Gold Label spotted

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VAdoublegunner

Single-Sixer
Joined
Oct 24, 2006
Messages
459
Location
Virginia, USA
I saw a Ruger Gold Label in a local gun shop last Friday. They had just taken it in trade. Man, I think that's only the third time I've ever actually seen one in a shop.

I got one at a show in a private sale years ago. This one was a perfect match for my other one with an English stock and looked all but unfired. It would be kind of cool to have a matched pair, but in keeping with the current market the tariff is pretty dear compared to the first one.

But...maybe time to sell/trade some stuff....hmmm...
 

BluedMoon

Bearcat
Joined
May 22, 2003
Messages
23
Location
Texas, USA
Don't tease us like that VAdoublegunner! What was the tariff??? :) At least give us a ballpark.

P.S. The only Gold Label I've ever seen is the one in my gun safe.
 

Coop

Blackhawk
Joined
Jan 24, 2001
Messages
607
Location
Mt. Lebanon, PA USA
Don't think it will last for long.

Here's mine.

CurtGoldLabel-1.jpg


Coop
 

VAdoublegunner

Single-Sixer
Joined
Oct 24, 2006
Messages
459
Location
Virginia, USA
Well, the price was fair compared to the current going rate on the auction sites ....just under $3000. I gave $1750 for the first one, so that sort of hurts to contemplate. That's a couple of good Elsies!

I keep saying that -- "...the first/other one..."
Must be something subconscious at work.

I agree though, it won't last long.
 

Coop

Blackhawk
Joined
Jan 24, 2001
Messages
607
Location
Mt. Lebanon, PA USA
Yes it is a pistol grip Gold Label. It's a real clay buster. It took me 6 years to finally get one (2007), after handling a prototype in 2001 at Ben Avery Range in Phoenix (sp?), AZ, when Ruger first started to announce them.

I only ever saw one other for sale about 4 years ago in Grice's gun shop in Clearfield, PA, but it was an English version.

Fit and finish on my Gold Label is stunning. I have not used it for bird hunting yet, but, perhaps this is the year.

Coop
 

VAdoublegunner

Single-Sixer
Joined
Oct 24, 2006
Messages
459
Location
Virginia, USA
Here's mine. Not the best photo since it was with my phone, and the stock has a lot more figure than the photo would indicate, but we had just headed out into the woods on a quail and woodcock hunt that day. It carries nicely for an upland gun at 6 1/2 lbs, and a 7/8 oz handload at 1175fps doesn't tear up the birds but hits hard, even with skeet and IC chokes. It's also really easy to shoot in the gun.

RugerGL12-02-06.jpg



I think the Gold Label is at its best as an upland gun with 1oz/1200fps loads, although I occasionally shoot 7/8 oz loads at high 1300+fps, say for fast late season doves and especially clays. It will really dust clays with that load!

Couldn't you just use a 20? Sure, but it carries as light as many if not most 20s and throws a better light pattern. The way it points with that straight stock and long barrels, it is the finger of death on any upland birds. Like most splinter forend guns, it prefers the forward hand on the barrels or just at the tip of the forend rather than on the wood.
 
Joined
Jan 20, 2008
Messages
2,271
Location
Orange County, CA
Mine was a gift (I was happy to retire, but this made me REALLY happy!). I couldn't wait to use it, so when a friend told me a coyote was coming into his barn (this is when I still lived in upstate NY), I grabbed the Gold Label and some 3" 4s and laid in wait. One BOOM, one sore shoulder, and one dead 'yote (that was the last 3" shell I've fired in the GL).

Then I got to go pheasant hunting with some friends in central NY and took about 10 steps out of the truck into the corn, up comes a rooster, BOOM down goes the rooster! Two shots, two kills...shoulda hung up the GL right then. But instead I had to take it to Kansas, where the birds are wilder than any I ever saw. Did more than my share of missin'

My pistol-gripped GL has handsome wood on one side of the stock and delicious wood on the other. My brothers English gripped one has handsome on both sides. We haven't had any of the various problems some have reported in GLs--apparently they had worked the bugs out by the time we got them.

I don't find it uncomfortable hunting ducks with standard high-base steel shells, because you have plenty of time to mount the gun correctly. But in upland hunting where you have to shoot fast, the heavy loads aren't necessary and don't beat you up should you get a less than ideal mount. I wouldn't want to shoot two or three rounds of trap with heavy trap loads, tho. One is plenty.
 

vol423

Bearcat
Joined
Feb 18, 2009
Messages
57
Location
Greeneville, TN, USA
I bought my GL from a retailer who had received the guns from Ruger to show them at a Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation dinner. They shot the pistol grp gun and sold it right away, but my straight grip gun made it to their store where I spotted it the next day. I paid $1600 for it when they were wholesaleing for $1200 but I was glad to get it. After I used it for a year, I sold two English guns that I knew I'd never use again. It is still my best upland gun. I used to shoot pheasants with it with 1-1/4 ounce No 6s and No 5s. I have finished off birds at 65 yards with it and I can't count the number of "lucky" shots I've made with it. My hunting buddies warned if I kept shooting all the birds I was only going to be allowed to have one shell.
 
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