LAST EDITED ON Mar-17-17 AT 10:17 PM (EDT)
 
It's just come to my attention that, since I posted the above, Ruger have ceased producing the Mk III Standard after a mere 11 years—which sounds like a pretty good run until you reckon that the Mk I was in production for 32 years (from 1949 to 1981) and the Mk II for 23 (from 1982 to 2005)—and introduced the Mk IV in its place.

Differences? Well, the Mk IV still has the Mk III's useless lawyer features (the magazine safety and loaded chamber indicator), as well as the righty-only button magazine release (as opposed to the earlier marks' ambidextrous heel release). They've changed the safety switch from the old round button to a more modern/conventional "paddle" for the thumb, and made it ambidextrous (although the bumf on the product page reassuringly notes that they include a part to convert it back to left-side-only, I guess in case it offends anyone that the redesign caters even that much to the Unclean); magazines now drop out when released as opposed to needing to be pulled out, in keeping with Current Tactical Thinking (although anyone who finds himself in a tactical situation with a Ruger .22 target pistol has screwed something up big-time somewhere along the way). They've also made the bolt release lever bigger (and cheerfully tout it as Ergonomic, gagging noise here).

Beyond that, it still has the Mk III's improved ejection port and bolt "ears", is still available with its normal grip profile or the 1911-style "22/45"-style frame, and still comes drilled and tapped for a scope mount. (This was standard on the Mk III models with adjustable sights; it looks like all Mk IVs have adjustable sights, so...) All in all, it doesn't really look that worth getting excited about. I think Ruger know it, too, because they've cannily made none of those adjustments the lede for the marketing materials. Instead, they've put in big print what is, I have to concede, the biggest thing they've ever changed about the Standard—bigger even than adding a proper bolt stop to the Mk II.

They've gotten rid of the horrendous takedown procedure.

The uninitiated may not know what I'm talking about here. Let me explain. Actually, let me let Ruger's own manuals explain, if you don't mind doing a little scrolling. Here is the official procedure to disassemble and reassemble a Mk II pistol like the one I have, ripped direct from the owner's manual.

(Note the warning in step 5 on page 21 about a way you can actually ruin the pistol if you Do It Wrong. And that chipper little notice at the end acknowledging how the procedure may seem like an insanely complicated faff, but it's really not as hard as you think, if you'd just apply yourself a little bit. How 1950s is that?)

Compare that with the revised version of the procedure available to owners of the new Mk IV:

How about that? The old Ruger Standard takedown is one of the most notorious I know of. It's complicated, it's annoying (particularly putting the damn thing back together again), and it not only requires tools, it needs one of those tools to be a hammer. I broke the tip off the mainspring lever of my original Mk II (not the one I have now) trying to get it apart, going by the book, and for the rest of the time I owned that gun there was a little rough edge on the backstrap to remind me that I'm a bit of a muppet. People sometimes take their Mk I–III pistols to gunsmiths just to be cleaned, either because they're afraid they'll break something, they can't figure it out, or they decided it's far too much of a hassle to do yourself if you have the wherewithal to pay someone else to do it for you.

And now, after only sixty-seven years (and a mere 15 since the original designer's death), the company's engineers have figured out a way to make a pistol that's the same shape, but can be taken apart by a normal human being without recourse to a bent paper clip and a hammer. I'm impressed! I'm probably not going to buy one, because it still has everything about the Mk III that was why I bought a used Mk II in the first place, but I'm impressed. You can, it seems, teach an old dog new tricks. :)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
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