Ruger No. 1 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

El Puerco Times Two: Part 1

By Joe Berk

It had been way too long since I hunted pig, and that was a character flaw I aimed to correct. Baja John immediately said “Hell, yeah” when I asked if he wanted to join me on an Arizona pig hunt, and it was game on. I’ve known John for half my life, and that means I’ve known him for a long time. We’ve done a lot of trips through Mexico and elsewhere on our motorcycles. We know how to have fun.

My Ruger No. 1 in .30 06. It’s a long time favorite. I mounted a 4X Redfield the year I bought the Ruger, and it’s never left the rifle.

Getting ready for the hunt was nearly as much fun as the hunt itself. I knew I’d be bringing my 200th Year .30 06 Ruger No. 1A with me. It’s a rifle I’ve owned and hunted with for 50 years. You’ve read about it before here on the ExhaustNotes blog. On a previous hunt, I used Hornady’s 150 grain jacketed softpoint bullet in my Model 70 Winchester and it worked well. I had not developed a load with that bullet for the Ruger, though, so I set about doing that. The secret sauce was 51.0 grains of IMR 4064, which gave an average velocity of 2869.3 feet per second (with a tiny 14.1 feet per second standard deviation) and great accuracy. The load was surprisingly fast for the Ruger’s 22-inch barrel; the No. 1 shot this load at the same velocity as my Weatherby’s 26-inch barrel.

A week before the hunt, I checked the Ruger No. 1’s zero at 100 yards. The first shot from a cold and oiled barrel was a scosh high; the next two were right on the money. The rifle was ready.

I knew I needed binoculars, which I already had, and a way to carry ammo (which I didn’t have). I found a cool belt-mounted ammo pouch on Amazon; the next day it was delivered to my home.

A cool little belt-mounted ammo pouch. It costs $8 on Amazon.

I had everything I needed; I loaded the Subie and pointed it east. We would hunt on the Dunton Ranch, about 325 miles away in Arizona. The weather was going to be a crapshoot. Everyone was predicting rain, and they were right. We would be lucky, though. It would be overcast and rain a lot, but not while we were in the field.

My six-hour ride under gray skies to Kingman was pleasant. It rained a bit, but it stopped just before I reached Kingman. Sirius XM blasted ’50s hits the entire way.

On the road to the Dunton ranch. I had a travel mug full of coffee Sue had prepared for me. I enjoyed the drive.

When I arrived at the Ranch, Tom (our guide) met me. John wouldn’t be getting in until later that evening. Tom asked if I wanted to hunt that afternoon, before Baja John arrived. You bet, I said, and we were off.

Ossabaw hogs in Arizona. They are an even-tempered pig. They are what Tom calls “meat pigs.”

Scott Dunton keeps his ranch stocked with at least three flavors of hog, including Russians and Ossabaw pigs. I had not seen a Russian boar on my last hunt, and I would not see one on this hunt, but that’s okay. It’s good to set goals in life, and one of my goals is to someday get a Russian boar. It didn’t happen on my Dunton Ranch pig hunt a decade ago, and it wouldn’t happen on this trip, but we started seeing Ossabaws almost immediately. Wikipedia tells us that the Ossabaw pigs are descendants of feral hogs on Ossabaw Island, Georgia. The Ossabaws were originally released on that island by Spanish explorers in the 16th century. Imagine that.

Tom and I set out and like I said above, we saw Ossabaws fairly quickly. I told Tom that I really wanted to get a Russian. “They’re smaller, they’re harder to find, they’re nocturnal, and they’re mean,” Tom said. “Some boys out here last week got a nice one.” He told me he could set me up in a blind, but the odds of seeing a Russian were low.

A while later, we came upon a group of Ossabaws. Tom had a rangefinder and he scoped the distance at 117 yards. “What do you think?” he asked.

My mind was racing. I started thinking about Mike Wolfe on American Pickers. He often says the time to buy something is when you see it. You don’t know if you’ll ever see it again. I thought it would be cool to have John there when I shot a pig, but I didn’t know if we would see any later. I wanted a Russian; these were Ossabaws. But they were there. I could hear Mike Wolfe: The time to shoot a pig is when you see one. “Can I shoot one of these and then take a Russian if we see one later?” I asked.

“You can do whatever you want,” Tom said.

Tom set up his tripod, which is a cool field version of a rifle rest. I had never used one before (I’d never even seen one before). I looked at the Ossabaw 117 yards away through the 4-power Redfield. The hog was standing broadside to me. Fifty years ago, I used to shoot metallic silhouette pigs that were a third that size at three times the distance (385 meters, to be precise), with no rest, shooting offhand. But that was 50 years ago. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be, my ability to shoot a rifle offhand isn’t what it used to be, and hell, I’m not what I used to be.

It was time. I rested the Ruger in the tripod rest and held on the hog’s shoulder. I watched the reticle sashay around against the hog’s dark form and started applying pressure to the Ruger’s trigger. Things felt right. I was in the zone. I didn’t hear the shot, and I didn’t feel the recoil, as is always the case for me when hunting. The hog fell over, away from me, just as a metallic silhouette javelina would do.

“That was a nice shot,” Tom said. I don’t think he said it because I was the client. He probably sees a lot of misses out here from other clients. The hog’s rear legs twitched in the air.

“Should I put another round in him?” I asked Tom.

