I have a fixed sighted Vaquero that shoots about 5 inches left. Can anyone recomend any tricks to help me shoot it accuratley?

If you are shooting little groups and are a shooter that shoots other handguns on the money then a sight adjustment could be in order. This requires the barrel be turned. If you do not shoot it a lot or can live with the left grouping, nothing is needed. Your groups will change more as your hold changes.

Does the sight look off level in the sight picture? Are you shooting from a rest, or free hand?

Rock solid rest and I shoot alot of sixguns. Barrel turning is not something I could do myself is it?

Five inches left is quite a ways. Barrel turning will probably work but it has to be adjusted for one load. The best way to do it is get a dovetailed front sight installed. That way you can change the windage if you change loads. You can also file the rear sight notch wider on the right side but I dont think you can get 5 inches that way. If I get another fixed sight single action, I'm getting the dovetailed sight.

Barrel turning is not something I could do myself is it?Yes if you have a good stout vise, a set of frame blocks to support the frame where the barrel threads are, and a barrel wrench. Most of us wouldn't invest in this specialized equipment to make one adjustment.

Also, since you are shooting to the left, you will need the barrel turned clockwise (moving the front sight to the left) to move your POI to the right. Your barrel already butts up against the frame, so the rear end of the barrel would need to be turned down slightly ahead of the threads on a lathe in order to seat the barrel deeper. Finally, the frame end of the barrel needs to have the same amount of material taken off in order to maintain the proper barrel to cylinder face gap.

It may be easier to just bend the front sight to the left as this will be the final outcome anyway.

Easier still, and maybe your first course of action should be to contact Ruger and ask them to fix this problem.

You didn't mention at what distance you are shooting. Assuming you are shooting 5" to the left at 25 yards, you will be striking closer to the target at say 15 yards and closer yet as the distance decreases. If you can live with that, you won't have to do anything to your sights.

I've got a Vaquero that also shot left, can't remember exactly how much. Played around with the load a little and that helped. Think I was tinkering with 231 and Unique. Couldn't get it quite on so took a small file to right side of site groove (mine's a stainless) and widened it a little. That did the trick for me

5": left is a bunch if you are shooting at 50feet...if at 50yards, it's not impossible to self-correct without butchering the gun.

First thing to do is to be dead sure your grouping is consistant...try shooting off hand as well as benched. Shift your shooiting hand around so that your wrist lines up stright with your forearm; a lot of us tend to "monkey hand" the gun (get out of line with our fore arm) and that will tend to toss the group to the left.

Second thing I'd do is try differnt types of ammo and see if they are all consistantly to the left by that amount.

Last thing I'd do is cahnge the gun...but if you ahve to:

To fix can do a couple of things. Truning the barrel is one, but that's best done with an action wrench...somthing 99.99% of us do not have and are not willing to shell out the $ to get one.

The real key to turning the barrel is to have a GOOD set of barrel blocks and a BIG vice to clamp them in. Need that barrel not to roatate one little bit, has to be clamped solidly. Split hjard wood, form fitted, coated with rosin is tradtional...but I've used a "cheat" that works. Cerrosafe..the chamber casting metal.... Have put the barrel in the middle of a small tin can (V-8 juice can is about the right size), poured the chamber casting metal into the can (it melts at super low temperature). Once hardened, have viced up the metal blob with the barrel stuck in it. In place of the correct action wrench, have whitteled a the end of a 2 foot length of 4X4 to be a good fit to the fame opening. Want it to be hard wood and to fit the opening well with little room to move...that way it won't shift and put all it's pressure on one edge of the frame. Can easily melt the chamber casting material once you are done, without a bit of damage to the blue.

(they have some alloys that melt below the temp. of boiling water if you are nervous about excessive heat)

Another fix is more drastic, bujt easier to do. I HATE bent sights...I want them sitting straight up and down or I'll tend to cant the gun to match the front sight.

So I've cut out a shim of steel the exact profile of the front sight. Soft soldered it to the side (in your case, the left side) of the front sight. Can use low temperature soft solder and solder black for the joint line. This makes the sight a bit fat...fat enough to stone the right side to get that bullet impact to move over and still leave a full thickness front sight when you are done.