Customized Ruger Wranglers

Pinky Tuscadero

The most visually interesting gun is the one I call “Pinky Tuscadero,” a homage to the role played by red-haired actress Roz Kelly in the Happy Days 1970s television series. Pinky was Fonzi’s motorcycle daredevil girlfriend and certainly before her time in terms of what a female co-star could be.
The project started out with a stock birds head Wrangler, one of the several models available. The master of ceremonies and chief gunsmith was our own Roy Huntington, tackling the project simply for the challenge and as an excuse to spend more time cuddling his milling machines.

For starters, Roy disassembled the gun and gently polished everything. As you might imagine the Wrangler doesn’t get a lot of handwork at the factory and the action tends to feel a bit like 400-grit sandpaper. That’s not really a criticism — if you consider the amazing price, it’s simply a fact of life.

The frame was cleaned and gently sanded overall to remove casting marks and small imperfections. Roy then used JB Weld as “body filler” to fix some pits while the inner surfaces were also cleaned up a bit.

The action parts were all polished and buffed to eliminate mold marks and ensure smoothness. The sear was gently polished but otherwise unaltered as it could affect safe operation. MIM parts tend to be a bit uneven due to their manufacturing technique so Roy cleaned up the flat sides of the hammer and trigger using fine sandpaper on a flat aluminum sanding block. Other important areas got polished including the ejector rod and body, the cylinder base pin, the cylinder pivot points and breech face. He also polished the trigger face with sandpaper and followed up with a buffing wheel. The forcing cone was then carefully chamfered and lapped.

The hammer spring was given a bit of thinning to lighten it. Roy points out spring coils should never be cut on a revolver as it changes the mechanical parameters and frequently causes misfires. Instead, Roy slipped the springs onto a metal rod and touched it against a belt sander to reduce the outside diameter a tiny amount. It works as none of the guns have so-far had a single misfire!

The loading gate on the Wrangler tends to be a little cantankerous so Roy stoned everything and ever-so-gently bent the spring to lighten it. He notes if the gate ever gets sloppy, you can bend the spring back a bit. On this gun, Roy left the cylinder round and kept the integral front sight.

The revolver was then sent out B-H Customs Inc. in Joplin, Missouri for the custom pink and purple Cerakote. Roy did this because he doesn’t trust himself around guns with rattle-cans. Upon its return, he added a spectacular set of Premium Gun Grips and My Dearest Sweetheart now had her very own pew-pew! I assure you she’s smitten!