Ale-8(1) said:
Chet, I had wondered about that button.
PM sent.
Ale-8(1), PM sent. And your question brings up a really interesting topic that I'm not sure anybody has ever thought of before.
When the Ross variation was first discovered by H.W. "Bill" Ross, it was a gun with Type 1 features but which was serial numbered way outside the Type 1 variation, from 14684 to 15483. So its always been assumed that all the Ross guns should have Type 1 features....
because thats how 99% of them apparently look.
But about 30 years ago Bud Faulk (Faulk's Collectors' Service) reported #15023 has having features of a Type 2 .357 flattop. A pretty unusual gun and I had always thought that maybe 15023 was a duplicate of a duplicate in a sense...as in Ruger making #15023 at one time and then two years later forgetting about the earlier Ross sn'd guns, so built another). 15023 was mfg. 9/25/57 and shipped two days later, so its Type 2 features including later front sight blade and base would be congruent with the variation being produced at that time. Here's the kicker...JD's addendum lists 14 "Ross" guns that were shipped later than June 1956 which is the month that most of the Ross guns must have been mfg'd. These include the following, w/ mfg. dates:
14765 8/2/57
14803 1/29/57
14825 2/14/57
15018 12/10/57
15031 1/16/57
15067 12/10/57
15151 1/29/57
15153 7/26/57
15252 1/6/58
15298 2/14/57
15307 1/16/57
15350 9/11/56 (may be a true Type 1)
15352 1/16/58
and
15399 1/6/58
Since JD missed 15023 I presume there will be others as well. In fact, now I'm wondering if any of the Ross sn range guns shipped 1957 and later have the later front sight, because the large button is a definite possibility!!. Interesting revelation there and one that nobody has really thought about before. Everybody just presumes a .357 in that sn range should have Type 1 features.
So now....the correct description of a "Ross" variety gun should be a gun within that 14684 to 15483 sn range (I.M.O. it is the sn range that makes a Ross since Ruger had a definite issue there...Bill Ross just didn't know then that some of them were mfg. late) and that the Ross guns in rare cases may have been shipped late enough to have later parts. Doesn't that turn the collecting world upside down???
Now we just need to determine for sure when the large button appeared on the .357 Blackhawk. When doing research on Single-Sixes I was able to get that pretty well pinpointed, but the .357 may be slightly off from that.
Chet15