So, lets look at the guns which are best suited for serious
competition.
The Ruger Old Army is a massive (some would say massively
over-engineered) pistol. It's a modern interpretation of the old
theme, and is nicely engineered, so it's really a doddle to strip
and clean.
The downside is that it has all the balance of an SA80, comes with
too short a foresight, and has nipples that don't fit any cap I've
ever encountered. But never mind the cons, buy some "Uncle Mike's"
nipples and for the Cavalry Officer or Bow Street Runner matches
it's as a good a tool as you can get. One other good point is that
there's a massive oversupply of second-hand examples in the UK, so
an ad in the back of Target Sports or the MLAGB journal should
provide plenty to choose from.
Rogers and Spencer revolvers are made by Pedersoli and Euroarms, and
probably some others besides. Both the above mentioned firms produce
high quality products, but I think the quality control at Euroarms
is less good than Pedersoli. The
Euroarms guns are also a little overpriced, whereas Pedersoli have
dropped by about twenty percent since the distributor was changed to
Viking Arms. Anyway, the Rogers and Spencer is a fine gun. The one
theoretical disadvantage for target shooting is that the rear sight
(or should I say groove) is obscured when the hammer falls. In
practice this doesn't seem to matter and accuracy is excellent.
