I was down at our Club's indoor 50 foot Range two nights ago and I was shooting some old Factory Ammo (in perfect condition - circa 1976) that I had inherited from my Dad last year. The ammo in question here was Remington Standard Velocity 158 grain round nose lead bullets. I shot two boxes from my 4" S&W M15 with great accuracy and no problems. My friend who was my guest at the Range that evening, brought his 4" Ruger SP101 down, but did not have any non jacketed ammo as our indoor Range requires, so I gave him two boxes of the same ammo I was shooting (out of the same master carton by the way) and every round key holed at 50 feet. The Ruger was also shooting groups no better than 5" or so while my M15 was shooting 1 1/2" groups at 50 feet, consistently.

Now I am not bad mouthing Ruger here and I had no equipment or tools with me at the Range to measure the spec's on his Ruger, but I have to say I was amazed at the poor performance of his revolver. I have shot many boxes of the ammo mentioned here in all different types of guns and NEVER had this issue so I must assume it was his gun and not the ammo. My suggestion to him was to send the gun back to Ruger and have them take a look. While I am not a huge Ruger fan, I can honestly say I have never seen this kind of poor shooting out of one of their products quite like this. I am very interested in what Ruger has to say.

Chief38

On Rugers look for a barrel that's squished (constricted) where the barrel screws in the frame. It's all too common. Firelapping or cutting a Taylor throat (if you can find someone with a "real" Taylor throat reamer) fixes them. I'm curious to see what Ruger does.

Sounds like the ruger shoots pretty good, any gun that keyholes every round and holds 5" groups is doing well IMO, my rugers shoot as well as my smiths but I'll have to say the smith triggers are nicer.