“No, he’s gone,” Tom answered. “It would just destroy more meat.” I looked again and the hog was still.

Success: 117 yards, my Ruger No. 1, and an Ossabaw hog.

We walked up to the hog. I could see where the bullet entered (satisfyingly just about where I had aimed). I was surprised; I could not find an exit wound. When I .30 06’d a hog at the Dunton Ranch on my last visit, the bullet sailed right through. Not this time, though. More on that later.

I posed with my Ossabaw for the obligatory Bwana photo. Tom and I struggled to roll El Puerco over. We tried to lift it onto the back of the truck and could not. Tom told me he needed to get the trailer (which had a winch), and he told me he would drop me off at a blind. “You might see a Russian come by,” he said. That was enough for me. “I’ll come back out here later with John to pick you up.”

I got comfortable in the blind, which overlooked a watering hole about a hundred yards away. I scoped everything I could through my binoculars, imagining every rock and bush in my field of view might be a Russian. I felt like a Democrat looking for the imaginary Russians (I really wanted to see one, but they just weren’t there). A small group of Ossabaws showed up at the watering hole. I watched them through my binoculars. They did what pigs do, and then they started meandering around a bit. Towards me.

An Ossabaw hog just outside the blind’s window. Were they coming for payback?

Golly, I thought. The Ossabaw hogs were getting close. Then, they literally walked right up to the blind. I could feel it rock around as the pigs rubbed up against the walls. They know, I thought. I had shot Porky (or maybe it was Petunia?) and it was payback time. They had come for me.

I could hear the pigs grunting just below the blind’s window. I remembered my iPhone. I took a picture, holding the phone just outside the window. I don’t mind sharing with you that I was more than a little bit afraid. My Smith and Wesson Shield and its nine rounds of hot 9mm ammo were back in the Subie. The sportsman-like snob appeal of hunting with a single-shot rifle suddenly didn’t seem like such a good idea. I had my one round I could put in the chamber, but I wouldn’t be able to reload quickly enough if the pigs wanted to exact their revenge on me. One shot. I was the Barney Fife of pig hunters.

Nah, I thought, these are just pigs being pigs. Or were they?

If you crank up your computer’s volume all the way up and listen, you can hear their grunts.

After the pigs had their fill of terrorizing this septuagenarian New Jersey refugee, they wandered off. My heart rate returned to its normal bradycardic 50 bpm or so. I went back to glassing the surrounding vista. Nobody’s going to believe this, I thought.

An hour or so later, Tom and Baja John were back in the truck. No Russians had wandered by. I was glad John had made it okay but I was disappointed I had seen no Russians. I imagined I knew what Adam Schiff must have felt like when Robert Mueller testified before Congress. Where the hell are these Russians?

Stay tuned: El Puerco Part 2 airs tomorrow!

Join our Facebook ExNotes page!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Help us keep the lights on:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Three .243 Ruger No. 1 Loads

By Joe Berk

This story is about finding a decent load for my .243 200th Year Ruger No. 1 rifle. The rifle is 48 years old now, but the old girl can still get it on. I didn’t think my Ruger was particularly accurate at first, but wow, it’s a shooter.

Good wood, a good looking 200th Year Ruger No.1A, and a day on the range. Life is good.

I’ve tried a lot of loads in this rifle and I probably would have given up except for what I saw happen with another shooter. He had a .243 No. 1 in the 1B configuration (that’s the one with no iron sights, a 26-inch barrel, and a beavertail forearm), and he didn’t like it at all. To me, not liking a Ruger No. 1 is a crime against nature, but that guy was frustrated with his .243 and he had given up on it. He spent good money (Ruger No. 1 rifles sell for around $2,000 today) and it just seemed like a shame. When I first tried my .243 No. 1 it wasn’t very accurate, but I decided I wasn’t going to be that other guy. I was confident I could find a good load. Actually, I found three, and they are listed below by bullet weight. They are all of comparable accuracy in my rifle.

Accuracy Load No. 1

Nosler 55-grain .243 bullets. It’s the lightest bullet available for the .243.

Bullets, loaded ammo, and XBR 8208 propellant.

My first accuracy load for this rifle is the 55-grain Nosler Varmegeddon flat base bullet with 40.0 grains of XBR 8208 propellant. I seated the bullets to a cartridge overall length of 2.606 inches without a crimp, but I haven’t experimented with bullet seating depth or crimping. I used Fiocchi large rifle primers because at the time, primers were scarce and I bought 1500 of the Fiocchis when I could.

Accuracy Load No. 2

Hornady 58-grain VMax bullets. Hornady makes a good-looking bullet.

I shot all the rounds I loaded with this bullet, so this picture will have to do.

Another excellent load is the 58-grain Hornady VMax bullet with 42.0 grains of IMR 3031 propellant. I ordinarily wouldn’t use IMR 3031 in the .243, but I had a tiny bit of it left from some development work on another cartridge and good buddy Kevin told me IMR 3031 was his powder of choice for the .243. It was a good recommendation. I set these rounds up with a cartridge overall length of 2.620 inches. Like the load above, I have not tried different seating depths or crimping.

Accuracy Load No. 3

Cavernous hollowpoints in the 75-grain Speer varmint bullets. These shoot exceptionally well.

I found IMR 4895 works well with the Speer 75-grain bullets.

