Another change in production which took place a few months ago was a change in the material used in the trigger housing, which also incorporates the trigger guard. For most of the rifle’s life, this part has been made of aluminum. However, it is now made of polymer. It used to be that “plastic” meant “cheap”, and when a gun manufacturer went with a plastic part, it was done solely to save material costs. Today, this is not the case. High tech plastics have been used for many years to make gun parts, and in many cases, they are stronger and tougher than their aluminum counterparts. A good example is in AR-15 magazines. The traditional material for these is aluminum, but today polymer magazines are available that are much more durable than the aluminum mags. They also cost more than the aluminum magazines. Still, shooters, myself included, wanted to know why Ruger went from aluminum to polymer on the 10/22 trigger housing, so I asked. Ruger can do an aluminum trigger housing or a polymer one for about the same cost per unit. However, the aluminum parts are not consistent, so a whole rack of different small parts had to be stocked to accommodate the wide tolerances within that aluminum part. Trigger pulls were not consistent from rifle to rifle, and Ruger sought a better way. Ruger engineers tell me that the polymer housing is so consistent from part to part that they now only have one set of small parts for the internals of the trigger group, and that trigger pulls are very consistent from rifle to rifle. The polymer trigger housing/trigger guard comes out of the mold pretty much ready to go into the rifle. What surprised me was that they told me that the polymer trigger guard was tougher as well, and would not suffer damage if dropped to the extent that the aluminum unit did. They had tested this in a controlled environment, delivering the same blow to both parts, and the aluminum parts were damaged to a much greater extent than were the polymer parts. I wanted to see this for myself, so I went to the factory in New Hampshire to observe this firsthand.
Ruger has a fixture set up to do their drop tests on revolvers and pistols. We used this same fixture to drop a four and one-half pound weight directly upon the trigger guard portions of both the aluminum and polymer trigger housings. The video shows the results clearly. A standard 10/22 RB weighs in at about five pounds, so this 4.5 pound steel weight pretty much replicates what would happen to a 10/22 rifle if dropped directly upon its trigger guard onto a solid surface, such as steel or concrete. As the video and pictures show, the polymer unit takes the abuse much better than does its aluminum counterpart. From a height of two feet, the aluminum unit was badly bent. The polymer unit was undamaged. From three feet, the aluminum unit was cracked, and bent in enough to render the rifle inoperable. The polymer unit was only scratched. From four feet, the aluminum unit shattered, and the polymer unit suffered a small crack, but was still serviceable, and would not impede the operation of the rifle at all. Also, this was the same polymer unit that had already endured the two foot and three foot drops. We had to use a new aluminum unit for each of the tests. I was convinced. The polymer trigger housing is much tougher than the aluminum part. Still, being a traditionalist, old habits die hard for me. However, I do have to admit that realistically, polymer was the right choice that for that part, and is an improvement over the aluminum part, even if I do hate to admit it. Another plus for the polymer is that if it is scratched, it is the same color underneath, whereas the aluminum shows a scratch vividly.
), but this seems a bit...much? 
