I live in Southern Oregon and I’m retired, happily married, and I have more interests than my wallet can handle. Aside from my small accumulation of Rugers that I am trying to grow, I used to have a hot rod shop, with my true passion being vintage Jeeps. With late model power train swaps. As if that isn’t enough, I also dabble in photography. And my wife has horses…
I have been interested in guns since I was old enough to put caps in them. Over the years I have had many come and go- but for the last five years I have been concentrating on “keepers”. I went through the tactical phase and training, and I still have a bunch of HK pistols and a couple of purpose built AR’s. In the early 90’s I built many “custom” 10/22’s. I had a fixture for opening up the stock to fit a .920 barrel, I would bed the barrel and float the action as that gave great results back then. Volquartsen internals with light triggers rounded out the package. I made
Some good money for a while doing that. Believe it or not, I don’t currently own a 10/22 as both my son and son-in-law wanted one… I do have an American Rimfire that is perfect for me. I don’t burn through ammo too fast that way. I also have a bunch of lever guns, from .22 Henry’s to 45-70 Remlin. There’s a new Ruger Marlin in there, with a couple of JM’s also.
Ok, on to the good stuff. Back in the early 80’s, I traded into a .357 Blackhawk- but I couldn’t get the hang of it due to my huge hands. (XXL glove size). So it went down the road, and it took until 2021 for my interest to rekindle. I’ll blame the movie “Tombstone” and a rum and coke or two- but I found a 1968 Super Blackhawk in great shape, in the box from a gentleman over on Rugerform. And so it began. While I was waiting on UPS, I found a NM Blackhawk and a New Vaquero…and also Ronnie Wells at RWGripframes. I bought a few more NM’s and tricked them out. But I had developed a love for the original Old Models. A couple years later, after buying a NM Single Six and fixing it up, I got several comments “now you need an OM Single Six”. I found a nice 1955 on GunBroker and I was ruined. I had to get a couple of 1960’s- a RSS5W and a RSSMW. THEN A 1963 that would not letter- no record found per Linda. Next a 1964 RSSMX. Next, I found one of my favorites- a 1965 RSS5X in the most vivid shade of plum.
I also purchased another Super Blackhawk from the gentleman on Ruger Forum- the serial was in the 1960 range but it lettered as an early 61. This out of sequence date got me curious. I started doing more research into serial numbers and bought several books by Dougan and also “Ruger and His Guns”. So much info to digest!
My next acquisition is one of my favorites. I had been watching a 1968 SC5 on GunBroker. The pictures were poor, but there was something stamped in front of the serial number. It looked like a “D”. I called Linda in records but she said that the spreadsheet didn’t show a “D”. She asked me to call back in a couple of days. When I did, she said she found the original shipping document and confirmed the it was a “D” gun after all. She emailed a copy of the document and the letter also reflects the “D”. Well, after the initial phone conversation I checked the auction- the seller had relisted with a lower price so I snapped it up. Turns out, per RENE, it might be the only SC5 in that particular serial number sequence that is a “D” gun. There was a paragraph about it in Volume 41, Number 2 pg 3588. RENE called it an occasional one-only duplicate error. Serial is cool too- D553553.
Wow…if any of you are still reading this, I thank you. Then again, you might be really bored… I guess I should wrap it up.
Most recently, I brought a 1966 Bearcat home. So cool. Then, at the other end of the spectrum, a 1959 RSS9 followed me home.
I posted on RugerForum that I forgot to bid on a Single Six at an auction, and that it went for relatively cheap and was a LWSC. Well, Jay razzed me a bit ( very friendly, I might add). Then he offered me a 1957 LWAC for a must-buy price. Thank you again, Jay!
Ok, that’s pretty much it for now. If you made it this far, thank you. There will be a quiz tomorrow.
