Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots 1S in .35 Whelen

I managed to work out a deal with El Numero Uno (ENU) to pick up one of the 2016 Lipsey's Ruger Number 1S .35 Whelens. I brought her home from my FFL last night. If you ever have the need or get the opporunity, ENU is great to do business with. If I pursue additional Number 1 rifles in the future, he will definitely be a go to guy.

I am going to use the pics that ENU sent me since they are better than the ones I managed to take last night.











My initial impressions and observations after handling the rifle for a few minutes at home:
--The wood is the best I have seen on anything produced in the last 2 or 3 years.
--They are taking additional shortcuts on finishing. The forend had a much "blockier" feel to it than my 1A (~2006 vintage). Less care to shape and sand contour's...especially where the top of the forend curves toward the barrel. The proud edges where the wood meets the action seems to have gotten more and more pronounced over the years.
--This is the roughest action #1 I have played with yet. Obviously more shortcuts on the finishing.
--Of the half dozen #1's I have owned, and the dozen or so I have played with, this is the heaviest trigger yet.
--When closing the action, it really takes a little bump to get the lever to start lifting the falling block and reset the hammer. Guessing this is attributed to less finish in the action work.
--This is the first #1 I have purchased that included #5 rings...every other one has been #4's.
--My biggest gripe...the safety does not function properly. It works okay if the rifle is held in a vertical (as in "not canted" while shouldering) position...but if you cant the rifle, or lay it flat on its right side, the safety will not return to "safe". Being a lefty, this especially bugs me...I naturally tend to hold my rifles with a right can't while carrying, shouldering, or resting it in my lap. It doesn't exhibit this issue in a left canting position but anything right of 90 degrees and it refuses to slide to "safe" after sliding to fire. The issue does not persist when the action is opened though.

I haven't had the buttstock off to see if there is anything obvious going on...might get to that this weekend. Would prefer not to have to ship it back to the factory but there is no reason issues like this safety should have gotten past inspection. Depending on whether I get into it this weekend or not will probably be what determines if I send it back to them. I am kind of debating on getting them to address the safety (and hopefully the heavy trigger) or just going ahead and send it to a smith for a modified safety, trigger work / replacement, and a butt pad.

I think this rifle may have just finalized the idea that $1400 is too much (for me) to pay for what they are currently producing.

That is unfortunately my take as well. It’s a nice enough rifle but it’s not a $1400 rifle, not when you look at what other factory offerings you can get for that price range or even much less. A few months ago I paid just over $1200 all up for a 1S 30-06 and it’s certainly accurate but the wood isn’t nearly as nice as several other factory rifles costing half as much, including standard Model 77’s. The safety on mine worked okay but was very stiff and rough, the trigger was all right but not quite as good as my $350 RAR, and like yours the wood was very proud of the receiver. Folks have condemned Remlin 336 lever actions for wood less proud than that.

I understand why Ruger has to price them like they do, they’re a limited offering that has to have a higher margin to make up for limited volume, and while they’re still one of the most graceful rifles out there the execution hasn’t kept up with the price. I’d pay maybe $800-900 for one of the current offerings, but unless they start putting some kind of really nice wood on them or make the fit and finish even equal to any of several other rifles in the $600-800 price range, I’m afraid I’ve bought my last one (or should I say 1).

I would send it to Ruger with your list of issues They will fix the safety and maybe work on the trigger. It should only cost you shipping.

The wood is an improvement, in any case!

I dug into the action Friday night. Learned a little bit more about the internals than I had ever planned. Never a bad thing though. Some of this is probably common knowledge so just bear with me if you already know some of this stuff.

The “safety” is essentially an arm that slides forward into position when you pull the safety button back into the “safe” position. When the arm slides forward it mechanically blocks the hammer. There is a small notch in the upper left corner of the hammer where the safety arm slides into.

Well, I have one of two things going on. Either the notch on my hammer is not as wide as it should be or there is too much play in my safety arm from left to right. If the rifle is held in a position less than vertical (towards the right), the safety arm will shift slightly right and when you try to engage the safety, instead of sliding into its notch on the hammer, it hits the back of the hammer just right of the notch—preventing it from going into safe.

I don’t have files or jigs to allow me to maintain the tolerances needed to widen the notch if that is what is needed…and I don’t really have any ideas to correct the play in the safety arm. I thought about trying to bend the safety arm but didn’t want to possibly snap a cast part. I chose to go ahead and button her back up and ship her back to the factory with a laundry list.