My third accuracy load is the 75-grain Speer Varmint hollowpoint bullet with 39.0 grains of IMR 4895 propellant. I loaded this round to an overall length of 2.620 inches, and like the others above, I have not experimented with overall length or crimping.

What I Haven’t Tried and What Didn’t Work (for me)

I have a couple of boxes of 65-grain Hornady V-Max bullets and I’ve only tried them with a few powders. So far, nothing gave me acceptable accuracy with these bullets.

.243 ammo loaded with PRVI 100-grain bullets. I couldn’t find the secret sauce to make this bullet accurate. Hornady 100-grain bullets weren’t any better.

I also have a bunch of 100-grain bullets (from Hornady and PRVI). Neither of these 100-grain bullets grouped well. They stabilized (no target key holing), but the groups just weren’t very good. That’s okay; I’m not going to use the .243 on pigs or deer. But if I ever took it varmint hunting, the accuracy loads listed above would get the job done.

The Bottom Line

Typical results with the accuracy loads listed above.

Any of the above loads will shoot a three-shot group at or below 0.75 inches at 100 yards. The groups would be tighter with a more skilled rifleman. For me, getting the old .243 to group into three quarters of an inch is good enough. I’ll call it a day with load development on this rifle and stick with the loads above. On to the next rifle. Stay tuned.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

A .458 Win Mag Follow Up

By Joe Berk

I had a great day on the range last week with my friends and I did a lot of shooting, including trigger time with the .243 Ruger No. 1 and the .458 Win Mag No. 1 that I wrote about yesterday. I found another load that worked well with the .243 using the 55-grain Nosler bullet. It’s weird; the .243 No. 1 really likes the welterweight Nosler bullet. With all other bullets, it’s mediocre to terrible. But the .243 is a story for another blog. Today’s blog is an interesting follow up on the .458 Win Mag No. 1 story.

The Garmin chronograph. — Garmin’s new chronograph.

One of the guys (good buddy Russ) had the new Garmin chronograph. They are $600 and way easier to use than the old ones. You just set it on the bench and turn it on. There are no external wires, no ballistic screens, and no other stuff. It can download to your iPhone if you want it to.

I asked Russ if he would chronograph my .458 Win Mag load and he did. As a bit of background, my .458 Win Mag reduced load consists of 28 grains of SR 4759 propellant and the Remington 405-grain jacketed softpoint bullet. I’ve used this load for decades. I found it in an old Speer manual.

Reloaded .458 Winchester Magnum ammunition. It’s a fun cartridge to reload.

With Russ’s Garmin chronograph on my bench, I fired three or four shots. My friends and I were amazed at their consistency. Those first few shots were all right about 1100 feet per second, with an extreme spread of maybe 20 feet per second.

Then I thought I’d get cute. With this particular load, there’s a lot of unused volume in the cartridge case. I tilted a round up to settle the powder near the primer, thinking this would reduce shot-to-shot variability even more. That shot, however, had a perceptibly lighter report and it only registered 600 feet per second on the Garmin chronograph. I checked the rifle after I fired that round to make sure the bullet had cleared the bore, and it had. One of the guys commented that the 600-foot-per-second round sounded different. I picked up on that, too. Convinced that the bore was clear, I fired a few more rounds. They were all right around 1100 feet per second again.

As I walked downrange to the 50-yard target, I could see on ragged whole in the black bullseye as I approached it. I was thinking that even though the velocity was down sharply on that one slow round, it still grouped with the rest of the shots at 50 yards. Then I looked at the target more closely.

A low velocity impact at 50 yards. — Oops! The red arrow points to a low velocity impact.

I don’t know what happened on that one 600-foot-per-second round. It could be that the powder settled in a manner that let the primer shoot over it, so when it lit off, the propellant generated less pressure. I always check all the rounds when I reload them (before seating the bullets), and I remember that the powder levels all looked good. It could be that the primer hole was obstructed by a piece of corn cob media from the brass cleaning operation, although I’m pretty good about clearing those, too, after vibratory cleaning. The round wasn’t a hangfire (there was no pause between the trigger tripping and the discharge); it just sounded lighter.

We all thought this was interesting. To me, it was interesting enough that I decided I’m going to buy a Garmin chronograph. I’ve resisted doing so in the past for several reasons:

- My primary interest in load development is accuracy. I have zero interest in maximizing velocity. I just want small groups on paper. If a load does that, I’m a happy camper. I literally don’t care what the velocity is.

- I’ve never been a big believer in developing a load to minimize the extreme spread or to minimize the standard deviation (the standard deviation is a measure of parameter variability). I remember from my days at Aerojet Ordnance (we made 25mm and 30mm ammo for the Hughes chain gun and the A-10 aircraft) that there was not strong correlation between standard deviation and accuracy. There are several variables that go into accuracy; standard deviation (or extreme spread) is but one of them.

- Prior to the Garmin, the other guys I’ve seen using chronographs on the range were always screwing around with them, mostly trying to get them to work or attending to the screens when the wind blew them over. One friend told me it sometimes took an hour and a half to get his chronograph set up. I didn’t like having to wait on those folks, and I didn’t want to be one of those guys holding up everyone else.

