My 66-1, I prefer a longer barrel. It’s a fine shooting revolver.Told ya. The Rugers can't be beat for pure ruggedness but they can't hold a candle to
Do you have the 66-1 or the 66-2? And when you say the latter feels somewhat heavier, do you mean the trigger pull or the gun itself? The Ruger has a larger cylinder and should be a bit heavier than the S&W. And does your Ruger Speed-Six have a spring kit installed?
I feel the same way about my S&W 686-6. It's the first revolver I ever owned that came almost perfect out of the box! Can it be improved? Probably a little, but not enough to go through the trouble of finding a spring kit and installing it. S&W is really cranking out fantastic guns. So much so that I see no need to get a Ruger. Will Rugers outlast S&Ws. Maybe, but it's no longer an issue. If we lived till be 800 years old, I'd slap my money down for a Ruger every time. But with a lifetime marked in decades, who cares?
Couldn't agree more...I've had two, both 4" bbl'd and loved 'em both...still have one....but a 3" bbl'd one would be a great carry gun. Rio says he's had hang ups with the adj. sights with some garments, and I understand that...but I've had just the opposite experience.
Spring kits make all the difference in the Rugers. Bill Ruger had some unfortunate legal experiences that caused him to inflict the consequences on us, his customers. These consequences came in the form of an impossibly heavy trigger (in the form of a heavy coil mainspring) and obnoxious warnings all over his otherwise attractive firearms. It's like my teachers in junior high school. If they don't know who threw the paper airplane at them when their backs were turned, they punish the entire class. For this reason we all must pay for the rest of time by having stupid warnings scrolled on our Ruger firearms. (I recently bought a x25-x75 spotting scope from Amazon, and when I read the one-page instruction manual, it told its users not to use it to view the Sun, as it could result in blindness! Really? Why not warn them that grasping the scope and using it to bash it against one's head, or the head of others, repeatedly can result in concussion or death?)
No reason you can't have both. I'd love to have a S&W 66, but would I trade my Ruger Speed-Six 3-inch .357s, or even one of them, for a 66? Well, yeah, if I could get a mint S&W 66-no dash, but that's the only way I'd let one of them go. My 3-inchers have great actions, and a 3-inch barrel looks and handles much more to my liking than a 2.5-inch or 2.25-inch barrel (though I prefer the latter for my SP-101). Ruger used to be known for its beefy revolvers. Now it's known as the producers of boat anchors. I would have loved a 3-inch SP-101, but it's just a bit too heavy. I'd have preferred a skinny S&W Model 10-type barrel and the elimination of the ejector shroud. But that's just me.
Both. Life’s too short not to have a good pair of revolvers.
