charlesb wrote:To me, it does not follow that whoever manufactured the most would be number one.
I go for quality, not quantity.
Which has gotten too iffy with all of them. There weren't any issues with the dozen or so guns I owned in my "previous shooting life" in 1978-1985. This time around, all my guns but the Sentinels were made in 2008-2013.
I sent back both LCRs for major problems and got replacements. Both of which have somewhat sloppy cylinder bolt fit, and .005 endshake. In Ruger specs, but should be better, and probably would have been better years ago.
One Bearcat has a slight difference between the cylinder locking and the full cock notch. The other Bearcat's loading gate is higher than the frame at the lower edge. The factory grip fit leaves something to be desired. Not big deals, but should have been better on what are now $620 guns.
One surprise is that my 1970 Sentinel had some casting flash alongside the hand slot, which was bound to bind on case heads. Plus the hand itself was not fit right, with the tip of the hand just catching the edge of the cylinder when you closed it. A little filing to match my '69 Sentinel set things right.
The Single-Six I no longer have came with a .013 cylinder gap, which spit badly. Ruger rebarreled that to .003 and did a little free trigger work, which was nice.
My Beretta Bobcats, long gone, were jam-o-matic paper weights.
My 10/22 has had no issues at all, amazingly. Neither did the Mark III which I no longer have.