Made in the 200th Year of American Liberty

A .458 Win Mag No. 1

By Joe Berk

About 20 years ago I bought a .458 Ruger No. 1, but until recently, I had not shot it.

I first saw a .458 No. 1 when I was in the Army at Fort Bliss, Texas. Bob Starkey (who owned Starkey’s Guns in El Paso) had one, and that rifle was stunning. I had just bought a .45 70 No. 1 from Bob and I didn’t have the funds to buy the .458. But man, I sure wanted it.

Bob Starkey’s personal .458 Win Mag was a custom rifle built on a 1903 Springfield action. I asked Bob what firing it was like. “Well,” he said, “you’re glad when it’s over.” Call me a glutton for punishment, but I immediately knew two things:

- - I had to have a .458, and
  - Someday I would.

I’ve since owned several .458 Win Mags, including a Winchester Model 70 African (long gone), a Browning Safari Grade (it was a beautiful rifle based on a Mauser action; I’m sorry I let that one go), a Remington 798 (also based on a Mauser action), and my Ruger Model 77 Circassian. Every one of those .458 rifles was surprisingly accurate. If you reload and you’ve ever thought of buying a .458, trust me on this: Take the plunge. With cast or jacketed bullets and light loads, .458 Winchester Magnum rifles are very easy to shoot.

Back to the main attraction: My .458 No. 1. Technically, the Ruger .458 No. 1 is called a Ruger No. 1H. The H designates what Ruger calls their Tropical rifle; I’m guessing the Tropical’s heavier barrel means the H stands for heavy. The .458 No. 1 is big, it is heavy, and it just looks like it means business. You might say it’s the Norton Scrambler of elephant guns.

When I saw this No. 1 advertised on the Gunbroker.com auction site, it pushed all the buttons for me. It was a .458, it had beautiful walnut, it had the older red recoil pad (a desirable feature), it had the 200th year inscription, and it had the early Ruger No. 1 checkering pattern.

Every once in a while over the last two decades I’d haul the .458 out of the safe to admire it, but I had never fired it. I was thinking about that a couple of weeks ago, and I decided my failure to get the No. 1 on the range was a character flaw I needed to correct.

With my light .458 Win Mag reloads, the No. 1 grouped about 12 inches above the point of aim at 50 yards. When I examined the rifle more closely, I saw that the rear sight was abnormally tall compared to the rear sights on my other No. 1 Rugers, and it was already in its lowest setting. Evidently the previous owner discovered the same thing (i.e., the rifle shoots high), he took the rear sight all the way down, and then he sold it when it still shot too high. Lucky for me.

My first thought was that the forearm was exerting undue upward pressure on the barrel. I loosened the screw securing the forearm to address this and tried firing it again, but it made no difference. It wasn’t the forearm that was causing the rifle to shoot high.

I realized I needed either a lower rear sight or a taller front sight. The rear sight was already bottomed out, so I couldn’t go any lower with it. I think Ruger put the taller rear sight on the .458 to compensate for the recoil with factory ammo. I have some 500-grain factory ammo so I could fire a few rounds and find out, but I don’t want to beat myself up. The heavier and faster factory ammo bullets get out of the barrel faster than my lighter and slower loads. With factory ammo the muzzle doesn’t rise as much before the bullet exits the bore, so with factory ammo the rear sight has to be taller to raise the point of impact. At least that’s what I think is going on. The bottom line is the factory ammo shoots lower than my lighter, slower loads.

The factory .458 load is a 500-grain bullet with a muzzle velocity of 2000 feet per second. Those loads are designed to DRT an elephant (DRT stands for “Dead Right There”). My needs are different: I want a load that makes small groups in paper targets while drawing ooohs and ahs from everyone on the range (you know, because I am shooting small groups with a .458 Win Mag). Doing so with lighter loads on paper targets keeps both me and Dumbo happy.

