Like I said, tradition dies hard. The benefits of modern investment casting are in their ability to reduce machining, not eliminate it. An investment cast double frame could (and should) be fully machined and finished in the same manner a forging is. The reduction of the machine time is where a company could provide an equally finely finished gun for less money, if they chose. The bad stigma of casting comes from at least two sources; first, old methods of casting using cheap/less sophisticated metallurgy resulted in failures of things, including guns, and generally casting was used by low end manufacturers of a particular product (guns included), and second, current application of investment casting by the likes of Ruger who is targeting the lower midrange of the market and leaves much of the surface to be finished by nonprecision processes like hand polishing (no not like a H&H, more like a car bumper). Rugers have problems not because of modern investment casting, but in spite of it.
So, modern casting gets a bum rap without being given a chance in the mid range gun market, IMO. Fact of life. Galazan recognized this and changed to accomodate his market regardless of whether there was a difference in final product performance or quality.
