My Ruger beginnings are going to have to be neccessarily cryptic, the reasons which should be obvious. Don't need the mob or some hit man looking for me. Or whoever it was that buried that gun
It was the mid 70's and as boys are wont to do, I was playing in a dirt lot just diggin up ground to make BMX jumps. I found an old cigar box in the ground that turned out to have a Ruger Single Six .22 in it. (I have since dated it to 1958 by the serial number) One of the old black plastic grip panels had a chip in it, and at some point someone had put an XR3-Red grip frame on it (DAMN them!) and sanded it down to the aluminum. Other than that, it was pretty tight.
I had been growning up firing guns and had a .22LR bolt rifle and an old single-shot .410ga back at the house, so I kept this little beauty hidden for quite some time until my ol' grandpap caught me with it. True to his rascally self, he kept my secret but sent it off to Ruger for that dreaded conversion to the transfer bar system.
Since then I have purchased 2 more 3-screw Singel Six .22's, neither older than 1962, as well as 5 more OM Vaqueros all in .45 (2 7 1/2" stainless, 2 5 1/2" CC'd and 1 4 5/8's stainless) Also have a blued GP-100 in .357mag
For rifles I have an older 10/22 and 2 Mini-14's. One standard rifle blued with the Rosewood stock and one stainless ranch rifle, with the factory folder.
Dont have access to pic's of all of them at the time of this posting, but these I do have and have been seen on the RATS site.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g79/cksills/SASS023.jpghttp://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g79/cksills/SASS024.jpghttp://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g79/cksills/SASS014.jpghttp://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g79/cksills/SASS018.jpg5 1/2" CC'd .45's, Eagle gunfighter grips, leather by M. Shelhart, knife tweaked by Longline Charlie
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g79/cksills/SASS026.jpghttp://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g79/cksills/SASS004.jpgas original, prior to grip swaps:
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g79/cksills/SASS006.jpg