If you are reading this and thinking I was obsessing about this situation, you would be correct. I don’t know why, but when a gun is misbehaving I tend to get tunnel vision. I continued to look at the rear sight and started thinking. I knew I needed it to be lower by about a tenth of an inch, so I thought perhaps instead of using a sight picture where the front bead was concentric with the U in the rear sight blade, I could rest the bottom of the front sight’s gold bead lower in the rear sight. I fired five shots with a normal sight picture and then another five with my “lower in the rear sight” concept, and son of a gun, the two groups were right on top of each other. Both were still about a foot above the point of aim (which was 6:00 on the bullseye). What they say about peep sights is true, I guess. Your eye will naturally center the front sight as you squeeze the trigger.

Out there on the range, I kept thinking about this as I stared at the rear sight. It was a nice day and I was the only guy out there. An idea hit me. The rear sight blade is removable (it’s held in place by two screws that loosen to move the blade up or down), and the rear sight leaf (to which the blade attaches) has a much wider and deeper U. Could I remove the blade altogether and use the wider and lower U of the rear sight frame as the rear sight notch?

I had my gunsmith’s tool kit with me and I took the two tiny screws out (the smallest screwdriver in the kit did the trick). I was sweating bullets (pardon the pun) about dropping either of those screws (I knew if I did I’d never find them), but the screwdriver blade is magnetized and it held onto them. With the sight blade removed, I fired five rounds, and voilà, I was in the black. I fired another five, and they went right on top of the first five. The group size, with open sights at 50 yards from a .458 Win Mag, wasn’t too bad. In fact, it was essentially identical to the group size with the rear sight blade in place.

I knew I needed to lower the rear sight, but by how much? The Ruger’s sight radius is 17 inches (the distance from the front sight to the rear sight), and the distance to the target (on which the group was about 12 inches high) was 50 yards. Remember when your junior high school teacher told you that algebra would come in handy someday and you didn’t believe him? Well, today was that day for me. Here’s how it shakes out:

(distance rear sight must be lowered)/(sight radius) =
(12 inches)/(5o yards)

Solving for the distance the rear sight must be lowered (let’s call it x), we have:

x = (12 inches)*(17 inches)/(50 yards*36 inches/yard) = 0.1133 inches

My first thought was to call the Williams Gun Sight company because I assumed Williams made the sights for Ruger. I’ve worked with Williams before and I knew they have excellent customer service. When I called them, I learned that they didn’t make the sights for my Ruger. The guy who took my call had a reference document and he told me that in the early No. 1 days, Marble made the sights. I called Marble, but I struck out there, too. The Marble’s sight base is different than the Ruger’s. While all this was going on, I examined the rear sight more closely and I saw a small Lyman stamp on it. So I contacted Lyman. Their guy told me they haven’t made sights for the Ruger No. 1 in decades.

At that point in my quest to find a lower rear sight, I was up to Strike 3 or maybe Strike 4, so I called Ruger directly. The pleasant young lady I spoke with at Ruger told me they could not sell me a lower replacement sight for my .458 No. 1; they can only sell what originally came on the rifle. So I told them I wanted a replacement rear sight for my .30 06 No. 1 (it has a much lower rear sight). I had to give them a serial number for my .30 06 (which I did), and they were happy to go with that. Ruger charged me $20 for the replacement.

After a week’s wait, I had my lower rear sight from Ruger. I drifted the old rear sight out with a brass punch and I installed the new one. The distance from the top of the old (tall) sight to the sight base is 0.505 inches. The distance from the top of the new (lower) sight to its base is 0.392 inches. Subtracting one from the other (i.e., 0.505 inches – 0.392 inches), I found the new rear sight was exactly 0.113 inches lower than the old rear sight. My calculation was that the rear sight needed to be lower 0.1133 inches lower. The fact that my calculation is almost exactly equal to how much lower the new rear sight is has to be coincidental. I just love it when things work out. Mathematically, that is. You might be wondering how the new rear sight worked out on the range. Quite well, thank you.

The first three shots through the .458 Winchester Magnum Ruger No. 1 with the new rear sight at 50 yards, without making any sight adjustments. I simply drifted the rear sight into the No. 1’s quarter rib and centered it by eye. All three shots would be scored in the X-ring.

