Alan,
I'll lay no claim to being an expert at anything but being me :biggrin: There are a few things that need to be done to make a Ruger single action perform at its best. The gun you take home will be different than anyone else's so play around with it and see what it needs.
In the 45 Colt caliber, the cylinder throats need to be honed out to allow the use of bullets slightly larger than the bore. Typical Rugers run .450 to .451 in the bore. The cylinder throats on my 45 Colt Bisley were a mixed bag ranging from .449 to .450 the bore size was .451. These mixed size, smaller than the bore, throats give a bullet quite a ride. They expand in the cylinder, get crushed at the forcing cone and rattle down the bore. Lead bullets will have trouble with all this sizing and will leave their mark in the bore (read leading). Accuracy will suffer. The fix is easy. You can hone the throats at home with a few items from the hardware or have a good gunsmith hone them for you.
Trigger jobs will depend on the gun and the shooter. A trigger set at 2 pounds that breaks like a glass rod can hinder a shooter not familiar with such a light pull. A good shooter can over come all but the worst triggers. I shoot double action revolvers quite a bit so I don't go for light triggers. A complete action job is more luxury item than accuracy aid in most guns.
Taylor throating seems like it works from what I've read. Can you or I shoot well enough to see the difference? I can't. If I ever get good enough I may experiment with it. The cylinder gap, if excesive, will be fixed by Ruger.
For me, I shape the grips to fit my hand. Take the flair at the bottom off and round the grip behind the trigger guard. Just remove a little wood at a time and see what feels good. A little stain and polyurethane and you'll have a great looking, great feeling grips. A pistol that fits you will shoot better. I installed a Belt Mountain oversized base pin in my Bisley Vaquero. This takes up some of the play in the cylinder fit and in my case made cocking the hammer feel smoother. A ฦ.00 part goes a long way.
For now I'm leaving the trigger as it came from the factory, its quite nice. Because the front sight on the Vaquero is fixed I'm going to splurge and have a new sight dovetailed into the barrel. That'll give me the sight picture I want and windage adjustment if needed.
You might pick up your new gun, shoot it, and find that you don't need to do anything to it. In reality you don't need to do anything. But that would take all the fun out of it, wouldn't it.
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