doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com RUGER SXS

I had one, couldn't hit a thing with it, I put it on paper and found the right barrel hit about 8" to left of point of aim and the left barrel hit about 18" high and the same left of point of aim. I called Ruger and they told me to send it in, and I did they returned the gun with new barrels and it still shot about 8" high and 8" to the left, I called Ruger and they told me to return it. I returned it and they told me they couldn't fix it and I could have another model in exchange for the Gold Label. I got a 28 gauge Red label with .410 tubes. The 28 gauge was a nice little gun but I didn't care for the .410 tubes, too heavy.
Pete

Larry, how about for shooting steel shot? Those loads wouldn't be killers for recoil in a light gun. The 3" chamber adds steel shot versatility for upland birds where it's required. And the drawback is ... what exactly?

Jay

I thought it was because they were so dang ugly only a liberal idiOt could see beauty in one.

Specifically, which 3" steel loads are you speaking of, Jay? Depends on what you think you need in terms of pellet count (pattern density) and retained energy to do the job. In order to match a 1 1/4 oz load of lead 6's, you'd need 1 3/8 oz of steel 4's. To give you 2 ft-lbs of retained energy at 40 yards, you need to have a steel load with a velocity of 1275 fps (pretty modest by steel standards); 1220 fps for the 1 1/4 oz lead load. Difference in recoil energy: 36 ft-lbs with the steel load; 26 ft-lbs with the lead load. For a lot of people, that increase in recoil would be a definite drawback in a light gun.

I held one in hand when they first came out and felt the wood to metal fit was pretty poor and on top of that the wood was very proud. To me a vintage Fox Sterlingworth had better wood to metal fit. To me it was indeed muzzle heavy. At the time I had 4 Merkel's in the inventory and I felt they were much much better put together.

I had a pistol gripped Gold Label and I didn't have much to complain about. The wood to metal fit was decent with no gaps, and the gun functioned fine. The weight up front led to some high sporting clays scores, but it was an average shooter in the field. I got the heebie-jeebies about it when I learned that Ruger was no longer supporting the gun, and a guy at the club dearly wanted my PG model, so off it went.

I have a first year Red Label 20 (blued) that actually went back to Ruger because it loosened up just hunting for a few years!
It is a very good quail gun, Stan Baker re-choked to real open/real full, Sam Welch even engraved my old hunting dog Runyon on it!
I wouldn't get another Ruger.