You know, if I had mounted a scope all the above would have gone away. The scope would probably have enough adjustment range to compensate for the rifle shooting high. But a scope seems somehow out of place on an elephant gun, and I like shooting with open sights. I’ve read a lot of comments from older guys describing how they need a scope to cope with their aging eyes. I’m certainly an older guy with the inevitable attendant vision degradation, but I’ve gone the opposite way. I find shooting with open sights makes me feel younger, and getting tight groups with open sights is its own reward. I first learned to shoot a rifle using open sights, and doing so again makes me feel like a kid.

Next up will be trying a few shots at 100 yards. Stay tuned.

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Ruger’s .357 Magnum Blackhawk

If I had to select one handgun above all others, my choice would be easy. It’s Ruger’s .357 Magnum Blackhawk. I don’t have one, but that’s something I aim to fix in the near term. I’m watching two .357 Blackhawks on the auction block right now. One is that drop dead gorgeous brass frame Old Model you see in the big photo above. That one is not just any Blackhawk, either. It was previously owned by Hank Williams, Junior.

The Hank Williams Blackhawk has a lot going for it. It’s the Old Model Blackhawk, which has a feel when cocked similar to a Colt Single Action Army. There’s the provenance (this one has a letter attesting to its prior ownership and its factory brass grip frame). And, there’s that rare (and highly desirable) brass grip frame. Ruger only made a few of those.

Winning the auction for the Hank Williams Blackhawk is a long shot. My backup is to buy a new Blackhawk, and I have my eye on the one shown in the photo below.

A new New Model Ruger .357 Blackhawk with a 6 1/2-inch barrel.

I guess I need to go tangential for a minute and explain this business about Old Model and New Model Blackhawks. The basic difference between the Old Model and the New Model is that the Old Model can fire if you drop it on a hard surface. The New Model incorporates a transfer bar to prevent that from happening. You should carry an Old Model with the hammer resting on an empty chamber; you can safely carry a New Model with all six chambers loaded. Naturally, geezers like me prefer the look and feel of the Old Model (and we tend not to drop our guns), but the new Model Model is every bit as good and every bit as accurate. Geezers just like old stuff.

I found a used 200th year stainless steel one on Gunbroker about a dozen years ago, I won the auction for it, and I ran the equivalent of a lead mine’s annual output down the bore (including some ultra-heavy 200-grain loads). I am the only guy I know who wore out a .357 Blackhawk. The loading latch wouldn’t stay open, and when I returned it for repair to Ruger, they were as amazed as I was that I wore it out. It was beyond repair, they told me, but as a good will gesture they paid me what I paid for it. Nobody, but nobody, has better customer service than Ruger.

A 25-yard group with the .357 Blackhawk. The Blackhawk will do this all day long.

Part of the reason the .357 Blackhawk I describe above went south, I think, is that it was stainless steel. I have it in my mind that stainless steel is softer than blued carbon steel, and I think they just don’t hold up as well under a steady diet of heavy loads. That’s why my next .357 Blackhawk will be blue steel.

To me, the Blackhawk is a “do anything” .357 Magnum. It’s a good buy in today’s inflated world, it’s a solid defense round, you can hunt with it, and it is accurate. I like the longer barrel for the sight radius. You can believe this or not, but I can easily hit targets at 100 yards with a .357 Blackhawk and the right load.

It’s been at least a couple of years now that I’ve been without a .357 Blackhawk, and like I said, I aim to fix that problem. I’ll let you know which of the above two guns (a brand new blue steel Blackhawk, or the Hank Williams Old Model) I pick up. Most likely it won’t be the Hank Williams revolver (competition and bidding will be intense on that one and it will probably be too rich for my blood), but the New Model will make me just as happy. Good times lie ahead. Stay tuned.

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A Tale of Two Bicentennial No. 1 Rugers

I’ve been a Ruger No. 1 fan for close to 50 years. It started with one I’ve written about before, and that is a Ruger No. 1A chambered in the awesome .30 06 Government cartridge. I’ve spent time on the range and I’ve hunted with this rifle, and it is probably my all-time favorite firearm.

What attracted me to the No. 1 was my father’s fascination with the rifle (he never owned one, but he wanted to), the beautiful and exquisitely figured walnut Ruger used on these rifles, and their style. To me, they just look right. My fixation started in 1976. Ruger roll-stamped every firearm they manufactured with “Made in the 200th Year of American Liberty” that year.

