This past Friday, I drove up to Newport, NH to pick up a firearm that I had purchased and spent a couple of hours speaking with two retired 40 year plus employees of Ruger, they both worked there from the mid-70's thru the early 2000's, and both have very fond memories of working for WBR Sr and WBR Jr. One of these gentlemen worked/managed the wood production shop and then was involved in manufacturing process engineering, the other was in R&D and built all of the prototypes during his tenure. He had his own machine shop dedicated to building whatever management or his creative mind desired for prototypes. We got on the subject of rare or very low production firearms and that is when the conversation became very interesting to me.
One of them showed me pictures of special one-off stocks that were built as samples including a spectacular figured walnut stock for a 44 carbine with the pre-64 Winchester checkering patterns that was reminiscent of the pre-64 Model 88 stock and another in birds-eye Maple. The prototypes that the other built included #3 rifles with half and full octagon barrels, 22 Hornet Single Sixes, a couple dozen or so 18" Super Blackhawks for the British (so that they could be imported as rifles due to the barrel length), special No. 1 rifles in custom calibers for FOB (friends of Bill) (example would be the No.1's chambered in 416 Taylor) etc etc. I could go on and on but the point is that there are many unique, FACTORY BUILT, Ruger firearms that may or most likely, may not have unique model numbers and which may or may not be factory verifiable due to the lack of knowledge of the new regimes. How about Gold labels with TITANIUM firing pins and titanium internal hammers to make them more reliable and faster.
One story was when the ceiling in the employee break room collapsed due to the quantity of "employee grade" stocks that were hidden in the ceiling in the building where the wood shop was expanded into! Another was that employees had numerous one offs created with special serial numbers including birth dates, SS numbers, anniversaries, etc.
There are many one-offs that I have personally seen over the last 20+ years so i know they are out there….proving they are factory built will be nigh impossible once these long time employees begin to sell off their firearms. Some of them have internal documentation proving they were factory built as prototypes, many more don't. The factory during those years was run as a family business, with a casual atmosphere and not as a strict publicly traded company. WBR Sr and Jr had pet projects, and loved building special firearms for friends, family, long time employees and others.
This just proves the adage, "Never say never with Ruger…."
One of them showed me pictures of special one-off stocks that were built as samples including a spectacular figured walnut stock for a 44 carbine with the pre-64 Winchester checkering patterns that was reminiscent of the pre-64 Model 88 stock and another in birds-eye Maple. The prototypes that the other built included #3 rifles with half and full octagon barrels, 22 Hornet Single Sixes, a couple dozen or so 18" Super Blackhawks for the British (so that they could be imported as rifles due to the barrel length), special No. 1 rifles in custom calibers for FOB (friends of Bill) (example would be the No.1's chambered in 416 Taylor) etc etc. I could go on and on but the point is that there are many unique, FACTORY BUILT, Ruger firearms that may or most likely, may not have unique model numbers and which may or may not be factory verifiable due to the lack of knowledge of the new regimes. How about Gold labels with TITANIUM firing pins and titanium internal hammers to make them more reliable and faster.
One story was when the ceiling in the employee break room collapsed due to the quantity of "employee grade" stocks that were hidden in the ceiling in the building where the wood shop was expanded into! Another was that employees had numerous one offs created with special serial numbers including birth dates, SS numbers, anniversaries, etc.
There are many one-offs that I have personally seen over the last 20+ years so i know they are out there….proving they are factory built will be nigh impossible once these long time employees begin to sell off their firearms. Some of them have internal documentation proving they were factory built as prototypes, many more don't. The factory during those years was run as a family business, with a casual atmosphere and not as a strict publicly traded company. WBR Sr and Jr had pet projects, and loved building special firearms for friends, family, long time employees and others.
This just proves the adage, "Never say never with Ruger…."
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