My timing was good today, for once. A Cabela’s had a first year Ruger number 1B in 6 mm Remington listed this morning. All the features are right. it’s got the original red pad that I think was provided by Marshawn, the right side lever bolt is unslotted, the additional diamond checkered area on the bottom of the forend, and great wood. To top it all off, it has the rarely seen vertical split rings that Ruger offered with these for a very short time. My understanding is the very earliest guns were reputed to have Douglas barrels, although I don’t know if that’s true. Later of course they sourced them from marginal vendors. The gun looks very clean. As seems to always be the case with Cabela’s, I left a message indicating I wanted the gun, and called back a couple of times with no answer, again routed to the answering machine. I never get lucky on these, but today I did. They seem not to have known that it was anything unusual, just another Ruger number one.

PS: another Cabela’s had a CZ 550 in 30-06 for $350. That one was sold by the time I called. They can be clueless, in both pricing directions.

That's a nice score. I have several number ones, with my earliest being a 1969 270win. 4 digit S/N.

Tony

Not sure of the SN on this one, but it's unusual to see one with the early vertical split rings. Has all the earliest features. The early guns were clearly more carefully fit and finished.