Rugers with this roll-marked stamp are known as Liberty or Bicentennial guns.

Like I said, the walnut on my Ruger .30 06 is exquisite on both sides.

As I said, the highly-figured walnut is exquisite on both sides of this .30 06.

The Ruger No. 1 came in different configurations, and the ones you see here are what Ruger called the 1A. They had 22-inch barrels, iron sights, and the Alex Henry fore end (that’s the fore end with the notch at the front). There are all sorts of suppositions about what why the notch was originally included on the Farquharson rifles that influenced the Ruger No. 1 design, but no one seems to know for sure. I just like the look of the thing. To me, these rifles are elegant. They’re not particularly light, but they’re short and it’s easy to get around in the woods with one. Back in the day, I bought a straight 4X Redfield scope and a still prefer a 4X non-variable scope for hunting (even though it’s tough to find one these days; high-powered variable scopes are all the rage).

Those west Texas days back in the ’70s were good. We spent a lot of time (essentially every weekend) out in the desert north of Fabens chasing jackrabbits and coyotes, and the No. 1 you see here sent a lot of those critters to the Promised Land. Jackrabbits were grand fun. It was hard to believe how big some of them were.

The accuracy load for my .30 06 No. 1 is the 130-grain Hornady jacketed softpoint bullet over a max load of IMR 4320 propellant. IMR 4320 is no longer in production, but I’ve got about 10 pounds of it so I’m good for a while. The rifle will put that load into an inch at 100 yards all day long, and the 130 grain Hornady bullet seems to be perfect for jackrabbits. Yeah, I know, that’s maybe a little more power than needed for Peter Cottontail, but hey, like Donald Rumsfeld used to say: You go to war with the army you have.

The .30 06 also does well with other loads. I was on the range with the ammo I had on hand a week or so ago with heavier bullets and I was pleased with the results. I tried 180 grain Remington bullets loaded on top of 48.0 grains of IMR 4064. Those loads shot low and had perceptibly heavier recoil, but they grouped under an inch at 100 yards.

Three shots at 100 yards with the Ruger .30 06 No. 1A. The load was the 180 grain Remington jacketed soft point bullet and 48.0 grains of IMR 4064, with military brass and a CCI 200 primer.

The title of this blog is A Tale of Two Bicentennial No. 1 Rugers, and that brings us to the second rifle. I was in Ohio on a secret mission about 15 years ago and the guy I visited there learned of my interest in guns. He took me to a local shop that only sold through an online auction (that was the gunshop’s business model). When we arrived, I quickly noticed another Ruger No. 1A, this time chambered in .243 Winchester. It was a bicentennial rifle, it looked to be a near twin to my .30 06 1A, and I had to have it. I tried to buy it while I was there and have shipped to my FFL holder in California, but the owner confirmed what my friend told me…I had to bid on it at auction. I did, and I won the auction at $650. Bear in mind that these rifles’ list price in 1976 was $265, and they typically sold at $239 back then. If you think I got scalped, think again. I won the auction, and the MSRP on these rifles today is something around $2,000. And the ones made back in the 1970s are, in my opinion, of much higher quality in terms of walnut figure, checkering, and other attributes.

A .243 Winchester Ruger No. 1. It wears a period correct El Paso Weaver 4×12 telescopic sight.

Ruger used to put fancy walnut on the No. 1 rifles. Today, not so much.

A fancy walnut, red pad Ruger No. 1. Sweet!

Like the .30 06 No. 1 featured above, this .243 is also a Liberty gun.

Most recently, good buddy John gave me a bunch of assorted brass and I started loading bits and pieces of it. I loaded the .30 40 Krag and wrote about it a week or so ago. There were a few pieces of .243 Winchester brass and that had me thinking about the .243 No. 1 in this blog. You see, I bought that rifle, stuck it in the safe, and never fired it. That was a character flaw I knew I needed to address.

