By Joe Cota
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.
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An awesome rifle and an awesome story, Joe. I love those Ruger No. 1s. Never owned a .405 Winchester. Tell you what…and I’m only doing this because I’m a friend…I’ll give the $500 you paid for it to buy it from you.
Well, thank you Joe B. I can’t possibly part with this old .405 Win Ruger No. 1H Tropical until after I get it all completely figured out. As mentioned, the next step is to develop a non-lead bullet load for it. Well, the good news is that after waiting for over two years on backorder, Midway got some 300 Grain Barnes TSX bullets in .405 Win back in stock last month. I ordered a couple boxes of 50 each the minute I got the notification and have them in hand now. Should have ordered more, because the next time I checked (like the day I received my shipment) they were already on “out of stock, no backorder” status. So I put another notification request in and who knows, in a couple of years i might get lucky and hear from them! You know, commercial bullets of any kind in .411 diameter for .405 Win are pretty much unobtainable these days. I’m sure glad to have found that super rare Ideal #412263 .405 Winchester bullet mold. Lyman made them for a while have been on “discontinued” status for decades as near as I can tell. Mine is ancient, made by the Ideal Bullet Co. probably over 70 years ago, and boy does that cast some nice bullets. A shooter really cannot own a rifle in .405 Win without also being bullet caster.
But anyhow, you are first in line to buy my beat up old Ruger No.1, that is, AFTER I get it all figured out. It could be a while. Fair warning, I have something over 100 firearms and every one of them are up for grabs just as soon as I get them figured out. I load for them all and can’t say I’m done perfecting any one of them. Let’s see, in my entire life I’ve only sold one gun. Seriously, one gun. This was about 5 or so years ago. It was a brand spanking new Browning Buck Mark .22 LR semiauto pistol. I have my share of 22LR handguns from single-sixes, to Ruger Marks, to Hi Standard semiautos. I love them all, but how I hated that flippin’ Browning Buck Mark!!! There is absolutely nothing right about that gun. I hated it so badly a good buddy said he wanted to buy it for his young daughter, and I said SOLD! But that’s another story for another time…
Joe C
Sorry Berk, you’re stiffing him the price of the replacement sight and the die set…
Cota, I’ll give you $600 so you don’t feel screwed over by Berk. I’m a nice guy that way!
Seriously, that’s a great looking stock, and the Ruger No. 1’s are gorgeous rifles to begin with. Great purchase on your part!
LOL! Thanks GB. What’s not to like about the Ruger No.1 rifle, right?
What a beautiful rifle. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Ron! My notes that I called Ruger back in 2021 to buy the front sight and they told me that the rifle had originally shipped in November 2023. I wish I had thought to ask them at the time how many in .405 Winchester were made. Maybe I’ll call back in the future to see if they know.
Cheers
Joe C
I gather the more powerful Ruger #1’s were on the list of guns Canada recently tried to ban by Amendment to their “Assault Weapon” ban. Figures that when you live in the woods surrounded by Brown Bear and Bullwinkle that you’d only want a 22.
That is a surprise. I guess you have stupid politicians, too.