My first attempt at getting Ruger to fix my broken stock was a bit less than satisfying; some weaselly, uninterested dullard of a customer service rep insisted I’d have to pay out of my own pocket to ship the gun back to Ruger, where they would “evaluate” it. Would I be reimbursed for the shipping expenses? “Perhaps.”

Fuck that.

Called back, got an intelligent, helpful woman on the line, and made my case: Here’s a brand-new gun, unfired, with a crack in the stock. I’ve been a happy Ruger customer for years and want to stay that way. I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask me to shell out $50 to ship back an $850 gun with a manufacturing flaw. What can we do about this?

She put me on hold for a minute and came back with a very sensible reply: Box up the gun, UPS will be by to pick it up.

Yes, that will do. Thank you very much.

They’re supposed to pick it up on Friday. I’ll keep y’all posted.

Yeah, you know that really pretty stock I showed off in my last post? It’s going back to Ruger. I was looking over the gun tonight and noticed this:

Nice little hairline crack that would undoubtedly grow and fail completely on a gun with this level of recoil. The gun’s brand new, unfired since it left the factory, and the original box is in very good shape with no signs of damage during shipping. I believe the gun left the factory like this and no one noticed the crack.

Very, very, very annoying. I’ll be calling Ruger tomorrow morning and arranging to ship it back.

… because the batteries in my digital camera died as soon as I took this one, slightly blurry picture.

Josh: Ruger #1′s are awesome…for single shot rifles chambered to fire five dollar bills

Yes, Josh, yes they are.

I did some online shopping yesterday for my sooper-seekrit upcoming project. Well, I TRIED to. I need two different rifle powders and some Federal 215 primers. NO ONE had them in stock. Anywhere. At any price. I know the panic buying on guns is still going full-steam, but I hadn’t realized that the reloading market was just as crazy.

This isn’t too much of a headache for me; we won’t have decent rifle-shooting weather here for another 2 or 3 months, minimum, so I can wait awhile on buying components. But damn, I was not expecting them to be totally unavailable!

The SHOT show doesn’t kick off until later this week, but I just may have stumbled across one of Ruger’s new offerings a bit before its official unveiling.

Shooters with long memories might recall that Ruger used to offer Mini-14s with factory-installed folding stocks, back before the late Bill Ruger’s ill-considered attempt at gun-banner appeasement.

Well, it looks like Ruger is poised to reintroduce an updated Mini-14 Factory Folder, this time with a stock that both folds AND collapses, along with the de rigueur rail farm on the forend.

Nicely done, Ruger. It’s about time!

Click here to see the pic on Ruger’s site.