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By John MarshallThis little nine-shot semiautomatic .22 pistol, first

offered in 1949 by the fledgling firm of Sturm, Ruger& Company, turned out to be a classic and a giantkiller. It was the beginning of the Ruger empire, andfrom this seed the great firearms firm grew into one ofthe major arms companies in the world.

William Batterman Ruger was a successful firearmsdesigner at other companies, but he had an idea for acompact .22 handgun that could compete in qualityand price with anything on the market. He teamed withAlexander McCormick Sturm, a well-to-do young manwith investment capital, and together they collaboratedon producing the pistol. Sturm’s investment totaled$50,000, enough to fund the initial production run.Sturm, interested in heraldry,also designed the distinctive“imperial eagle” trademark.Production began in a redbarn in Southport, Connecti-cut. In 1949, a modest ad inthe NRA’s American Rifle-man magazine kicked thingsoff, and the .22 pistol sold wellright from the start. It got rave reviews in the firearmspress, and sold for the attractive sum of just $37.50. Theonly other comparable pistol was the High Standard G-B model; it sold for $44.00. Colt introduced its Chal-lenger model in 1950, and its price was $52.50. TheRuger pistol offered a lot of bang for the buck.

An interesting fact is that as sales soared, the Rugerfirm never again needed to borrow money. Incomefrom sales alone funded research and development,materials, staff, facilities, and manufacturing equip-ment as the company grew.

Price was not the only selling point for the Standardpistol. Its rear sight was mounted on a rigid tubularreceiver, into which the barrel was screwed. The boltreciprocated back and forth in the receiver. Competingdesigns had the rear sight on a moving slide, theoretical-ly allowing for some slop in the sight plane. The Rugerpistol’s sights were in constant rigid alignment, with littlelikelihood of disturbance. The pistol also had a distinc-tive profile, reminiscent of the famous “Luger” design. Infact, the similarity of the names Ruger and Luger could-n’t help but add to the pistol’s mystique.

Serial numbers 1 and 2 were completed in Sep-tember, 1949. Serial numbers 7 and 8 went to JulianHatcher (technical editor for the American Rifleman)and Warren Page (editor of Field and Stream maga-zine). Both gave the new gun their hearty endorse-ment. In early October, 1949, upon exhaustion of theoriginal $50,000 investment, 100 pistols wereshipped. Ruger then cashed the first 100 checks, andthe company was in the black financially.

The earliest guns had 4-3/4” barrels and a red eaglemedallion inset into the left grip. These have becomeknown as “red eagle” models. Following the untimelydeath of Alexander Sturm in 1951, the medallions werechanged to black in his honor. Early pistols are distin-guished by rounded muzzle crowns, later changed toflat crowns. They also had the bolt assemblies finishedin the white; a tip-off is the that the rear of the bolt is

silver in color, rather than black. The ejection port wasrectangular, with no beveling as on the later pistols.The safety button was noticeably smaller than that usedon later production. The rear sight fits a 1/4” dovetail,and is blocky in appearance, unlike the later smoothlycurved rear sights. Numerous minor modifications weremade as the pistol continued in production. My person-al “red eagle” pistol, illustrated here, was made in July,1950, in the first full year of production. I have an origi-nal box and papers for it, as well.

Most of the original pistols were sent in what collec-tors call a “salt cod” wooden box with a sliding coverby Railway Express. This type of pine box was namedfor similar boxes usually employed for shipping driedfish. These boxes were purchased by Ruger as an outershipping box. The inner box measured 9-5/8” by 6” by1-5/8”; it was made of card-

board and hinged at theback. It was red, black andwhite, and had the words“22 RUGER PISTOL” printedon the right end.

The Ruger Standard pistol was lateroffered in a 6” barrel length. I purchasedone of these as my first pistol in Septem-ber, 1960 at a Fed-Mart in Phoenix, Ari-zona; the retail price was still $37.50 aftermore than 10 years of production! A “MarkI” model was also offered early on in 1951, withadjustable sights and a thicker 6-7/8” barrel. Many ofthese were sold as training pistols to the military. WhenI was on active duty with the Army in 1961-1963, I shotone of these Army-purchased pistols as a member of apistol team. These were marked “U.S.” on the side, andare quite valuable as collector’s items today. Later MarkI Rugers could be had with a 5-1/2” bull barrel, idealfor rapid fire competition. I bought one of these in1965 and it still serves me as an accurate and reliabletarget pistol. I’ve also used it as a small-game pistol inthe field, and it works admirably in this role as well.The Mark I pistols also featured an internal overtraveladjustment on the trigger. It was a bit hard to access,but provided a better let-off for the trigger.

Field stripping the pistol is fairly easy, involvingrelease of a lever to the rear of the grip frame, andremoving it together with a central bolt from the frameand receiver. Then the bolt can be removed, and thebarrel/receiver group can be separated from the gripframe. Reassembly is a bit tricky, but gets easier withpractice. The main thing to remember is to be sure thehammer is forward against the bolt before attempting toreinsert the disassembly lever (mainspring) assembly.Then you have to be sure that the hammer strut is prop-erly positioned to go down inside the lever assembly, torest on the top of the mainspring stud. The lever canthen be snapped into place and closed.

Tinto the Mark II pistol (1982), which incorporated anathe last shot, and a safety which could be engagedwimprovements to the original pistol. Current produc-tion of the Ruger .22s incorporates a push-buttonmmcav

the years, in many models and finishes. Stainless steelph

still new inthe box; it’saamalar in configurathe grip of the famous1

RamuPsmfounder,wepa

sgtoday, and if you have one, you are quite fortunate. It’sthe keystone piece of Ruger history.

CCLLAASSSSIICC HHAANNDDGGUUNNSS:: TThhee RRuuggeer Standard .22 Pistol (1949)

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