My experience with the .458 last week, though, made me rethink this issue. I’m going to purchase the Garmin , and in another month or two, the gun stories you see on these pages will include velocity (and velocity variation) information. There are a few ExNotes gun stories to be published (ones that are already in the queue) that do not include this info, but at some point beyond their publication, Garmin chronograph results will be part of the data presented. Stay tuned.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

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.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

A Ruger .45 70 Circassian No. 1

By Joe Berk

The .45-70 Government cartridge was destined for obsolescence in the middle of the last century and then a curious thing happened: Ruger chambered their No. 1 single shot rifle for it and Marlin did the same with an adaptation of their lever action rifle a short while later.

300-grain .45 70 Winchester and .22 LR Federal cartridges.

When Marlin and Ruger came on board with their .45 70 rifles, there was suddenly significant interest in the cartridge. I fell in love with the .45 70 when I bought a Ruger No. 1 in 1976 (a rifle I still have), and I’ve been reloading the cartridge ever since. I’ve owned several No. 1 Rugers, a few Ruger No. 3 rifles, a bunch of Marlin .45 70s, and a replica 1886 Winchester (by Chiappa, with wood that is way nicer than anything from Winchester).

Starboard side of the Ruger Circassian .45 70 No. 1 rifle with 26-inch barrel.

Yep. The .45 70 was adopted as the official US Army cartridge in 1873, hence the “Gov’t” designation sometimes seen with the cartridge name.

In addition to its Circassian walnut and 26-inch barrel, these rifles included wrap-around checkering on the forearm. The standard checkering pattern for a Ruger No. 1 is shown on the rifle to the left.

All these manufacturers have offered special editions of their .45 70 rifles. One of the more recent offerings from Ruger was a 26-inch barreled No. 1 with a Circassian walnut stock. When it was first offered about 7 years ago by Lipsey’s (a Ruger distributor), it was a limited run of only 250 rifles. They sold out immediately and folks still wanted these, so Lipsey’s and Ruger offered a second run of 250 rifles. I wanted one with fancy wood, but none of the Circassian Rugers I saw online had wood nice enough to be interesting. Even though the rifles had Circassian walnut, all the ones I saw were plain and straight grained. Then one day I wandered into a local gun shop and I saw the rifle you see here. It caught my eye immediately and at first I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. These rifles were next to impossible to find and here was one right in front of me. It was pricey, but I Presbyterianed the guy down to $1050 (you fellow Members of the Tribe will get it) and I pulled the trigger (figuratively speaking).

Ruger’s more recent .45 70 No. 1 rifles have a short leade (the distance between the forward edge of the cartridge case and where the rifling starts). Mine won’t chamber cartridges with 400-grain and above bullets. In fact, I had some ammo I had loaded with an old batch of Hornady’s 300-grain jacketed hollow points, and this ammo wouldn’t chamber, either. I examined the profile of my old 300-grain Hornady bullets and compared it to pictures of the current Hornady 300-grain bullets, and it was obvious the older bullets had a more gradual ogive (the curved portion of the bullet’s profile). I ordered a box of the current Hornady 300-grain slugs, I loaded them, and the ammo chambered in this rifle easily. In researching this issue on the Internet, the issue of recent Ruger .45 70 rifles’ shorter leades is a complaint that’s popped up more than once. One guy even sent his rifle to Ruger, but he said Ruger measured the chamber and returned it to him with no work done (according to him, Ruger said the rifle met SAAMI chamber spec requirements). It’s not really an issue to me; if I want to shooter the heavier bullets I’ll use a different .45 70 rifle.

I had some Winchester factory .45 70 cartridges in my ammo locker, including the Winchester load with 300-grain hollow point bullets. I thought I would shoot those to see how they did in the Circassian No. 1.

A big ol’ .45 70 hollow point cartridge.

Spent cases destined for reloading. This is one of my favorite cartridges to reload.

My first shots were at 50 yards, and the Ruger grouped nicely. The shots were biased very slightly to the right. That’s okay, because the Ruger rear sight is adjustable for both windage and elevation. I didn’t bother making the adjustments on the range, as it was a fairly windy day. I’ll make the adjustments, if necessary, on the next trip.

50-yard groups with the Circassian No. 1. The groups are biased to the right, some more than others (a function of how I held the rifle for each group). Ignore the upper right target and the circled holes to the right of the bullseye; those were from a .243 I had out on the same day.

I then set up a standard 100-yard target (at 100 yards). There were 20 rounds in the box of Winchester .45 70 ammo and I had already shot four 3-shot groups at 50 yards. That left eight rounds to play with at 100 yards, and play around I did.

Eight shots at 100 yards. I need to move the rear sight a bit to the left. The vertical stringing is most likely a function of not allowing the barrel to cool between shots.

The results surprised me. I was holding on the bullseye at 6:00, and those big 300-grain hollowpoints hit at about the right elevation. As was the case with the 50-yard targets, the point of impact was biased to the right. The first three made a tight group and then the shots climbed as I progressed through the eight. The vertically strung group was only about an inch in width. The stringing is almost certainly due to barrel heating and the barrel being deflected up by the forearm (it’s not free floated). I was pleased with the results. It told me that I could leave the elevation adjusted for 50 yards and it would still be spot on at 100. On my next range outing with this ammo, I’ll adjust the rear sight to the left a scosh and take my time between shots to preclude the stringing. Even with the stringing you see in the above target, it’s not too shabby for a 100-yard group with open sights.

More blogs on this and other .45 70 rifles? You bet!

