Secutiry Six mystery

Help Support Ruger Forum:

Joined
Jan 20, 2008
Messages
2,271
Location
Orange County, CA
I recently was able to find a Security Six .357 to go with my Speed Six .38. I won't bore you with the stupid reasons "Sixes" are hard to find in CA, but they are.

The new member is a 4" stainless with adjustable sights and factory oversized walnut stocks. Very nice condition once I scrubbed the rings of crap out of the chambers that were left there by shooting .38 Specials and not cleaning up afterwards.

This piece has the "Liberty" stamping on the left side of the frame and all seems factory-kosher. But the serial number is 154-3XXXX, which the Ruger customer service site tells me is a much later gun--according to them a '76 "Liberty" gun should have a 151-XXXXX serial.

Any suggestions as to when this gun was made? I really don't care too much because I want it mainly for a shooter and open-carry gun to replace my GP for carry, but am curious why a "Liberty" marked gun would be later than 1976.

No box came with the gun so I couldn't verify the SN from that.
 

chet15

Hawkeye
Joined
Jan 22, 2001
Messages
5,993
Location
Dawson, Iowa
I would really like to see some pics of that one! Rollmarks should all happen at about the same time as the serial number, so not sure why somebody at Ruger would put a Liberty rollmark on a 154- prefix gun. Does it have a Warning barrel as well?
Chet15
 
Joined
Jan 20, 2008
Messages
2,271
Location
Orange County, CA
Well, I mistyped and/or misread the serial number. Went back and looked very carefully (for once) into the "well" in the grips and saw that the prefix is really 152, not 154. But that still makes it not a 1976 gun, according to the Ruger site. I'll check for a barrel warning--didn't know to check that.

(As I'm sure is obvious by now, I care more for these guns as shooters than collectors' items, but would still like to get the manufacturing date right, at least. Thanks for your response!).
 

chet15

Hawkeye
Joined
Jan 22, 2001
Messages
5,993
Location
Dawson, Iowa
The main serial number range for Liberty marked DA's is 151-90397 to 152-71692, and there are a couple numbered frames that apparently weren't rollmarked till 1976 for whatever reason... 151-15089 and 151-82345.
Ruger's site shows a 1976 production range of 151-76180 to 152-61011, so therein lies the difference between Ruger's records of "general high and low sn shipped during the year" and Ruger's production lag for the Liberty marked run.
Chet15
 
Top