I decided it was high time to quit looking at spreadsheets and matrices trying to decide between .44 or .45, fixed or adjustable sights, what price range I wanted to stick to and generally overthinking the whole damn thing.
I called the LGS with the .44 birds head Vaquero this morning to see if it was still there. When they said it was, I said I'd swing by after work. For $660+tax it was worth going back to look at. As I was looking at it, on a whim I asked if members still got a discount and if so was it just on new guns. The counter guy said it was just the top tier membership (I'm on the middle tier). Since it was still a good price I wasn't going to complain but then the lead associate or whatever he is said the store had run a 3 day 10% off special but corporate didn't really advertise it so very few customers knew about it. He said they hadn't told him to stop offering it so he gave me the discount. Ended up at $640 OTD for a gently used Ruger 10596 TALO exclusive!
Even though it's only going to see Specials and Russians, I'm going to replace the grip frame with a plow handle. I'm also researching how to nitre blue the screws and pins. Another possibility is having the front sight milled off and a Novak dovetail cut. I can't remember where I saw it, but someone had that done then installed a custom blank so they could file it to the needed height for their particular load. Once that was done they could order whatever fancy 1911 sight they wanted at the correct height.