I thought I had a set of .243 dies, but I was surprised to find I did not. I had some ammo, so I guess at some point I had .243 dies. I bought a new set of Lee dies, and I already had some .243 bullets. And as it turns out, the Lyman reloading manual lists IMR 4350 as the accuracy load for 60 grain bullets, and I had some. I only loaded six rounds (using the brass John gave to me), and I thought I needed to buy .243 brass (everybody is sold out of .243 brass right now). Then I started poking around in my brass drawer and it turns out I have five boxes of new Winchester 243 brass. I swear I’m gonna find Jimmy Hoffa or an honest politician in my components storage area one of these days.

The Tula factory ammo I had didn’t shoot worth a damn. Tula is cheap ammo, this stuff was old, and it grouped around 2.9 to 3.5 inches at 100 yards. I also had some very old reloads that had 100 grain Sierra bullets and 34.0 grains of IMR 4064, and it did only marginally better. The six rounds I loaded myself with the brass good buddy John provided was better. At least I think it was better. I used 65 grain Hornady V-Max bullets and 43.2 grains of IMR 4350 powder. I had one good group and one lousy group. But hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I’m just getting started. I’ll buy some heavier 6mm bullets (.243 is 6mm), I’ll try them with a few different loads, and you’ll get to read about it here on the ExNotes blog.

More stories on Ruger single-shot rifles (the No. 1 and the No. 3) are here.

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A .30-40 Krag Ruger No. 3

I am a fan of both the No. 1 and the No. 3 Ruger single shot rifles. The No. 1 is the more elegant rifle with a fancier lever, a pistol grip stock, checkering, a rubber shoulder pad, a slick quarter rib, fancier walnut, and more. The No.3 was the economy version without checkering, plain walnut, an aluminum (and later plastic) shoulder pad, and a no frills look. When I started collecting these rifles in 1976, the No. 1 was chambered in contemporary cartridges and priced at $265. The No. 3 came in classic chamberings; in 1976 that included .22 Hornet, .30-40 Krag, and .45-70. Ruger listed the No. 3 at $165, and you could buy them all day long for $139. Which I did. In 1976, I bought No. 3 rifles in all three chamberings. All had the “Made in the 200th Year of American Liberty” inscription.

Take a look at the finish on this Ruger No. 3. It’s better than how they came from the factory.

I was younger and dumber in those days, and I stupidly sold all three rifles within a year of purchasing them. The Hornet went to Army buddy Jim, the .45-70 went to another Army buddy also named Jim, and the .30-40 was traded for something else I can’t remember. If you’re reading this blog, you realize the phrase “stupidly sold” is redundant. We have all sold guns we wish we kept.

Ruger has to have one of the best fonts ever for chambering designation.

I wanted to undo the wrong I did, and about 15 years ago I started a search to replace my No. 3 rifles. The .45-70 was the easiest to find and the .22 Hornet followed shortly thereafter. The prices had gone up (used, they were going for about $650-$700 back then). The .30-40 Krag was tougher to find. I’m assuming it was because Ruger made fewer of them. Then I spotted something I had to have: An unfired .30-40 No. 3 advertised on Gunbroker, and it had significantly nicer wood then No. 3 rifles typically have. I had to own it and I paid top dollar. When I called the shop, I used my American Express card instead of a certified check because I was eager to get it. I had to pay a 4% premium, but that turned out to be a good thing (more on that in a second).

Unusually highly-figured walnut on a No. 3 Ruger.

The shop that sold it to me did something stupid. They shipped the rifle in the original box with no additional padding and they didn’t insure it. You could get away with shipping a No. 1 Ruger in the original box, as they were stout and contained big pieces of foam padding. The No. 3 had a flimsy cardboard box in keeping with the No. 3’s lower price. You can guess where this story is going.

A view of the No. 3’s port side at the West End Gun Club.

Yep, the rifle arrived with the stock broken at the wrist. Wow. The wood was as beautiful as it looked in the Gurnbroker.com ad, but it was busted. I had a brand new, unfired 200th year No. 3 in .30-40 Krag with nice wood and its collector value was ruined. Like the box, I was crushed.

I called the shop owner, who turned out to be a real prick. “It’s your problem, and it’s between you and the US Post Office,” he told me. “You didn’t tell me to insure it, so I didn’t. Once it leaves here, it’s yours.” I told him I was going to have the stock repaired and I offered to split the cost with him, but he kept repeating his mantra: Once it leaves here, it’s yours.

