Ruger SA Spruce-Up
Easy Upgrades For Aesthetics, Shootability
Tank’s .327 Single-Seven after his upgrade regimen
We all have our favorite shooters — you know, the ones we keep handy and holstered, ready to shoot at a moment’s notice. After years and thousands of rounds later, sometimes they’ve earned the right to get a spruce-up or a sixgun “spa day” of sorts.
Or perhaps you just bought a factory-new blaster and want to add some personal touches to make it look and perform like “your” gun. Let me walk you through the simple steps to customize a Ruger Single-Six/Seven.
We could send ol’ Betsy off to a custom gunsmith for a full-fledged treatment but I’m going to show you the easy, do-it-yourself way to spruce up your single-six and maybe even make it shoot a tad better.
Stock Answer
Nothing is easier, or makes more of an impression than some nice sixgun stocks. You have your choice of stag, exhibition grade walnut, antler/bone from various critters or anything else that suits your fancy.
I like to make mine every now and then. For this project I went with some elk antler stocks I made. Nothing gives a warmer feeling than antler, especially for outdoorsmen.
This particular set was one of my first so don’t laugh too hard at them. They feel good in my hand and I’ve come a long way since then. Regardless, I don’t think Roy Fishpaw has anything to worry about — but, I just like doing things myself sometimes.
The trigger spring retaining pin — drift it out, yank the factory spring and replace with a Wolff spring.
Your trigger finger will thank you.
Base Pin Basics
Certain parts can easily be changed out for looks or performance. For instance, aftermarket cylinder base pins can both increase performance and fancy up your gun.
A Belt Mountain No. 5 base pin will tighten your cylinder up and add the stylish good looks of Elmer Keith’s easy-to-grab, hourglass shaped base-pin head. This is as simple and easy as it gets for a quick swap-out!
An oversized Belt Mountain base pin will tighten up your cylinder.
Up Front
The front sight is probably the most vital part of a handgun as it’s the key element of our sight picture. Too short and we’ll be shooting mighty high, while too tall can at least be remedied with a file.
Fermin Garza has just the solution. His custom front sights are indeed custom. He’ll adjust the width and height to your specifications and he also offers light deflecting serrated faces to keep your sight picture “picture perfect.”
All it takes is the removal of a single screw to mount a custom front sight onto your shooter. Fermin uses hex-head replacement screws for those with trouble operating a screwdriver. I really appreciated the custom looks of the hex-head.
Fermin Garza’s custom front sight gives your sixgun a truly custom look.
Spring Fling
Swapping out the trigger spring is a simple operation on a Ruger single action. Since we have the stocks off, we may as well swap the trigger spring out. All we have to do is drift out the retaining pin, yank out the factory spring and squeeze a lighter Wolff spring in its place.
If you want, we can even remove the main spring hammer strut, remove the spring and polish it up a bit, to smooth-up the cocking of the hammer. It’s really easy, I promise.
With the gun cocked, simply place a small nail in the hole at the bottom of the strut. Release the tension by pulling the trigger and finagle the coiled whippersnapper out of the frame.
The tricky part is unleashing this dastardly spring when removing the slave pin — use a vise and be careful. Once the hammer spring is off, go to town on the strut with a file and emery cloth. It’s a cast part and has a seam and other rough areas on it. Once polished, it will make cocking your hammer a pleasure.
Replace the hammer spring on the strut and put ’er back.
These little spruce-ups work wonders for your guns. They’re fun, easy to do and give you a sense of satisfaction of doing it yourself.
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