Buffalo Guns
A Wind River Marlin .45 70 Rifle
A .45 70 Remlin 1895
The 1886 Winchester
Turnbull Guns
Marlin Cowboy Front Sight Installation
Marlin 1895 Cowboy Revisited
Henry Rifles
The Henry Is In California
Developing a Henry .45 70 Load: Part 1
Developing a Henry .45 70 Load: Part 2
Henry’s Home and an Interview with Dan
Henry Accuracy Loads

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

ExNotes Product Review: 4×12 Bushnell Banner Scope

By Joe Berk

Bushnell scopes have been around forever and they are kind of a generic scope…just as effective as the name brand medication but at a fraction of the cost. I’ve had several that came with rifles I bought, but I never bought a new one until recently. I’m glad I did. I bought the Bushnell Banner 4×12 and it’s a great scope.

The 4×12 Bushnell Banner scope. It’s a surprisingly good scope for well under $100.

The story goes like this: I won a Ruger No. 1 in 243 Winchester in an online auction about 15 years ago. The rifle was a 200th year Liberty model, it looked good, and I stashed it in the safe. I shot it for the first time a month ago, and that’s when I learned I had an accuracy issue. The Ruger came with a period-correct 4×12 Weaver (long since discontinued), which provided plenty of magnification but my groups were embarrassing.

The .243 Ruger No. 1 on the range. The rifle is wearing the new Bushnell Banner 4×12 scope in this photo.

Let’s go tangential for a second or two: The “4×12” I use above refers to the scope’s variable magnification, which ranges from 4 times actual size to 12 times actual size. With a good scope (one offering optical clarity), you can see the bullet holes in the target at 100 yards when the scope is zoomed up to 12 times actual size.

The Ruger American Bicentennial inscription. It’s on all Rugers made in 1976.

For hunting, I always prefer a straight 4-power scope (i.e., a nonvariable) because of its wider field of view and the fact that I can still hold a pretty tight group with a 4-power scope. Magnifying the target four times is good enough for hunting. That’s especially true on a deer-sized target, but it’s good enough even on rabbits. I’ve sent a lot of Texas jacks to the promised land with a simple 4-power Redfield on my .30 06 Ruger No. 1.

The scope companies pretty much all say that you should keep a variable scope at low magnification to acquire the target, and then zoom it up for a more precise aim. But I’ll tell you that’s just marketing hype, it’s laughable, and it’s a lot of baloney. When I’m hunting and I see a game animal, the adrenal glands go into overdrive. It’s all I can do to remember to take the safety off, and I can remember a few times when I forgot to do that. The thought of seeing a target, acquiring it in the scope at low magnification, taking the safety off, lowering the rifle, increasing the zoom, raising the rifle again, reacquiring the target, and then squeezing the trigger is ludicrous. Nope, for hunting purposes, a straight 4-power scope is the way to go for me. On the other hand, when I’m on the range, I just leave the variable scopes at their highest magnification. In short, I don’t need a zoomable scope. But the marketing guys know better, I guess, and that means they weather vane to variable scopes. That’s pretty much all you see these days.

But I digress. Let’s get back to the main attraction, and that’s the new Bushnell Banner 4×12 scope on my .243 No. 1 rifle. This all started when I loaded some brass good buddy Johnnie G sent my way. The rifle would not consistently hold a zero, and even when it did, it shot grapefruit-sized groups. My thought was that the old 4×12 Weaver scope that came with the rifle had conked out, so I replaced it with another inexpensive scope I had laying around (an older Bushnell Banner 3×9 scope that is probably 50 years old). While mounting the older 3×9 Bushnell, I checked both Ruger rings (front and rear) to make sure they were secure. They seemed to be, but they were not (more on that below). I took the No. 1 (now wearing the older model Bushnell Banner) to the range. The accuracy situation did not improve.

The 4-12X Weaver scope that came with the 200th year .243 Ruger No. 1. That scope may still be good; I’ll have to mount it on another rifle to confirm that.

So I removed the older 3×9 Bushnell and the Ruger rings. That’s when I discovered that the front ring was not secure. It had felt like it was, but it fooled me (which is not too hard to do). Ruger provides rings with their centerfire rifles and they are good, but the rings on this rifle were muey screwed up. The clamp (the bolt with the angled head) on the front ring was mangled, and both the nut and the clamp were gunked up with some sort of adhesive (probably Loctite, but who knows). I think what had happened was the clamp could be tightened on the mangled part of the clamp’s angled surface. The buggered-up clamp was not properly positioned in the mounting surface and the caked-on adhesive compounded the felony. Under recoil, the forward ring was moving around.

A Ruger scope ring. Ruger provides two of these with each of their centerfire rifles.

The Ruger scope ring clamp. It’s a bolt with an angled surface (denoted by the right arrow) that clamps onto a machined crescent on the rifle’s scope mounting surface. The threads on mine were caked with an adhesive.

The Ruger scope ring nut. It’s what threads on to the clamp shaft in the photo above.

The Ruger No. 1’s forward scope ring. This was not firmly mounted because the clamp had been damaged by Bubba gunsmithing. God must love Bubbas; He sure made a lot of them.

I recut the clamp ‘s angled surface with a file to eliminate the mangled portion and reblued the clamp using Birchwood Casey Cold Blue, and I wire-brushed as much of the adhesive as I could from the clamp’s threaded shaft with a bore brush. I then worked the clamp into the nut until I cleaned out the remaining adhesive on the nut. I reinstalled the ring and satisfied myself that this time it was secure.

