The Duplicate Old Model .41 Magnum Blackhawks

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Elsewhere in this forum are lists of certain models of Old Model Blackhawks holding special interest to some of our more dedicated members as well as newbies learning about some of the unique Ruger revolvers. These listings have developed over the years with participation by those having the guns in question, and some extensive data bases have been generated. These can be quite fascinating to those collectors trying to get an overall picture of the distribution of these unique guns, and just plain interesting to those of us just enjoying the history of Rugerdom.

One area of special interest that has not received much exposure is the very short run of duplicate Old Model .41 Magnum Blackhawks. Perhaps this is not too surprising as the .41s are sort of the redheaded stepchildren of Rugerlore, along with the .30 Carbine versions. I'll leave the .30s to someone else and direct this thread toward the .41 duplicates. Chet15 mentions these revolvers briefly in his extensive Reference of Ruger Firearms, and John Dougan includes a nice chart of the range of serial numbers involved in his Ruger Pistols and Revolvers, the Vintage Years, 1949-1973. That said, there is little else devoted to them. Sometime in 1967 Ruger managed to mess up their serial numbering in the .41s, producing a 500-gun run of duplicates between 10395 and 10895. It appears this was due to a maladjustment of the number stamping device. Whatever, these guns were of both barrel lengths, 4-5/8" and 6-1/2" with no record of which was what. Over the years since, there have been reports, some documented, some not, of some guns in this serial number range showing up with the letter "D" in their serial number, indicating "duplicate'. There has also been reported some confusion at Ruger when more than one person requested a documenting "letter" for the same serial number. A question arises when two guns show up with the same serial number without a "D" on either one . . . which one was the original and which was the duplicate? The guns could also share the same barrel length or not, as the case might be. The more one ponders this, the more things seem to add questions than answers. I'll not attempt to throw all these out here right now.

So, for the sake of discussion as well as education, I encourage any/all comments y'all might have on the subject. Anyone with a gun in the serial number range mentioned above is encouraged to share it with us, in particular any bearing the "D" marking. It would be nice if these guns were "lettered" but since we are all upstanding citizens of the site, this is not necessarily a requirement. A photo of the serial number would be a huge help, even if the last couple of digits are obscured, as you wish. Hopefully, we can eventually develop a comprehensive list of these guns, both with and without the "D", with ship date being of some importance in determining which one of a pair was "first".

Let's do it!
 

chet15

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I might add, that even though collector books said the duplicates have a "D" beside the serial number signifying "Duplicate", I do not believe any were actually stamped with a "D", and in fact all 500 might have gotten out of the factory before the mistake was caught (that wouldn't be the first time).
The reason I don't think any were stamped with a "D"? There aren't any known with a "D" stamp, and non prefix .41 Blackhawks are prevalent enough that surely one would have shown up sometime in the 50+ years that people have been collecting Rugers as a hobby.
But why note they were "D" marked in the Ruger collector books? Because that is probably what Ruger's records had to say... in order to keep the feds happy and "NOT" duplicate serial numbers, so that the Feds don't think they are getting cheated out of their excise tax.
I think the daybooks have these serial numbers marked with a "D", or it would have never been referenced like that in one of John Dougan's earlier books.
The next thing is, I show an example of a pair of same serial number .41 Blackhawks in the Ruger Reference, number 10463. Both guns are 4-5/8" and one was shipped August 1967, the other September 1967. Was the September 1967 the actual "duplicate"? Probably, but don't know for sure because serial numbers may get shipped months or even years after they are stamped on the gun.
Chet15
 
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Yes, I'm particularly interested to see if we come up with any guns actually bearing the "D" marking. This is the big question as far as I'm concerned.

And in spite of what I said above, a lettered "D" gun would be of extreme interest in view of Chet15's point.

:mrgreen:
 
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yes, the same here ,as I said elsewhere I too had come across a couple of the so called "D" guns, though none of them were marked, I had found out as I had a call from a guy who had one of the SAME number guns but the opposite ,longer barreled version,,,wish I had written down the numbers will have to look at my old pictures from two computers back and maybe wrote this down on scratch paper, talked with the ONLY two people I knew who collected or had interest in the 41 Mag Blackhawks, Don Wilks and Richard Wilmot, one of them had one of the ones I had owned......way before digital cameras for me,,,,sad these two gentlemen are no longer with us,,,,hope others can come forward and start a "new" list for the future,,,good Job 'Ale-8'...... 8) :roll: :wink:
 

41 nut son

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I currently have all of Richard's remaining OM .41s as well as a few that I have added (the 2 digit serial #s and brass framed versions excluded). None of them are D marked. I've got most of his notes and all of the factory letters as well. The Army has me out of the country at the moment but I will be glad to dig in and see what I can find when I'm back in the States in the very near future. I do have access to my files and serial #s and I don't have one left that falls in that range, many before and a few after but the only Blackhawk in that range I'm showing is a 46 and that's not much help for this conversation. He kept fairly detailed notes that I will dig thru when I get back. To add to the D fun, I do have a BKH 36 with a "backwards" stamped D.
 

