These first Single-Sixes came with just one cylinder capable of chambering.22 Short,.22 Long or.22 Long Rifle cartridges.

During the early post-World War II years Colt had decided to finally move on from single-action revolvers.

After all, its Model 1911A1 had been the handgun of choice during the worldwide dustup, and double-action revolvers largely ruled the law-enforcement community.

Only a relative handful of rank, old cowboy types still clung to the thumb-buster, and most of them couldnt scrape together enough cash to buy a new gun.

Besides, the tooling to build single-action revolvers was worn out and obsolete.

It made absolutely no business sense whatsoever to continue to make single-action revolvers.

Hopalong Cassidy and The Lone Ranger were leaders of the genre starting in 1949.

A gaggle of short, relatively low-budget western films were also produced.

In 1951 one Leonard Franklin Slye, a.k.a.

Roy Rogers, started a 30-minute weekly show that often melded the Old West with somewhat modern technologyautomobiles, telephones, electric lights and such.

Virtually all of these shows featured some gun play in them, and allmore or lessof the handguns were single-action revolvers.

The remarkably consistent genius Ruger demonstrated throughout his lifetime was the ability to produce firearms that often replicated existing guns externally, but in such a way that manufacturing costs were a fraction of the originals.

Yet the newer guns were usually far more robust and reliable than their predecessors.

So in 1953 Ruger began offering a.22 LR revolver that closely mimicked the Colt SAA externally, but was far less expensive to produce.

The Ruger Single-Six began selling to the public in July of that year.

By the end of the year, only about 100 Single-Sixes had made it to dealers shelves.

About 10,000 copies left the factory in 1954 and another 20,000 made it out the door the following year.

Investment castings are made by creating a mold of the part, filling it with wax, spraying the wax profile with a ceramic substance, firing the new ceramic mold thus melting the wax and allowing it to drain, then filling the mold with molten steel or aluminum.

The casting is very close to final dimensions and requires only minimal machining to complete.

A manufacturer like Ruger can order up thousands of feet of coil-spring stock that is already tempered with consistent force necessary to repeatedly collapse the spring and simply cut the stock to length, ready for assembly.

Flat springs must be stamped from annealed stock, then heat treated to within a very narrow tolerance of hardness.

Too hard, and the spring shatters; too soft, and there is no spring.

Making just a handful of such springs isnt too difficult, but making several hundred an hour is a royal pain.

I know. Ive done it.

Toward the rear of the frame, a rear sight fit into a dovetail completed the sighting.

The rear sight was adjustable for windage only by drifting it within the dovetail.

Ruger Dates Of Manufacture