Allure of the Ruger No1

[odonata]

Hate that the Great State of Mississippi would discriminate against a good ole rifle like the No 1….

I have a lot of opportunities to hunt in AR, LA & MS so I do try to keep my griping to a minimum because I actually have it pretty good. But when I'm reading the regulations, it is difficult not to do a hard eye roll sometimes.

The requirement that I have to have a hammer in LA & MS means the Ruger No. 1, Blaser K95, Merkel K5, TCR 83 Aristocrat, Chapuis Oural, Krieghoff Hubertus & a bunch of other kipplauf rifles are all on the no-no list.

In AR, I can use my Ruger No. 1's but they have to have a straight-wall chambering of at least 30 caliber. My 303 British & 9.3x74r both have a taper.

On the bright side, I can hunt AR deer with my Ruger 77 MkII chambered in the straight-walled 458 Win Mag. That makes so much more sense than letting me hunt with my Ruger No. 1A in 303 British.

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

@odonata you have a very nice collection of No1s. The Redfield 2-7x33 looks really nice in proportion to you No 1 RSI in 275 Rigby. Very classy looking!

 

[odonata]

@odonata you have a very nice collection of No1s. The Redfield 2-7x33 looks really nice in proportion to you No 1 RSI in 275 Rigby. Very classy looking!

Thanks for the kind words! I'm sure I'm not the only hunter who has done this, but a lot of my scopes got put on rifles based on when they were acquired or when a great sale came along. A few months ago, I did a rethink of all of my various pairings and reassigned the best scope / gun combinations I could.

That Redfield 2-7x33 originally arrived on my Ruger No. 1A in 303 British. That rifle wore a Leupold 6x42mm for a while and the RSI had a Leupold 3x20mm Big Bore.

After the big swap, the nicest 42mm scopes went to my left-handed Sako 85 and Steyr CLII. The Leupold Big Bore went on a 458 Win Mag. I found that I really like to have smaller objective scopes on my Ruger No. 1's.

So the RSI has the Redfield 2-7x33, the 303 British has a Meopta Meostar R2 1-6x24 RD & the 9.3x74r has a Minox ZA5 1.5-8x32. The 6.5x55 Swede is still a work in progress.

But I agree with your assessment: The Redfield will stay on the RSI for as long as it continues to hold zero. It's the best rifle for it to be on.

 

[Tintin]

You may find that the short barrel won't really be best for black powder loads - fun to shoot at night though!
I had a 458 Lott No.1 which I used as a mule for all sorts of loads. Black powder - cast & paper patched up to modern smokeless loads.
I also used it for testing my swaged bullets.
All good fun and 100% reliable.

@Huvius Thanks Ben - barrel is 24" - we'll see how it goes. It's my first foray into BP.

 

[Tintin]

A mate and I shot some BP loads in the No. 1 450 Nitro today.

A lot of fun

 

[F. Vaccaro]

Did you have a timer on the camera? Beautiful photos, thanks for sharing.

 

[Tintin]

Did you have a timer on the camera? Beautiful photos, thanks for sharing.

Thanks. I just got lucky with that fireball image. It is a still frame taken from video I took with my 6 year old iPhone XR. Didn't use the timer - just a quick hand held 'point and shoot'.

Might have to try to replicate that image at night - that would make a cool picture.