Rugged Rugers

Guns Magazine, Jan, 2004 by Dave Anderson

The emergence of Sturm, Ruger & Co. as perhaps our pre-eminent firearms manufacturer is a remarkable story. In 1949 production started in the now-famous (and still standing) "little red barn" in Connecticut making just one item, a .22 semiautomatic pistol. Today no other firearms company in America--nor in the world--has a more comprehensive product line.

It doesn't matter whether your interest is hunting for big game, small game, waterfowl or upland game; in target shooting--bullseye, metallic silhouette, or sporting clays; in personal or home defense, police or military use, smokeless or black powder. There is a Ruger firearm that will meet your needs.

Simplicity of design, reliability, ease of maintenance and value have always been Ruger hallmarks. Ruger firearms have another quality as well. They always seem overbuilt. Critical components always seem a little more massive, a little tougher than they really need to be. To the buyer that means durability. Rugers just don't seem to wear out. You can break them, if you work at it, but otherwise they just seem to go on and on.

If I were ever stranded in a remote area, with one gun and lots of ammunition, but no spare parts or repair facilities, the one gun of my choice would be a Ruger Vacquero revolver, stainless steel, 7 1/2-inch barrel, in .45 Colt with a selection of reloads from birdshot to heavy cast bullets. One more gun? I'd add long range capability with a Ruger No. 1 single shot, stainless steel, laminated stock in .3011 Weatherby. I wouldn't expect much to go wrong. There's not a lot that can go wrong.

First Of Many

The first Ruger long gun was the .44 carbine introduced in 1961. The carbine illustrated the economic principle that supply creates its own demand. Hunters may not have been beating down doors demanding light .44 semiauto rifles but once they were there, they found a use for them. Obviously the .44 Magnum is a short-range cartridge and it was pro-rooted as such. Ruger ads stated that in this "era of specialization" the carbine was ideal for a specific purpose deer hunting in heavy cover. Hunters found it was a useful tool for other medium game where ranges were short, such as black bear over bait or wild hogs hunted with hounds.

Big game fishermen found the little carbine was handy for knocking off sharks that tried to munch on their trophy marlin, and easy to store on a boat. Lawmen such as the late Skeeter Skelton found it a useful item to stow in the patrol car. The carbine remained in production for 25 years.

Legendary Success Story

Ruger's next long gun (19641 was another hit. Actually it was an out-of-the-park home run. The 10/22 was a .22 rimfire similar in appearance to the .44 but with a foolproof 10-shot rotary magazine. A more reliable and durable .22 has never been built. J.B. Wood wrote, "from a troubleshooting standpoint the 10/22 is a nightmare. Nothing ever goes wrong with it!" (Gun Digest, 30th Edition). The 10/22 was an instant success and remains so to this day. Try advertising a used 10/22 for sale and see how long it lasts.

Currently there are 10 variations of the 10/22 in .22 LR, plus one in .22 Magnum. These include both blue and stainless steel, walnut, laminated, and synthetic stock standard and heavy barrels. The newest model, the Target Stainless-Steel, was no doubt influenced by the exotic designs used by competitors in the Sportsman's Challenge event.

Unexpected Development

After 1964 the rifle world realized that Ruger was the company to watch for innovative designs. What would be next, a bolt action sporter, an automatic shotgun, a lever action? Once again, in the fall of 1966, Ruger succeeded in shaking up our world. A single shot rifle? An expensive single shot rifle with high grade wood and classic lines? Who would buy a single shot that cost nearly twice as much as a Remington 700 or Winchester 70?

As it turned out, a lot of people. The Ruger No. 1 was another rifle shooters didn't know they wanted until they saw it. The No. 1 and the bolt action model 77 that followed two years later were profoundly important and influential designs. They led to the acceptance of investment casting as a respected and normal manufacturing technique. Their simple, classic stocks would mark the beginning of away from the flamboyant "California" stock style back to the classic.

The shooting press had been telling us that true rifle quality was largely a thing of the past. Good rifles required skilled machinists and hand work; labor was increasingly expensive; ergo, there would be no more really good rifles. I still recall the despair I felt as a penniless teenager in the mid-'60s. I knew that by the time I finished college and had some money all the good rifles from the old days would be bought up and I'd never be able to own one.

In reality, of course, what we were seeing was the twilight of one type of technology and the emergence of another. Investment casting had been developed in the 1930s in Germany and was slowly starling to catch on. The overhead costs of adapting to this technology were rather high, but once established it proved an extremely efficient way to produce high quality, complicated palls at reasonable cost.