rugers are kinda crappy right out of the box so i had to pour money into the pistol.
Hmm... I've seen bone stock Rugers that shot like Olympic competition pistols. I guess they weren't the run of the mill but my Buck Mark Std. shoots very well and it's bone stock. And I've always thought Rugers shot better. I just got through shooting mine in fact. I was shooting at little pieces of stuff floating down a creek (right against the far bank so no ricochets were getting away) from about 20 yards and it was fairly easy to hit stuff no bigger than an inch (leaves etc). The only times I missed were when I didn't take my time and pull the trigger right. I need to do some work on that but not a lot. I was pushing it a little but I can get around that in no time. Just takes a little practice. I felt like I got fairly good practice in and I only shot about 15 rounds.
There are things a person can do to improve their shooting skills even without ammo. I saw some lasers that were for "practice" in Cabelas yesterday. Someone stole my idea. It's a matter of attaching a laser to a pistol and practicing pulling the trigger until the dot doesn't move. Some guns require snap caps but not all of them. I use empty cases in a .22 to prevent damage. It helps you learn to control your trigger pull and that's probably the one thing that makes people get off target more than anything. Trigger pull is at least 75% of shooting and it doesn't require any ammo at all to practice. Just tape a laser on the side of your pistol. It doesn't have to line up with where the pistol will hit. It just has to show you if you're moving the pistol when you pull the trigger.