Handguns

When I went off to college, it was with the intention of getting a degree in mechanical engineering. I ended up being lured away by the beauty of chemistry, but the year I spent trying to learn the intricacies of alloying and heat-treatment served me well. As my college was more interested in producing graduates who could get jobs in the real world and not academe, we were always reminded of real-world problems and their solutions.

A lot of people think that if a product isn’t perfect—in all aspects—right from the start, it has been a failure. (Not to pick on anyone in particular, but you’ll find this to be a common attitude among the legal profession.) Me, I view how a company deals with a problem, not just the problem itself. In that regard, I have to give Sturm, Ruger the highest marks. The Old Model single-action revolvers are among the most durable mechanical devices ever made. And yet, faced with a situation that had been common for a century before but some refused to learn, Sturm, Ruger & Co. instituted a design and rebuild program. To this day, if you send Ruger an Old Model single-action revolver, they will upgrade it to the transfer-bar design for you.

Try that with anything else made before 1973 and see what the manufacturer tells you. If it’s still in business.

The SR9 was an immediate sales success. However, there was a problem. Despite the extensive testing Ruger did, there is nothing like getting something into the hands of a hundred thousand consumers as a trials process. Testing (as in real-world use) by those customers told Ruger that there were a few things on the SR9 that needed changing.

So Ruger engineers rolled up their sleeves, got to work and designed changes for the SR9. When the changes had been tested and parts production began, the front-office folks told every single one of us who owns a first-production SR9 that Sturm, Ruger & Co. would upgrade it for free. And not just upgrade it, but send it back with an extra magazine just to make sure we’re happy with the rebuild.