

And in some cases, firearms may be stored for a length of time before they are shipped.įor details on your specific serial number you may contact our Service Department: 33įor serial numbers manufactured prior to our electronic records, or for an official letter confirming the details on your firearm please download and mail in the Request for Letter of Authenticity form.Ĭopyright © 2016 by Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc. Also, within a model family the same serial number prefix may be used to produce a variety of different models, all in the same block of serial numbers. You might want to make sure your cylinder is for 22 LRs because it was shipped with only a Magnum cylinder. There are occasions when blocks of serial numbers have been manufactured out of sequence, sometimes years later. Ruger started making convertibles in 1961 with 22 LR and 22 Mag cylinders so there was a period where both the Magnum models and Convertibles were in the same serial number sequence. Ruger and his fine firearms, so lots of folks must figure we're the guys to ask about that Old Model Super Blackhawk from the pawn shop or dad's old Bearcat. Ruger does not necessarily produce firearms in serial number order. We gets lots of questions about old Rugers.It should be fairly obvious to our readers by now that we are great fans of William B. It can be used to determine the approximate year your Ruger firearm was It is not necessarily the very first serial number shipped, but This number should be used as a point of reference The above chart shows the approximate first serial number shipped for (Manufactured from 1964 to 1972) Caliber: 22 LR It really doesn't matter, since The Factory didn't record all the individual bits used on any particular gun anyway, so there is no documentation for most of those with the possible exception of some particular grip frames or panels, and these only occasionally.Īll this only serves to keep us on our toes and remember that with Ruger, never say never.Ruger Super Single Six Serial Number History

There is no real way to sort these aberrations out, but in most cases they can be identified as "suspicious" if that matters to someone. And of course there is always the potential for the "screwdriver variations" arising from easily-swapped parts that muddy the gun's actual date of origin, either "early" or "late". There will always be the occasional "late shipped" gun having bits and pieces that were released considerably after the gun's serial number might indicate, or the occasional gun wearing some older bits from way earlier production that just floated to the top of the "parts bin" at final assembly. He can, for instance, occasionally come pretty close to revealing within a month's time when certain features/parts were changed in a run of a particular model. His serial number breakouts are considerably more precise than anything Ruger has put out, and his discussion of which parts were used when is further informative. Knowing the month as well as the year certainly helps since the various "type" configurations of many of the Old Models are pretty well known and documented in Chet15's Red Eagle News Exchange Reference of Ruger Firearms.