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I told this sad story the next day during our usual geezer gathering at Brown’s BMW in Pomona, and good buddy Dave asked if the gun shop had asked me about insurance. “Nope, he never asked and I didn’t mention having it insured. I guess I just assumed it would be.” Dave explained that I was right to make that assumption, so I called the shop owner again, I explained to him I had learned about insurance responsibilities, and I again offered to split the repair cost. He said no again.

Then I remembered I had used my credit card. I called American Express, I explained the situation, and I told them it would cost about $275 to have the stock repaired and refinished. Not a problem, the guy on the other end of the line said, and just like that, he took $275 off the charge and said that the shop owner had 30 days to appeal. He didn’t, and that was that.

I sent the rifle off and when it came back I was both pleased and disappointed. I had asked the place I use for such work to match the original Ruger finish, but they did not. Instead, it was a much deeper and more glorious oil finish. It was nicer than the original finish, but it wasn’t original. That was good news and bad news. I had planned to keep the gun in its unfired condition, but now that it was busted, repaired, and refinished, it would be a shooter (that was the good news).

You can just barely see where the crack was in the stock wrist, but that’s because I used flash for this photo. In normal light, you really can’t see it.

I didn’t shoot the No. 3 immediately. This all happened 15 years ago before I retired and before COVID hit. I recently decided I needed to shoot the .30-40, so I ordered unprimed brass and Lee’s Ultimate four die set. Both were initially unavailable, but they came in and I was in business. I already had large rifle primers, a stash of what has to be one of the best powders ever for cast bullets (SR 4759), and a bunch of 173-grain gas checked bullets.

.30-40 Krag ammo in new brass, loaded by yours truly.

I seated the cast bullets to the crimping groove and used the Lee factory crimp die, and the cartridges looked great. I tried a number of different SR 4759 powder charge levels in the Lyman cast bullet manual. When I fired on the 50-yard line at the West End Gun Club using the rifle’s open sights, I found that 20.0 grains of SR 4759 is my accuracy load.

I held at 6:00, and the rounds shot very close to point of aim at 50 yards. The target was mounted on its side, as you see it here.

Very modest bore leading in the No. 3. That SR 4759 load with the 173-grain bullet is accurate even with the Ruger’s factory iron sights.

The .30-40 Krag is an interesting cartridge. It was the US Army’s standard chambering after they phased out the .45-70 Springfield. The new rifle was the 1892 Krag-Jorgensen rifle made at the Springfield Arsenal. It was the first military cartridge designed for smokeless (as opposed to black) powder, and it originally fired a 230-grain jacketed bullet. The .30-40 is a rimmed cartridge that looks a lot like the 7.62x54R Russian cartridge (which came out just one year earlier). The ballistics of both are fairly close to the .308 Winchester (which is the 7.62 NATO round we currently use).

.45-70, .30-40 Krag, 7.62x54R Russian, .308 Winchester (7.62 NATO), .30 06, and .300 Weatherby cartridges. The .300 Weatherby is the fiercest recoiling cartridge in the group when loaded with jacketed bullets at factory velocities (the cartridge shown here is loaded with a cast bullet). With the exception of the .300 Weatherby, Gatling guns have been chambered in each of these cartridges. Modern mini-guns are electrically-powered Gatlings chambered in 7.62 NATO (.308 Winchester).

After our experiences in the Spanish-American War, our government load plant created and issued a hotter version of the .30-40 Krag in an attempt to match the speed and ballistics of the Spanish 7mm Mauser round, but the Krag rifles started cracking bolts. All the .30-40 Krag ammo was recalled and reconfigured with the original, lower pressure load. The .30-40 Krag was also used in the Gatling gun. You can read about that here:

The .30-40 Krag only lasted about a decade in US government service. It was replaced with the .30-03 in 1903 (which was soon replaced with the .30-06, which became one of the most popular hunting cartridges ever). The history of this fine old cartridge is interesting; shooting it with cast bullets in a sleek Ruger No. 3 is good old fun. I might never have known that if the stock had not broken.

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By Joe Berk

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