The History
The Ruger Single-Six is a historic piece of firearms technology. First introduced in June of 1953, this gun was among the first of Bill Ruger’s line of single-action sidearms. Ruger followed the urgings of, among others, the immortal Elmer Keith, who had been urging Colt to produce a modern single-action revolver with modern sights and lockwork; the Colt Single Action Army was and is a legendary weapon, but it’s still carrying around 1873-vintage lockwork and sights.
Ruger improved the guts in his revolvers, using coil springs instead of leaf springs. In time, he implemented his transfer-bar action, enabling a shooter to carry six chambers loaded safely.
The first two were the centerfire Blackhawk and the rimfire Single-Six. From 1953 to the present day, in the post-1973 designation of the New Model Single-Six, this gun has been and remains popular with American shooters.
Here’s why.
The Design
In 1953, the most famous of all single-action revolvers, the Colt Single-Action Army, had gone out of production. The famous Colt would return, but for the time being, there was a gap, and this was in the heyday of movie Westerns, when people like John Ford and Howard Hawks were cranking out Westerns wherein stars like Henry Fonda, John Wayne, Randolph Scott, and Gary Cooper were walking tall among the dusty sage, all with single-action Colts strapped securely to their hips. There was a demand for a modern single-action revolver, and Bill Ruger was on the spot with the answer.
The Single-Six was the first. The centerfire Blackhawk followed two years after, in 1955.
In designing this gun, Bill Ruger did something that wasn’t always done in those days: He listened to the American shooters and gun writers, not least of which was the aforementioned Elmer Keith. Keith had grown up around the kind of steely-eyed, quick-shooting lawmen of the sort John Ford and Howard Hawks were making movies about, and was also one of America’s foremost experts on American guns and cartridges. He had been speaking and writing for some time on the need for a modern American-made single-action six-gun, and Ruger responded.
The first model, the original “three-screw” Single-Six, so named for the number of screws through the frame that held the six-gun’s guts in place, was made along more traditional lines, with fixed sights and a conventional setup that required one to carry the piece with an empty chamber under the hammer, lest one accidentally perforate some part of one’s anatomy, which I can tell you from painful 12-gauge experience isn’t any fun at all.
The original Ruger and all since carried over the original Colt-style loading through a loading gate on the right-hand side of the receiver, with empties tapped out with an ejector rod carried under the barrel at about the 5 o’clock position. These guns were and are slower to load than a double-action with the usual swing-out cylinder, but this was what American shooters expected in a single-action.
Then, in 1973, Ruger introduced the New Model Single-Six. The New Model added a transfer-bar safety. This feature involved a gap between the hammer and firing pin, meaning that if the hammer was somehow dropped without the trigger pulled, the gun wouldn’t discharge. When operating in normal fashion, pulling the trigger dropped the hammer but also raised the transfer bar into position, transferring the hammer’s impact to the firing pin – thus the name of the gizmo.
It worked, and now American guntwists finally had a six-gun that could be carried fully loaded. The same innovation was carried over into Ruger’s other single-action revolvers, including the Blackhawk and the .44 Magnum Super Blackhawk.
Perhaps one of the most significant results of Ruger’s single-actions was that they prompted Colt, in 1956, to bring the famous Single Action Army back on the market. It’s still available today, albeit as a rather pricey custom shop item. Oh, and a few years later, Elmer Keith finally got his wish from Colt when that company introduced the New Frontier version of their famous six-gun, featuring modern adjustable sights.
But Bill Ruger had already made his mark. The Ruger Single-Six and its centerfire counterpart were here to stay. So was Ruger. And they are still around today. I’d bet money that at least a strong plurality of American shooters have at least one Ruger in their cabinet or safe.
The Guns
I have a Single-Six myself, a pre-1973 “Three-Screw” model. The funny thing is that it’s not a gun I originally intended to buy, but an old, old friend had been suffering some mental health issues that had cost him his job. His wife understandably didn’t want any guns in the house, and they needed money, so I bought the Single-Six from him, quietly adding a little to what my Blue Book of Gun Values told me it was worth.
The funny thing is that I didn’t originally intend to keep the gun. I already had a couple of rimfire sidearms, including my favorite, a pre-Model 17 Smith & Wesson K-22 Combat Masterpiece, which makes a great rimfire counterpart for my very favorite sidearm, a big N-frame Smith & Wesson 25-5 in .45 Colt. I had originally placed the Ruger in my mental “sell or trade” list.
But then, I shot it. And I shot it some more. And then, it moved over into my mental “keep” list. Watch:
About 700,000 of the original Single-Six were built, along with over a million of the New Model. If you want one of these, you can find one, and that’s for sure and for certain.
What About Now?
You can still get these guns, brand new, from Ruger. What’s interesting is that they aren’t all just rimfire anymore.
The New Model Single-Six comes in many variations, most of all in either blue or stainless: The traditional Single-Six, now chambered in .17 HRM; the Single-Six Convertible with both .22LR and .22WMR cylinders. You can also buy a Single-Seven, which holds seven rounds of .327 Federal Magnum, a Single-Nine, which holds nine rounds of .22WMR, or a Single-Ten, which holds (you guessed it) 10 rounds of .22LR.
Ruger has not, as of yet, answered my request to build a Single-Six in a reintroduced .25 rimfire; they could call it the .25 Ruger Rimfire (.25 RR). I guess my urging doesn’t (yet) count for as much as Elmer Keith’s did, back in the 1950s.
The Single-Six remains as it has been for over 70 years: Handy, reliable, accurate, well-made. And now, more than ever, they are versatile, with a wider range of chamberings.
From time to time I see them in gun stores or at our local semi-annual gun shows, and they are tempting. But I do have my original old three-screw model, and I think I’ll stick with it. Us aging types, after all, should stick together.
