I always love buying guns that were not part of a collection, just somebody's personal guns. The family of the gentleman that owned these were personal friends with the Sturms and the Rugers. His uncle had a business next to the Red Barn. When he got out of the military he needed a job for three months. His father said, "Call Bill." He did, and ended up staying for three years, 1968-1971. He spent most of his time running errands for Bill Ruger. I spent a lot of time talking to him about Ruger. I have never talked to an employee for that time frame. There's not many left. It was really quite interesting! He saw this pair of guns sitting in the warehouse in the boxes, covered with dust and he asked I think Ed Nolan if he could by them. He said, "Check with Bill," who said yes. They took $5 a week out of his wages and this was noted on the invoice. Part of his job was deliver the mail to all the departments, which meant taking the guns to the service department where he became friends with Bob Deardon. They spent a lot of time shooting together. Both of these guns were fine tuned by Mr. Deardon. He said the 10/22 will shoot a group the size of a dime at 25 yards. The 44 Deerstalker also came with two trigger groups, both fine tuned by Deardon. (The original and the updated one with the cartridge release button.) He said he shot 14 deer with the Deerstalker. These guns aren't mint but have lots of history and I like that just as well. If anybody would like too email David with question about Ruger from 1968-72 fell free to PM me and I will give you his email address.