Walter Rego

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The serial number of my OM Blackhawk .41 Magnum with the 6.5" barrel is 10569. There is no "D" stamp. It is the one that recently lettered as a BKH41 (4 5/8") in caliber ".41/9mm". I will report back when I receive the replacement letter from Ruger whether or not it still shows as a BKH41. It is right in the middle of the S/N range of the duplicate .41 Magnums.
Thanks for getting this thread started.
 

chet15

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Walter Rego said:
The serial number of my OM Blackhawk .41 Magnum with the 6.5" barrel is 10569. There is no "D" stamp. It is the one that recently lettered as a BKH41 (4 5/8") in caliber ".41/9mm". I will report back when I receive the replacement letter from Ruger whether or not it still shows as a BKH41. It is right in the middle of the S/N range of the duplicate .41 Magnums.
Thanks for getting this thread started.

Would be curious on the ship date. And, maybe Ruger would tell you what model the duplicate (or original 10569) is. You can submit as D10569 because I believe that is how it would look in their record.
Chet15
 
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Walter Rego said:
I will report back when I receive the replacement letter from Ruger whether or not it still shows as a BKH41. Thanks for getting this thread started.

Why are you getting a "replacement letter"? Sounds like there's a backstory here. Care to share?

Your participation is proof that this thread might just reveal valuable information. Thanks.

:mrgreen:
 

chet15

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Ale-8(1) said:
Walter Rego said:
I will report back when I receive the replacement letter from Ruger whether or not it still shows as a BKH41. Thanks for getting this thread started.

Why are you getting a "replacement letter"? Sounds like there's a backstory here. Care to share?

Your participation is proof that this thread might just reveal valuable information. Thanks.

:mrgreen:

Ale-8(1)…
There weren't any .41 Mag/9mm convertible Blackhawks.
 
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chet15 said:
Ale-8(1) said:
Walter Rego said:
I will report back when I receive the replacement letter from Ruger whether or not it still shows as a BKH41. Thanks for getting this thread started.

Why are you getting a "replacement letter"? Sounds like there's a backstory here. Care to share?

Your participation is proof that this thread might just reveal valuable information. Thanks.

:mrgreen:

Ale-8(1)…
There weren't any .41 Mag/9mm convertible Blackhawks.


Yes, I know, but I thought there might perhaps be a story behind the erroneous identification.
 

Walter Rego

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I received a voice mail from a nice lady at Ruger today. She pulled the original shipping invoice for my gun and said that it did ship as a BKH41 and not a BKH42. They are going to re-issue the letter showing the correct caliber but since the invoice says BKH41 that's how they will letter it. So the chances are that my gun was rebarreled with a 6.5" barrel at some point in the 44 years prior to my purchasing it.

But since it is within the range of duplicate numbers what would Ruger see when they looked for the records ? Would they go with the first matching number that came up in their search when the duplicate may be on a different page of the daybook ?
 
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Chet15 may correct me on this, but as far as I know the daybooks have the serial numbers all pre-printed sequentially in order, and the ship date is entered whenever it takes place. This would mean that there would be a ship date entered when the first gun ships, and then when the second gun of the same number ships the person attempting to enter the ship date would discover the problem. Makes me wonder how many of these "oops" discoveries had to be made before somebody raised a flag about a multi-gun screwup. And, once that was discovered, what happened next.
 

Walter Rego

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I think I will spend the $10 and send in a letter request for serial # D10569 and see what they find. It will be interesting if it comes back as a BKH42. I will report back in a few weeks when I receive the letter.
 

Walter Rego

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I received another message from Linda in the Ruger Records department today. I had sent another request but this time asked them to check S/N (D)10569. They did and sure enough found it listed as a duplicate number and in fact a BKH42 and not a BKH41 as S/N 10569 had lettered. She said she will issue a new letter for the duplicate serial number and also include copies of the two invoices, one for the gun that shipped to Yakima Hardware and the other for the shipping location of the duplicate which she did not disclose. She also said she would send copies of the hand written day book pages for both guns. It will be interesting to see how they were recorded. She is also returning my check for the second letter. Great service from Ruger and it sounded like they had fun doing the research for me. I should have the documents by the end of next week.
 
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hhhmmm, almost seems to us that is just what happened, ONE was a short barrel, and the so called "duplicate" in fact the longer barrels,,,,as I said earlier and above,,,which was FIRST???? till one gets the letter or asks for the info "first"...your gun was NOT "rebarreled", it shipped that way........if you have the letters KEEP THEM ALL !!! 8) :roll: :wink:
 
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Walter Rego said:
Tue Mar 12, 2019 9:26 pm I received another message from Linda in the Ruger Records department today. . . . . I should have the documents by the end of next week.

Hey, Walter, what's the story?????

:shock: :?: :shock:
 

Walter Rego

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I received the replacement letter for the duplicate serial number Blackhawk .41 Magnum a few days ago. It shipped to Western-Hoegee in Glendale CA on 9/21/67. Ruger Records sent me a copy of the shipping invoices for both the original serial # 10569, a BKH41 that shipped to Yakima Hardware Co. in Yakima WA on 7/31/67 and mine, the BKH42 S/N [D]10569.

Western-Hoegee must have been a pretty big distributor of Rugers at that time, the order called for 30 BKH41's and 30 BKH42's, of which 10 BKH41's were shipped and 15 BKH42's.

Interestingly enough, W-H received about 14 guns in that order that were within the duplicate serial number range as given by Dougan.
 
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