The Bushnell Banner box. The scope was nicely packaged.

The Bushnell Banner’s parallax adjustment ring. These really work.

The Bushnell Banner’s quick adjust focusing rear ring. It’s a nice feature.

The Bushnell Banner’s adjustment knobs after their covers had been removed. These have a nice feel, with a distinct tactile click for each 1/4-inch adjustment. You don’t need any tools to make these adjustments. It’s first class.

When my new 4×12 Bushnell Banner scope arrived a few days after I ordered it on Amazon, I was impressed with its appearance. I even liked the box. I looked through the scope and was impressed with its optical clarity. These inexpensive Banner scopes have continued to improve over the years, and this one looks great.

The Bushnell Banner’s operator’s manual. It contains basic information about mounting and boresighting the scope.

The Bushnell scope has a lifetime warranty and it came with what I thought was an impressively thick operating manual. The manual is printed in five languages (English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish), so it was only one fifth as thick as it first appeared to be. But it was still a good manual. The scope also came with lens covers, which is a nice touch.

The Bushnell has other features that are important to me. It has a quick focus ring at the rear to focus the reticle, and it has a parallax adjustment feature on the objective end (the front of the scope). Parallax adjustment has become increasingly important to me; it minimizes the scope’s susceptibility to slightly different eye positions. You adjust for parallax by moving your eye around and making sure the reticle stays centered on the target.

The Bushnell has removable windage and elevation adjustment dial covers, and windage and elevation adjustment can be made by hand (no special tools are required). Each click represents 1/4-inch of movement on a 100-yard target, which is pretty much the standard on scopes.

The Bushnell has a 40mm objective lens, which I think is about right. It looks right and still allows the scope to be mounted low on the rifle. Some scopes go bigger with 50mm objectives, but I think they look silly. These bugeye scopes have to sit higher on the rifle (which makes sighting through them difficult). Nope, for me a 40mm objective is as big as I care or need to go.

Although I own a boresigting device that mounts on the barrel, I prefer not to use it. The thought of potentially damaging a rifle’s crown, which a boresighting device can do, is not something I want to entertain. I boresight the old-fashioned way: I’ll set the rifle up in a rest, look through the bore (from the breech end) and move the rifle around until a 50-yard target is centered in the bore. Then, without moving the rifle, I’ll adjust the scope’s windage and elevation until the reticle is approximately centered on the target. Once I’ve done that, I’ll fire one shot and see where it hits. I’ve actually done this and had the impact be on the target with that first shot, but it took four shots this time. After each shot, I adjusted the windage and elevation to get the next shot two inches below my point of aim at 50 yards, and then switch to a target at 100 yards to finalize the adjustment.

On the range at the West End Gun Club. The first target is at 50 yards; the second set of targets is at 100 yards. I used the first target for boresighting and initial scope adjustment.

To boresight the scope, you look for the target through the rifle’s bore. It appears to be a little offset in this photo because it was difficult to get the camera aligned with the bore, but you get the idea. You want the target centered when looking through the barrel.

I used PPU (PRVI Partizan) 100-grain jacketed soft point bullets for this round of load development. The Ruger has a 1 twist in 10 inches rate. A 100-grain bullet is right at the edge of stability with this twist rate; lighter bullets should be more accurate.

Another shot of the PPU 100-grain bullets. There’s a long bearing area on that bullet.

I used two propellants for this test series: IMR 7828 and IMR 4166. The IMR 4166 performed better than the IMR 7828 load and it reduced the copper fouling in the bore.

For this outing, I had loaded two groups of .243 ammo, both using PRVI Partizan 100-grain jacketed soft point bullets. One load had 43.0 grains of IMR 7828 propellant; the other group had 34.5 grains of IMR 4166 propellant. I used the IMR 4166 ammo last. IMR 4166 was one of those new powders that is supposed to not leave copper deposited in the rifling (I’ll explain why I used the past tense in a second). I wanted to use it to minimize the cleaning after shooting the rifle.

So how did it all work? The IMR 7828 load didn’t perform well as the IMR 4166 load. The IMR 7828 load was shooting 2 1/2 to 4-inch groups. Part of that was due to the Ruger’s twist rate (1 in 10), which is marginal for a heavy (for the .243) 100-grain bullet. But I was surprised with the last group of the day, which was with IMR 4166 powder.

The last shots of the day, and the last of the loads with IMR 4166 propellant.

Four of the five shots went into 0.889 inch; the fifth shot opened the group up to 1.635 inches. That fact that the IMR 4166 grouped much better might be due to the fact the propellant may have removed some of the copper fouling (it appeared to have a lot less copper fouling when I cleaned the rifle later), it might be due to the fact that IMR 4166 is a faster powder compared to IMR 7828, it might have been me, or it might be a statistical fluke. You might think this would push me to develop a load with IMR 4166, but unfortunately the powder has been discontinued (I’m on my last bottle). Future load development work for this rifle will be with lighter bullets and other powders with burn rates similar to IMR 4166. Varget comes to mind. I’ll keep you posted.

