R.L. Wilson - Ruger & His Guns: A History of the Man, the Company and Their Firearms

Other books by R. L. Wilson:

Steel Canvas: The Art of American Arms

The Peacemakers: Arms and Adventure in the American West

Winchester: An American Legend

Colt: An American Legend

The Book of Colt Firearms

Winchester Engraving

Colt Engraving

Winchester: The Golden Age of American Gunmaking and the Winchester 1 of 1000

Samuel Colt Presents

The Arms Collection of Colonel Colt

L. D. Nimschke Firearms Engraver

The Rampant Colt

Colt Commemorative Firearms (two editions)

Theodore Roosevelt Outdoarsman (two editions)

Antique Arms Annual (editor)

The Book of Colt Engraving

The Book of Winchester Engraving

Colt Pistols

Colt Handguns (Japanese)

Paterson Colt Pistol Variations (with Philip R. Phillips)

The Colt Heritage

The Deringer in America (with L. D. Eberhart, two volumes)

Colts Dates of Manufacture

Silk & Steel Women at Arms

Buffalo Bills Wild West (with Greg Martin)

The History and Art of the American Gun

Published by arrangement with R. L. Wilson

Copyright 1996 R. L. Wilson.

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Designed by Martin Moskof

Design Assistant: George Brady

Editorial assistance provided by K&N BOOKWORKS.

The Great Trees, Mariposa Grove, California. Albert Bierstadt, oil on canvas, 118 59. Painting exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as at the Museum of Modern Art and elsewhere. In front of the giant sequoias, on top of nineteenth-century books on the American West, Sharps sporting rifles, both customized by acclaimed Frontier gunsmiths the Freund Brothers. At bottom , Model 1874 Sharps, engraved on the right lockplate:

Freund Bros. Cheyenne Wyo./U.S.A.

On right side of receiver: AMERICAN FRONTIER.

Engraved on left side of receiver: FREUND and IMPROVD..40 caliber; engraved on upper tang: Pietre Lorillard

Engraved on the left side of the frame: AMERICAN/FRONTIER; on lockplate: WYOMING ARMORY/FREUNDS PATENT/W YO . T. U.S.A.

Indian warrior on right side of receiver. Buttplate checkered steel with scroll engraving.

At top , another Freund Model 1874 Sharps, engraved on the right lockplate, in script: Freund Bros. Cheyenne Wyo./U.S.A. On right side of receiver: AMERICAN FRONTIER.

Engraved on left side of receiver: FREUND and IMPROVD. Checkered steel buttplate, .40 caliber.

Front endpaper: The Ruger saga from the nineteenth century through the 1960s. Camp scene at left painted by Grandfather Julius Ruger, during Civil War service; beneath , sister Betty with Bud (Rugers nickname, coined by family) on outing; nearby their father on horseback; above , German heritage family heirloom pistol from matched pair. Blue Boy style portrait at left center painted on ivory by young Rogers Aunt Emma. Lodge to right of Schoeverling, Daly & Gales catalogue was on fathers Long Island duck-hunting property. Drawings of technical designs from youth and into 1950s. Wife Mary Thompson Ruger in several pictures, formal portrait to left of prototype Ruger .22 pistol, and above Ruger in college dormitory at University of North Carolina. First patent next to photograph of the Rugers on their wedding day, April 26, 1938. Mother May Batterman Ruger on passport, above first yacht, the Island Waters . Coveted Shaw & Hunter trophy, at far right , awarded to Ruger by East African Professional Hunters Association, for record reedbuck taken with Ruger .44 Magnum Carbine on 1961 safari to Uganda. Family picture, to left of Queen Mary postcard, published in Life , August 11, 1947, had been taken at Fairfield County fair. Sons Billy and Tom, and daughter Molly, to right of Ruger standing in safari clothes, in Uganda bush. Original Southport, Connecticut, factory at top right center , next to Ruger with light machine gun he designed for Auto-Ordnance, during World War II.

Back endpaper: Continuing the Ruger saga from the 1950s through the mid-1990s. Old friend Bill Lett ( at right ) in whitetail deer-hunting scene at bottom left , next to outdoor writer (in green jacket) Larry Roller, car and shotgun specialist Lyle Patterson, and yawning cat Keto. Shooting champion Jim Clark, with favorite Ruger .22 Standard pistol, at far left. Left center , company directors in session on board yacht Titania , black-hulled vessel at top center and bottom left . Southport factory at upper left : Newport factory at far right ; Prescott factory at top right . President Carter with his new Ruger Red Label shotgun, with Executive Vice President John M. Kingsley, Jr., and President Bush with his new Red Label, with then Sturm, Ruger President William B. Ruger, Jr., in Oval Office. Top left and at center , Ruger family home in Southport, purchased 1958. Beneath Ruger Sports Tourer prototype cars at left center , Stan Terhune and Lenard Brownell, instrumental in establishing Newport factory. Writer Skeeter Skelton on horseback next to Ruger on safari, with trophy zebra. Ruger daughter Molly in library of her home, Fasnacloich (listed in National Register of Historic Places) with extensive collection, primarily of childrens books. Ruger with granddaughter Victoria above Cape Buffalo trophy. Grandson Charlie with his sisters Amy, left , and Adrienne, above Rugers daughter Molly with niece Cameron Wesselhoft Brauns, above Charlie with Ruger great-grandsons Terry and Stephen. Ruger secretary Margaret Sheldon next to poster celebrity Kelly Glenn on brochure; above Sam and Sylvia McAllisterSylvia was with the family from 1958-66, and again from 1993. Race car (The Ruger Special), driven by Johnny Unser, at Loudon, Indianapolis car race, September 1994. Beneath Ruger P85 pistol on Time cover, Mary in garden of Southport home, with factory employee Ken Siwy and standard poodle Sophie. Partial interior of Ruger Prescott factory to left of Blackhawk in service with U.S. Special Forces; both pictures beneath Forge of Vulcan ambiance photographs from Pine Tree Castings foundry. Other Prescott and Pine Tree factory photographs to left of Tom Ruger with industry advertising executive Dave Crosby; Maynard Dixons celebrated Cloud World painting beneath . Tom with exhibition shooter Joe Bowman beneath The New York Times article on Christies auction. Robert Delfay, Executive Director, National Shooting Sports Federation, interviewing Ruger for NSSF publication. 1950s group of gun writers, with Ruger on New Hampshire whitetail deer hunt; below antique arms dealer Herb Glass at bench with No. 1 Rifle. Reeves Callaway standing behind Rugers Stutz engine (turbocharged and fine-tuned by Callaway Cars). At left , Ruger longtime friend and fellow gun and car collector Hunting World founder Bob Lee, on Marco Polo sheep hunt in the Pamirs, China, 1980. Coterie of celebrated gun writers and publishers above the original advertisement for Ruger firearms, the .22 Standard pistol, from The American Rifleman issue of August 1949.

Man is a Tool-using Animal. Weak in himself, and of small stature, he stands on a basis, at most for the flattest-soled, of some half-square foot, insecurely enough; has to straddle out his legs, lest the very wind supplant him. Feeblest of bipeds! Three quintals are a crushing load for him; the steer of the meadow tosses him aloft, like a waste rag. Nevertheless he can use Tools, can devise Tools: with these the granite mountain melts into light dust before him; he kneads glowing iron, as if it were soft paste; seas are his smooth highway, winds and fire his unwearying steeds. Nowhere do you find him without Tools: without Tools he is nothing, with Tools he is all .