Good buddy and fellow Inland Empire shooter Jose recently posted on Facebook about what has to be one of the best deals ever for a highly collectible Ruger No. 1 in .405 Winchester. Ruger produced only a small number of these rifles (I’ve only seen one in person at a gun show a few years ago). This one has exceptional walnut, which makes it even more desirable.
Here’s Jose’s story. Enjoy, my friends.
I’ve never had any desire to hunt African game and I probably never will. But I’ve enjoyed reading about the African plains rifles since I was a kid in junior high school. Bringing a copy of Guns & Ammo magazine to school would probably get you a quick trip to the principal’s office these days…but I digress.
Quite a few years ago I saw an old Ruger No.1 Tropical in the consignment rack of a small gun shop that is now long gone. The owner said, “just pick it up and feel the heft.” And of course, I did and the next thing you know we were talking price, knowing I would never pay $2,000 for a collectible Ruger No. 1. Shaun confided in me that the rifle’s owner couldn’t find the obsolete 405 ammo for it anywhere and he wasn’t a handloader, so he wanted to sell the rifle. Another problem with the rifle was that a previous owner had cut down the front sight, probably because he had been shooting handloads with .41 caliber pistol bullets. So we settled on $500 and I became the owner of my first “unobtainable” Ruger No. 1!
It took me a lot of searching over the past few years, but I finally located a set of 405 Win reloading dies, the shell holder, and all the components to bring this rifle back to life.
Hornady had made a run of new 405 Winchester brass and I was lucky enough to find a New Old Stock box of 50 shells. I also located some new Barnes .412, 300 grain TSX bullets.
The first step in restoring the old 1H Tropical was to contact Ruger and purchase a new gold bead front sight. That was a simple install as the blade is held in place by a small detent spring.
Not wanting to use the expensive Barnes TSX bullets quite yet, lead bullets were cast from lead wheel weights with a bit of tin added using a Lyman 412263 plain base mold to cast 288 grain bullets. These were sized to 0.413 inch and lubed with Alox. Lyman has since discontinued this fine old bullet mold.
Finally, yesterday morning I decided it was time to resurrect this old rifle! Besides, the project would give me the opportunity to test some old “salvage” Hodgdon 4198 powder I’ve had sitting on the shelf for nearly two decades. The powder is probably from the 1950s or early 1960s. I also had some ancient CCI 200 large rifle primers on hand.
I loaded 20 rounds of 405 Winchester ammo using the cast lead bullets and a starting load of 38.5 grains of 4198 and headed down the hill with good friend Yvon to an informal shooting range on BLM land.
Let me say that this Ruger No. 1H Tropical in 405 Winchester lives again. It shoots incredibly tight groups with the cast bullets and gold bead open sights.
My next project will be to develop a non-lead hunting load using the 300 grain Barnes TSX bullets.
Bringing life back into old obsolete rifles can be tons of fun.
That’s an awesome story, Jose, and thanks for allowing us to share it here on the ExNotes blog. Your No. 1 has to be one of the best deals ever. The dealer’s original asking price is probably what that rifle is worth if you could find one for sale. Well done, my friend.
More Tales of the Gun!
Craig Boddington has one, and has written several articles on its use with the 400 grain Hornady bullets for the .400 Jeffery on game as large as cape buffalo. His loads were NOT for use in either the new or original 1895 Winchester rifles. Mine does fine with Hornady factory loads. You may find the odd box of Hornady ammo at gun shows. and/or local gun shows or out of the way gun shops. Still
Ruger did a series of Boddington No. 1 rifles a few years ago. They are beautiful rifles. The 405 No. 1 rifles are very hard to find and they go for big bucks. Jose got a hell of a deal on his.
Hey Joe, a while back you gave me advice on kick starting the TT250, and since comments on that entry are now closed, I figured I’d thank you here. You were 100% correct, I was giving it too much choke and flooding it. Today was a 48 degree morning, and it surprised me by starting on the first kick, choke fully off.
I think I’d been using the choke purely out of habit; I’m Gen X, so most of my carburetor experience has been with lawn mowers and string trimmers that would not start at all without using the choke. The TT250 is clearly not nearly so cold-blooded.
Glad it worked out, Orv. The TT250 is a great motorcycle. Mine was always very easy to start and they are easy to maintain. I think it is one of CSC’s best-selling bikes. Somewhere on the CSC blog there’s a story of how it came to be. I may dig that one out and publish it again on the ExNotes blog.
Definitely easy to maintain, and the manual CSC publishes is very well done. Good parts availability too. You can do almost any job on it with just a half-dozen combination wrenches, a couple hex keys, and maybe a pair of pliers.
I bring the bike with me when we go van camping, and I get a lot of people curious about it. At first I wondered if I’d get some flak for riding a Chinese bike but I haven’t so far. People just seem intrigued and want to know what I paid, what I think of it, how many gears it has, etc.