets into the hands of others one way or another and they screw up, and someone is hurt, you could be paying out for the rest of your life. In some circumstances and some states, you could even go to prison.

Jim
 
ScottsGT you may as well forget about factory & buy a pre-warning gun or go the custom route.........Creeker
 
If you want to try you can polish it right off, will take some time though. Or you can have someone else do it.
 
If you remove it, it might look much better.
But you'd better hope nothing ever goes wrong with it.
If it does Ruger won't repair it. You're on your own.
Unless you want to pay them for a new barrel with the warning.
 
Just took a look at the new Vaquero a dealer has in stock. They placed the billboard on the bottom of the barrel on the new models and it is stamped lightly. I might just have to get one now! Now, .45 LC or .357 hummmmm....
 
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