TargetTalk

I have some experience with the Ruger MkII and 22/45 pistols and I know that their stock trigger pulls were not particularly good. Does the new magazine safety make the MkIII trigger even worse? And can it be improved to the same level that was possible with the old pistols?

Neither the Mark2 or 3 have a good stock trigger but both can be tweeked or upgraded to a much better trigger.

I still have a mark11 with the trigger set up by JIM CLARK He seems to think [reading some of his literature ] That the best way to go is to replace the mark 111 parts and use the mark 11 instead. I may have misunderstood his comments so , if you are really interested you may want to call his shop and verify this information. Good Shooting Bill Horton

Replacing the MkIII parts with MkII parts would make sense, but I'm afraid that would violate section 3.4 of the NRA rule book: "All standard safety features of the gun must operate properly." So if you lose the magazine safety, your pistol is illegal.

It appears that the folks at Clark Custom do feel that there's hope for the MkIII, given some extra work. Their web site shows the same services for the MkIII as for the MkII with no disclaimers about reduced quality of the final product. They just charge a little more: $25 extra for a trigger job and $100 extra for a full custom pistol.

Given the popularity and long production run of the MkII, this is all probably going to be academic for years to come as there should still be plenty of the old pistols available on the used market.