I know, I’m digressing again. I started out with the intent to do a product review on the Bushnell Banner 4×12 scope, which I think I did, but I morphed into a bit of load development work for the .243 Ruger No. 1. On my intended topic: The Bushnell Banner is a great scope, and it performs way beyond what it’s sub-$100 price would indicate (I paid $72 for mine on Amazon). If you’re looking for a good low-priced scope, the Bushnell is hard to beat. I like it so much I’m going to by another one for another Ruger, but that’s a story for another time.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

The Wayback Machine: Resurrecting a .405 Ruger No. 1

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.

Exquisite walnut is often found on the older Ruger No. 1 rifles.

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!

In the gun shop years ago eyeing the Ruger No. 1. Salesman Shaun said, “hand me your phone and let me take a photo of you so you can see how good you look with that rifle!” Shaun passed away a couple of years ago, but I know he smiled down from Heaven yesterday as I fired the Ruger No. 1H Tropical for the first time. And he was right, this gun was meant for me!

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.

New Ruger NOS gold bead front sight blade installed.

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.

Hodgdon “salvage” 4198 smokeless powder. The powder is probably WW II US Military surplus powder that Hogdon bought in bulk and repackaged in the late 1950s or early 1960s.

Vintage components for a vintage cartridge.

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.

The obsolete 405 Winchester cartridge (left) and the popular 45-70 Government cartridge (right) used by 1880s plains buffalo hunters of the American west. I don’t shoot buffalo and never will. But I enjoy reviving and firing old guns!

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.

More Tales of the Gun!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Second Time Around: Cast Bullets in the 7mm Remington Magnum

By Joe Berk

I had a good morning at the West End Gun Club recently. I shot the 6.5 Creedmoor rifles, a .223 Browning Micro Medallion, and Jim Gardner’s powder-coated cast bullets in a 7mm Remington Magnum Ruger No. 1. I might get around to writing about the other rifles, but for today, the focus is on the 7mm Magnum No. 1 and powder-coated cast bullets. I’ve written about shooting 7mm cast bullets in the No. 1 before; those results were mediocre and the barrel leaded enough after five rounds that accuracy went to hell (I had to clean the bore with a bristle brush after ever group). The powder coating Jim applies makes a difference. The Gardner powder-coated bullets did not lead the barrel (at all) and the results were good. I think I’ve finally found a decent cast bullet load for this rifle.

I have had a lot of difficulty making this rifle perform with the powder-coated cast bullets. It was apparent they weren’t leading like my other cast bullets had, but they weren’t very accurate. Neck sizing only, which often improves accuracy, compounded the felony. It didn’t work well at all, mostly because I couldn’t chamber most of the rounds (even though they had been fired in the same 7mm Magnum Ruger No. 1 rifle). I also tried seating the bullets further out, but one got stuck when I chambered a round and when I removed it, the bullet came out of the case and Trail Boss propellant spilled all over the guts of the rifle. That led to it not extracting, so I had to disassemble the action and clean everything. I also tried crimping, but those rounds weren’t any better.

This morning’s batch were full length resized, not trimmed, and not crimped. I flared the case mouth just a tiny bit to let the Gardner powder -coated bullets enter without shaving any of the powder coating or the lead, and I seated them a little deeper so that they did not contact the rifling. When I seated the bullets this time, they expanded the case mouth just enough to eliminate the flare. This batch chambered easily.

I had one round left over from a previous batch, and I fired it first (all shots are and groups discussed here were 50 yards from a rest). That one round was left over because it wouldn’t chamber the previous time I had the rifle out because the case had deformed slightly when I overcrimped it. I had to run that round through the full length resizer (bullet and all, with the decapping pin removed) so it would chamber. It was my first shot of the day and it shot a little to the right (as you can see above). That first group was the biggest group of the morning.

I then shot four more groups, and all the rest grouped nicely.

At 50 yards, these aren’t what I would call amazing groups, but they are getting better and that one half-inch group shows promise. I bought a thousand of the Gardner powder coated bullets, so it’s nice to know I can get then to work. The powder charge was 18 grains of Trail Boss, dispensed (not individually measured). I may go out to a hundred yards on the next outing to see how they perform. But where they are, I’d feel comfortable chasing rabbits with them.

The tricks to this load were full length resizing, no crimp, very slight case mouth flare, 18.0 grains of Trail Boss, Winchester large rifle primers, Remington brass, and a cartridge overall length of 3.127 inches. I’m going to try this load again. The brass is in the tumbler now.

I’m pleased with the Gardner powder-coated bullets, and if you’re interested in purchasing some, you might take a look at Jim’s website.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Help us bring more to you: Please click on the popup ads!

Ruger No. 1 XXX Walnut

By Joe Berk

I promised a story on the Ruger No. 1 photo I shared a little while ago and this is it. It’s on my Ruger No. 1 chambered in .257 Weatherby. I’ll try to keep it short, but there’s a lot to this story. The bottom line up front: Ruger’s customer service is among the best in the business. They are one of two companies that all others should emulate (Leupold is the other). Ruger’s No. 1 single shot rifles are the most elegant rifles in the world. That’s a strong statement and you might disagree, but hey, it’s a free country and if you want to disagree, it’s okay by me. Go ahead and be wrong. I know that after seeing the photo at the top of this blog, you have to be wondering if the stock looks as good from the other side. The answer is yes.

The .257 Weatherby No. 1 from the starboard side. Red ped, exotic walnut, and a fabulous cartridge with a laser-like trajectory.

