Walnut Hill
Ask someone to name the longest-lived American single shot, and I suspect most would suggest the Winchester High Wall, the Sharps in its various incarnations, or perhaps the Stevens No. 44. All would be wrong.
column By: Terry Wieland | November, 24
As of today, that title is held by the Ruger No. 1, having been in production for 57 years without a break. Of the rifles mentioned above, only the Stevens No. 44, introduced in 1892 and finally discontinued in 1940 or thereabouts, comes close. The High Wall, revered though it be, and resurrected much later in fits and starts, was originally around for only 35 years (1885-1920).
You will notice I limited this to what we would consider high-quality actions. Devotees might argue that the Stevens Favorite in its many guises, belongs in there, but that gets too fragmented by names, model numbers and specifications to be considered one action in continuous production.
Not that the title means anything anyway, but the sheer longevity of the Ruger No. 1 tells me something, not just about the rifles and actions themselves, but about the tastes and preferences of the American shooting public.
When it was sprung on the world in 1967, much of the shooting press was aghast. What was Bill Ruger thinking of? It was the age of firepower – bolt actions for accuracy and power, semiautos for volume. Who would want a (gasp!) single shot?
Well, as it turned out, a whole lot of people wanted one. Many wanted more than one, and they continued to buy them for the next half-century and then some.
This was not William B. Ruger’s only such coup in the face of perceived public preferences. A decade earlier, Colt decided the Peacemaker was old hat and dropped it, and Ruger single-handedly resurrected the single-action revolver market with his Single-Six and Blackhawk; 10 years after the No. 1, he saw that shooters wanted an affordable over/under shotgun instead of the semiautos and pumps flooding the market and came out with the Red Label.
As you can see, as Ruger approaches its 75th (diamond) anniversary, there are any number of firearms from which to choose for special commemorative limited editions. One they’ve chosen is the No. 1 single shot. There will be 75 of them, specially numbered, stocked in premium walnut, with some gold inlay. All will be chambered in 270 Winchester, with 22-inch barrels and express sights, including an integral quarter-rib for the rear sight.
The press release announcing these rifles mentioned the fact that Bill Ruger designed the No. 1 personally, so it was obviously dear to his heart. But then, all fine guns were dear to his heart – a glance at his gun collection would take your breath away – and the suspicion is that, in designing the No. 1, his goal was to create a classic.
In terms of mechanical principles, the No. 1 does not break any really new ground. It’s a hammerless falling-block action with an underlever that resembles the British Farquharson more than it does any early American design. The underlever is pure Farquharson, with a couple of modifications, and the forend is styled after the classic Alexander Henry of Edinburgh. One serious point of departure from earlier designs is that the No. 1 will comfortably accommodate rimless and belted cartridges as well as rimmed ones.
The first stocks were elegantly simple, following design principles that have come to be known as American Classic when applied to bolt actions. Over the years, I have seen standard grade No. 1s leave the factory looking like they were stocked with a two-by-six and others with wood so nicely grained and tasteful you’d think they were special order. The plainest I ever saw was a 416 Rigby, and the most elegant was a 450/400 Jeffery. No explanation except luck of the draw.
The best way to see the possibilities and limitations of any action is to try to build a custom rifle on one. It seemed to me, 20 years ago, that a modern action like the No. 1 must have allowed for leeway in terms of restocking and rebarreling, but I received a rather rude awakening when, having traded for a No. 1 action in the white, I turned it over to Danny Pedersen and several other craftsmen to be turned into a long-range target rifle in the classic Creedmoor mold.
It was to be a 40-70 Sharps (Straight) with a 34-inch octagonal barrel, and a more or less standard buttstock combined with an antique-looking slim, tapering Schnabel forend. No problem with the former, but there was no way to fit the latter. Because of the way it all pieces together, we were stuck with the standard Ruger-pattern forend, albeit with the Alex Henry-style tip, which is a kind of Scottish Mac-Schnabel. Well, okay.
That was purely aesthetics. More of a problem was the sights. I wanted a globe front sight combined with a ladder-type tang sight – Creedmoor target-style. Unfortunately, the No. 1 has little tang to speak of, and what little is there, is occupied by a sliding safety catch.
Obviously, the Ruger was designed to accommodate scopes primarily and standard open sights secondarily or not at all. The only commercial receiver sight I could find at the time had to be attached to the integral dovetail on the barrel, and was too far forward of the eye; and, since it was tightened in place by its screw-in aperture, which was far too small to function as an aperture should, the whole thing was useless.
To this day, given Bill Ruger’s penchant for the classic, I cannot explain why no provision was made for target sights of the ladder/vernier type. They go with a single-shot rifle like a cheeseburger and a cold draft beer.
Anyway, Danny Pedersen solved the problem. He ditched the safety entirely (superfluous on a target single shot) welded an extension onto the tang, then filed it to shape. This naturally required additional accommodation on the buttstock, but in the end, he accomplished it. The stock blank came from Bill Dowtin, who picked a piece of European walnut of suitable period style and stockmaker Robert Szweda did the rest. Sam Welch applied some understated 1880s American-style scroll to the action.
We then sent the stock, barreled action, forend, and sights to Doug Turnbull of Turnbull Restorations, who case-hardened the action, rust-blued the barrel and put it all together. In total, it took four years from the time I received the action until I took delivery of the finished rifle, by which time I wasn’t sure why I’d wanted it in the first place. I do recall that it all started when a friend gave me an original 40-70 Sharps (Straight) cartridge for my collection, and my fascination with it grew until I felt I had to have a rifle to go with it.
On such trivialities do our destinies hinge.
Over the years, I’ve seen various customized Ruger No. 1s, but not as many as you might expect. What I have learned is that the challenges of customizing it – or building a complete custom rifle – are not unique to the No. 1. Every major single-shot action I can think of, British, European or American, has some idiosyncrasy that makes it difficult for a gunmaker to improve on the factory item.
By comparison, lifting a Mauser 98 action out of its stock and replacing it with a new one is child’s play. The problem is that, as with the forend on the No. 1, single-shot rifles don’t have discrete parts that can be modified without affecting some other function.
So where does that leave the Ruger No. 1? In my opinion, as it comes from the factory, it’s the most attractive and potentially most elegant single-shot rifle we’ve ever had. Barring some calamity, I expect rifle lovers will still be buying them a half-century from now.