Back from a long vacation...
This little blog space is dedicated to Bill Ruger. It is said that Bill Ruger had a hand in the design of every Sturm, Ruger weapon from the inception of the company until his retirement in 2000. If this is true, he was responsible for some beautiful weapons and some damn ugly ones, too. One thing about all Ruger firearms, pretty or pretty ugly, they all work with darned near 100% reliability.
Ruger was born June 21, 1916 in Brooklyn, New York. He was already designing weapons during his high school years, eventually having one accepted in 1938 by the U.S. Army, a light machine gun.
In 1949, Ruger and Alexander Sturm, who provided financial backing, released the Ruger 22 pistol. After that, it was all uphill. He helped bring the single action revolver back into style starting in 1953. The 10/22 is one of the best selling and most reliable 22 rifles int he world with a host of accessories second to none. The Mini 14 and Mini 30 have filled law enforcement trunks since they were introduced. Blackhawks, Super Blackhawks, Vaquero's, Single Six, Model 77 rifles, Model 1 single shots, level actions, snubbies, hunting models, etc etc etc fill dozens of catalog pages. Small pistols, large pistols, semi-auto, revolvers, magnums, and standards and innovative guns and ammo full the racks of millions of people. Don't even get me started on his plethora of shotguns of any shape, size, and gauge.
It is estimated that over 20 million Ruger arms have been manufactured. Throughout his career, he was very hands on. Stories are abound about him getting his hands dirty, digging through oil pans to find or fix something, and spending unknown hours helping his engineers resolve an issue.
Bill Ruger was not without his faults. He supported a total ban on civilians having magazines with a capacity greater then ten rounds. He once said to Tom Brokaw, "I never meant for simple civilians to have my 20 and 30 round magazines or my folding stock…" and "no honest man needs more than 10 rounds in any gun…" He was a supporter of the Clinton Assault Weapons Ban.
Now, there is some contention regarding these statements, specifically, how he meant for them to be taken.
A) Just like he said it. Blatant anti-2nd gibberish from a guy who made millions and millions off those he now hated.
Or..
B) To deflect the anti-gun people from banning guns instead to large capacity magazines. At the time he made these statements, it was just after a series of gun related shootings, school shootings, and police officers being shot. The anti's were circling the wagons and it has been said that Bill Ruger read the writing on the wall and that there was enough support in Congress to get huge gun restrictions passed. By deflecting the issue to large capacity magazines and not the guns themselves, he may have saved the industry and Pro-2nd people they ultimate rights.
In addition to firearms, he also designed a car and a 92 foot yacht. Ruger gave away MILLIONS of bucks for firearms associations, and other organizations.
Now, people compare him to John Browning for his genius, which may have a Little truth to it, but it is my opinion that his total impact on firearms and the firearms industry is no where near as amazing as Mr. Browning, it is never-the-less very important. Mr. Ruger passed on July 6, 2002.
