UNUSUAL SDA-34 SERVICE-SIX

[T.A. WORKMAN]

I recently won a mint Ruger Service-Six .357 Mag. Serial #154-11152 on Gun Broker with some very interesting features.

First of all the revolver is a 1978 model marked Ruger Service Six not Ruger Police Service Six which came later, and has a beautiful high polished finish for that period in time. It also features the smaller font size serial number that is associated with the Ruger Red label shotguns. RENE lists the serial number ranges for Security-Six, Service-Six and Speed-Six revolvers with the smaller sized serial numbers as, 154-04916 - 154-36577 & 154-58068 - 155-01064.

The revolver was re-imported back to the US by 1 EIN Inc. Vera Beach Fl. from Austria and bears a total of seven German Proof Mark Stamps!! Police trade in when they went to Glocks?? I don't know but would make sense. The Importers stamp is on the bottom of the barrel near the front.

On left side of the gun the at the rear of the barrel it is Proof Marked with an Eagle sitting on top of the letter N which stands for, Definitive Nitro Proof (Smokeless Powder) used on all guns since 1952. On the cylinder frame next to it is the same Eagle Proof Mark followed by a cross hatched Shield Proof Mark, which stands for Munich used since 1968 forward. The last Proof Mark on the Cylinder frame is a Shield with the number (78) which represents the year the gun was Proofed which coincides with the revolvers year of manufacture. The rear face of the cylinder also has miniature Proof Marks of the Nitro Eagle & the Munich Shield.

On the right front side of the cylinder frame is an interesting stamping, the letter F sitting on top of what appears to be two letter W's (?) one on top of the other. I have not been able to identify this stamping. It's not a Proof Mark so I presume that it would either be an Armor's or Departmental stamping. Which leads me to believe that the revolver was a German Police Department rather than a civilian owned. I have sent to Ruger for a letter to see if it was part of a Foreign Govt. Contract. If anyone can share any info on it I would appreciate your help.
Terry
Note } I forgot that WMG aka Bob Livingston also has a Ruger Security-Six ser.#158-34599 (1982) with German Proof Marks also. They are the same as mine except all are hidden inside the cylinder frame with the exception of the Nitro Eagle on the back of the barrel. Also worth noting is the 7 with two WW's is stamped inside the cylinder frame rather then on the outside the frame like mine. That would mean that my theory on it being an Armor's or Departmental mark would be incorrect. There is NO re-import mark on his gun!!!

Importers Stamp

 

[hittman]

WOWZA! Very cool. Congratulations.

Seems I may have heard a story that when Ruger shipped these to foreign governments, they always left the word POLICE out of the rollmark. Think somebody had one of the Bolivian 380 guns also marked only as Ruger Service Six ….. missing the “Police”.

 

[WendyZXZ]

Looks like a great Ruger revolver!

 

[contender]

Nice one there! Chasing the history can be fun,,, AND frustrating!

 

[MinorLV]

Super cool Terry…thanks form sharing!

 

[T.A. WORKMAN]

WOWZA! Very cool. Congratulations.

Seems I may have heard a story that when Ruger shipped these to foreign governments, they always left the word POLICE out of the rollmark. Think somebody had one of the Bolivian 380 guns also marked only as Ruger Service Six ….. missing the “Police”.

The revolver you refer to belongs to WMG and was originally owned by Steve Vogel, it is pictured in the post "Info on the .380 D/A's".

To back up the theory that the word POLICE was removed from the SDA revolvers made for Foreign Govt. contracts. Note that RENE states that by at least Ser. #150-94446 all the Hi-Back framed SDA revolvers were marked RUGER POLICE SERVICE-SIX.
WMG's SDA-380 Bolivian revolver is marked SERVICE-SIX Ser. #154-01284, my SDA-34 German Proofed revolver is also marked SERVICE-SIX Ser. #154-11152, a span of 9,868 guns.
I own several other SDA- revolvers inside that span and ALL are marked RUGER POLICE SERVICE-SIX, so it would seem the the word POLICE was removed for foreign contract guns.
Terry

 

[weaselmeatgravy]

Nice score Terry! I do remember that I owe you more pics of the German Security Six.

We may never know on the non-POLICE marking, but foreign contract objections is as good a reason as any. If they were for civilian security use, or even military, the word POLICE might have seemed confusing or questionable. Heck, if it were in production today, non-POLICE marked guns might appeal to liberal cities to arm the private security forces that protect the beautiful woke people who defunded the police.

 

[Mike Armstrong]

Neat! Thanks for posting! (I'd trade my Glock--if I ever had one--in on that in a "New York heartbeat"!).

 

[Ride1949]

What a great find.

 

[Terry T]

My non "police" Service Six is in .380 Rim. Some question at this point if it was really a Bolivian contract or for some other agency. Some newly uncovered Ruger records are pointing to the Bolivian guns being in .357 Mag. The plot thickens. Skeeter could have helped with the Bolivian contract and then been gifted a special model from an overrun of another, different contract.

 

[T.A. WORKMAN]

TT,
Could very well be, how close is your Ser. # to WMG's gun?
Another thing that I have noticed, it seems like all of the Foreign Contract guns as well as any over runs had a slightly better finish applied ??
Do you have a letter on your gun?

 

[weaselmeatgravy]

Hey Terry, I just stumbled onto this old post as a "similar thread" to a newer one I was looking at.

In addition to Vogel's "Service Six" marked .380 Rim, I also have a U.S. marked SDA84L "Service Six" .38 Special that was also from Vogel's collection.

Here are both of those guns:

That may have been a prototype that was rejected in favor of marking them SDA84L as most U.S. marked models were

Note there is no lanyard ring on that one, same as Terry T's gun. Possibly more rejected prototypes since most of the .380 Rim guns have the ring. Or at least the later guns in the 16x prefix did, but those were for India.

I suspect Steve hung onto those two because they were pretty unique.

 

[Stantheman1986]

Very interesting gun. Were they for German Border Guards or Customs?

I have seen S&W Model 10's with German proofs too, also Austrian Customs guns.

I wonder why any aspect of German Law Enforcement wouldn't just use HK or Sig Sauer, Walther , or some other kind of 9mm and instead ordered contract Ruger .357's?

I can see countries like Bolivia that have no capacity to manufacture firearms, but it is interesting to see revolvers in use in European countries like Germany which have always been firmly autoloading pistol users.

 

[dobegrant.45]

Very cool gun, European’s sure like their proof marks