Back to the tale: Ruger has essentially discontinued the No. 1, but that’s okay. Inexpensive and tasteless rifles with black Tupperware stocks are all the rage now and if they float your boat, more power to you. But it’s not me. I own a few Ruger No. 1 rifles and their value has increased tenfold since I started collecting back in the 1970s. Not that I’m interested in selling; that’s not going to happen. I mention the No. 1 rifles’ appreciation just because…well, I’m not sure why. It makes me feel good, and that’s enough.

The .257 Weatherby cartridge. The parent cartridge was the .300 H&H Magnum. Roy Weatherby blew out the case with a rounded bottleneck, trimmed it back a bit, and voila, 4,000 feet per second. The cartridge is also known as the .257 Roy, to honor its creator, Roy Weatherby. Weatherby felt the .257 Weatherby cartridge was his finest creation.

Solids made by Barnes work best in the .257 Weatherby. Jacketed bullets can distintegrate in flight due to velocity, aerodynamic heating, and rotational inertia, as evidenced by the tell-tale molten lead spiral seen on this 100-yard target.

The .257 Weatherby cartridge is brilliant. It’s one of the fastest in the world at around 4,000 feet per second, which creates a unique problem: If you do not load with the right projectiles, the bullets travel so fast they tend to disintegrate in flight. The Ruger No. 1 in .257 Roy has a 28-inch barrel (two inches longer than the original Weatherby Mk V rifles in which it debuted back in the 1950s), and that extra two inches bumps the velocity up even more than the fabled round was achieving in its namesake Weatherby rifles (they have 26-inch barrels). The bottom line here is that you almost have to use monolithic (and expensive) Barnes bullets (they are solid copper, not lead sheathed in a copper jacket) to push the bullets at their max velocity without the bullets coming apart in flight. There’s something appealing about that. I like it.

The original Circassian walnut on the Ruger No. 1 wasn’t bad, but it cracked during load development. I wanted something as good on the replacement lumber. The first set didn’t answer the mail for me.

Another view of the rifle’s original stock. It looked good. I still have this stock, with a small crack in the wrist.

So, back to the main story. When Ruger first announced their limited run of the No. 1 in .257 Weatherby, I started watching the ads on Gunbroker.com for one with nice wood. It took a little while, but I found one and I pounced. I encountered the bullet disintegration problems mentioned above, I got some good advice from a guy I met on Facebook, and I got the rifle to group under an inch using Barnes monolithic copper bullets. Then while at the range one day I noticed the stock had cracked. My heart was as broken as the Circassian walnut stock, and the rifle went back to Ruger. I told them the story about wanting good wood, and they did their best to oblige. I also told them to make sure the stock was relieved behind the tang, as the first stock (the one that cracked) was not and that was what had caused the stock to split.

When the rifle came back, the stock had been relieved but the inletting and the gap between the receiver and the stock was excessive. The wood was not as good the original set, but it was not bad. The inletting was the real disappointment. I shot it a bit and the rifle grouped well, but it looked ridiculous with the gap around the receiver. I put the gun in the safe and it remained there for a year. Then one night I had a few beers and I wrote an email to Ruger. I wasn’t too complimentary. I told them the story. The beer helped get it all out.

I had an email from Ruger the next morning, and at their request I returned the rifle to them again. A few days later I received an email from a guy in Ruger’s No. 1 shop. He sent a photo of a matched stock and fore end that had just come in, he said. and he told me it was probably the last they would ever receive of this quality. Did I want it? Hell yes, I said. That was followed by another email: What color pad did I want? Red is the more collectible of the two colors (the older Ruger No. 1s had red pads; they switched to a black pad back in the 1980s. Red it would be.

When the restocked Ruger arrived (this rifle had now worn three sets of lumber), I was totally blown away. The wood is exquisite on both sides of the stock and the fore end. I’m pleased with the photos you see here, but trust me on this, they don’t do the wood justice. The fore end matches the stock on both sides. The figure is what stockmakers would grade as XXX and the rifle is just stunning. If there’s such a thing as rifle porn, this is it. And it’s XXX rated.

The Ruger No. 1 fore end on the right side. The fore end and the stock almost certainly came from the same tree.

The entire rifle from the left side. This model is called a No. 1B. It has a standard weight barrel and a beavertail fore end.

So there you have it: Two promises fulfilled. When you buy a Ruger, if you’re not pleased they will make it right. I promised you the story on this amazing set of walnut furniture. And if you are wondering, the answer is no. The rifle is not for sale.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Want more Tales of the Gun? The stories are here!

Into Weatherby? We are, too!

Everyone but me…

By Joe Berk

It seems I am the only one of your ExNotes writers not on the road. Joe Gresh rode his resurrected Kawasaki ZRX to Laguna Seca (where he is camping and spectating this weekend), Bobbie Surber rode her Triumph Tiger up to Canada for a Horizons Unlimited event, and Mike Huber is rolling around the Pacific Northwest on his recently repaired BMW GS (presumably headed for the same event as Bobbie in Canada). I need to get out on my Enfield. Soon, my friends, soon.

Me? I’m home, continuing to play with things that go bang. That big photo up above? It’s a Ruger No. 1 in .257 Weatherby, with the best piece of wood I’ve ever seen. Keep an eye on the ExNotes blog; we’ll have a story on how my .257 Roy No. 1 came to wear such exquisite lumber.

Stay tuned; there’s good scribblings coming from all of us.

Never miss an ExNotes blog: