I (actually me and the missus) am the happy new owner of a couple of #3's in .44 magnum. Very recent purchases, specific for whitetail deer hunting on our homestead in north central Indiana. Picked them up through the efforts of of a couple of forum members, Heliman and Bearstopper, who I'd like to publicly thank here- they both are good guys.
That said, I've been reading the last several #3 .44 magnum posts with a lot of interest, and it strikes me that the ongoing myth of "only 200" of these rifles being manufactured by Ruger is still out there. I've been in touch with Chad, the RENE publisher, via PM and email, and our recent discussion centered on just how difficult it would be to try to come up with a definitive answer to that question. The bottom line is that the only way to do it would be to try to create a listing of #3 .44 magnum serial numbers. We thought that the forum would be a good place to start.
So, we're going to give it a try. I know that everyone who owns one is not a forum member, but maybe with forum members adding information, and adding information about other rifles they are aware of, we can get an idea of how many of these were actually made. 200 is a big number, but not insurmountable, over time.
So, how about it? I'll start- mine are 132-42984, & 132-43147. There- 1% of the list is done already...
Let's see how many we can dig out, guys. If Ruger can't/ won't tell us, maybe, over time, we can find out for ourselves. What do you say?
That said, I've been reading the last several #3 .44 magnum posts with a lot of interest, and it strikes me that the ongoing myth of "only 200" of these rifles being manufactured by Ruger is still out there. I've been in touch with Chad, the RENE publisher, via PM and email, and our recent discussion centered on just how difficult it would be to try to come up with a definitive answer to that question. The bottom line is that the only way to do it would be to try to create a listing of #3 .44 magnum serial numbers. We thought that the forum would be a good place to start.
So, we're going to give it a try. I know that everyone who owns one is not a forum member, but maybe with forum members adding information, and adding information about other rifles they are aware of, we can get an idea of how many of these were actually made. 200 is a big number, but not insurmountable, over time.
So, how about it? I'll start- mine are 132-42984, & 132-43147. There- 1% of the list is done already...
Let's see how many we can dig out, guys. If Ruger can't/ won't tell us, maybe, over time, we can find out for ourselves. What do you say?