Rushing things:

Had a new member (and new shooter) at the range a week ago ask me to take a look at his newly purchased Ruger MkIII.

He couldn't seem to get decent groups with it. So, being the helpful sort that I am, I loaded up some of his  .22 LR and stepped up to the the firing line (who doesn't like to shoot someone else's gun with their ammo?????).

I shot poorly with his new firearm too....like 6 inch groups at 50 feet. (I normally shoot 2 inch or so groups).

This brand new firearm had the most atrocious trigger I have ever seen in a Ruger firearm. Creep, slack, and enough grit to seem like it had been dropped on a beach....several times....like dragging a brick over gravel.  A trigger that broke like warm oatmeal...Now, I own several Ruger products and they, like most production guns, can often use a bit of work in the trigger department, but I have never seen one that was so bad that the gun was all but unshootable out of the box.

Detail stripping showed that this was not the most well finished firearm that Ruger has ever produced. Tool marks galore on the inside of the frame, the bolt needed polishing to function smoothly, the trigger group stampings were only marginally (if at all) polished, the pivot pins and their respective holes were...less than what one might expect from Ruger. Likely there will be an aftermarket trigger in this gun's future, as the trigger group was so bad that it is likely that polishing the mating faces enough to make a good break will result in an unsafe trigger. Basically, this gun is a piece of crap.

While it is possible that this is a one off gun, made on a Friday afternoon and passed by QC on a hungover Monday morning, I think that it is indicative of the fact that Ruger is pushing their wares out the factory door as quickly as possible...even to the detriment of quality.

I do find it sad that they are selling substandard products. I think that it will, eventually, hurt them. Cosmetics are one thing, functionality is another.