I was unexpectedly gifted a 3-3/4" .45 Colt New Vaquero. Today I got to give it a quick spin.. First, I gave it a once over, and other than being bone dry, and the front sight listing a bit to the right, saw nothing out of the ordinary. The trigger was well into the "not good" range, but Rugers are pretty much free and easy to fix, so no worries.
I pushed a clean patch down the bore, and noticed it looked very smooth, a good start. A quickie measurement of the cylinder throats showed .452"+. Awesome! After the last older Ruger in .45 Colt I dealt with with .455"+ throats, that was a nice surprise. I tweaked the legs of the trigger return spring, and dry fired a few hundred times with thumb pressure on the hammer. This accelerates the break in process, and at least got me to a shootable trigger pull. Guesstimate is 4 pounds, but way too long. It will eventually get a real trigger job, and set to 2 pounds or so.
First cartridges were a 240 gr. HP 50/50 Pb-WW boolit from an Erik Ohlen converted mold, over 9.3 grains of Herco, a load Lloyd Smale has had great success with. I just shot at 20 yds. and I am well out of tune, but the first group was in the 1.5" wide X 2.5" tall range, a foot low, and left. I was actually happy with the low part, as it meant I could take off front sight to get elevation. The front sight came canted right, so drifting it back towards center should help with windage.
2nd go round was a 270 gr. WFN I had cut years ago, hoping the added boolit weight would help with elevation, which it did, but minimally. Group size was very similar, but still left, in line with group 1. At this point, I clamped it in a vice, and tweaked the front sight straight, and loaded 6 more rounds, this time with a 260 gr. 454190, over 9.5 grains of Herco. Point of impact shifted to the right, but not enough, and group size was maybe 2" round, most likely due to me warming up.
All in all, one of my more favorable first Ruger impressions. The bore is spotless, even where they normally have a choke point. A little trigger and sight tweaking, and this one may turn out ok.