Just got off the phone with a tech. He already emailed me a prepaid shipping label and has a pair of replacement scope rings on the way free of charge.

Going to drop the rifle off today or tomorrow and see what happens.

Josh, glad you have a solution. Don't return the rifle in the original box-you won't get it back. May or may not be important to you but that is my experience.
CLN

Really? Crap. I already had it boxed up...I'll keep it another day then and see if I have something in the shop that I can make work.

Rifle made it back.

Safety functions properly now. The grittiness in the action is gone. The trigger has been worked over some too. It's not varmint rifle worthy but on this class of big game rifle, it's serviceable. Greatly improved over what it was.

And I now have every height of ring necessary. They included 5Bs when I bought it...they sent me 4Bs when I called...and they included 3Bs when they shipped it back to me.

And it was all free. Doesn't exactly offset the inflated cost of the Number 1s these days, and for $1400 you should have issues like this, but customer service like this is still refreshing.

Dies will be here next week so I will start trying to get some ammo loaded up to play with it.

Let us know how it shoots. I may get one of these to keep for myself.

I have one in transit, hope it has your wood and not the problems.

Good luck with it. If I had known this would be the last year of production, and they would be selling at closeout prices...I probably would have waited and saved some money.

Oh well...it was a configuration I had wanted for a couple of years now and I got to see what I was buying before I purchased...so no harm, no foul.

Haven't made it to the range yet...went ahead and sent the buttstock off for a red Pachmayr pad. My .30-06 is a pain to shoot from the bench so I knew this one would need some help right away. Hopefully I'll have it back before my family's Christmas Vacation but I won't be surprised if it's next year before I put some shots down range with it.

Ok, my .35 Whelen has arrived. Not a wood lottery winner, but certainly not terrible. No issues with the safety as described above but I also noticed the grittiness in the action. To be fair, it cleared up to perfectly normal after lubrication and working it for a little while. I was prepared for a relatively heavy trigger but this one is actually very nice, I'm quite pleased with it. For $868 I'm not going to complain.

Where did you get one for $868?

Through GB from Buds guns in Kentucky. They had another one up after mine for a few dollars more.

Yeah, Buds and Whittaker both had some. Thought I saw a couple on CNN too but could have been mistaken. And one of them on Gunbroker was even offering free shipping to boot!

That's a pretty hard deal to pass up if you are even remotely interested in a #1 right now.

I haven't had time to make it to the range since getting back from holiday vacation. Between work and trying to get into the woods, this one hasn't gotten much attention.

Earlier last week though I did manage to make it out onto the delta after work and rough in the scope on an impromptu target. However, I was only able to fire about 10 shots before the daylight ran out.

This weekend I rode out to my step-father's hunting camp. The deer didn't cooperate but yesterday afternoon before coming back home I was able to get out into a field behind their house and fire a few more shots. All shots were taken off the truck's hood with a butterfly bag. Took two shots at 50yds to verify the POI, adjusted, fired one more and then backed off to 100yds. The next three shots went into about 1.25" and about 2" high. I was pretty pleased since there was no real load work done here. I just loaded some 250gr NPTs Seconds in necked up Winchester brass with a mid-range load of RL15 and called it good to get started. Playing with seating depth some or shooting for groups off a bench could possibly see the group tighten up some...but its not a huge deal for me with this rifle.

I did break out the chronograph for the next few shots. Again, about 1.25" group for 3 shots and they averaged right at 2350fps so I definitely have a little room to play. Doubt the deer would notice the difference though.

Hoping to make it to N. Idaho with this rifle for an elk or black bear later this year.

One more note, having installed a Trop safety on this rifle right after Christmas I tried to pay attention to how it ejected cases while I was out there. Not a single case ever hung up or bounced back into the chamber. Each one cleared and fell to the left or right of the stock.

Are they worth ~$80? That's subjective but I think I am really going to like this safety. Need to get around to installing my second one on my 1A Swede.

Nice rifle.

I agree that with the limited production and (typical) prices for new ones Ruger should be making these 'flagship' rifles as they used to be. Contact SAKO and find out where they get their wood for schits sake! Our LGS has about six Sakos and they're all gorgeous!

While it may be more noticeable recently, wasn't the proud wood a deliberate design feature mimicking the old Farqs?

Anyway, glad it's working out for you. I snagged one of the 1A Whalen models and, IMO, it was too light. Recoil was a tad much even with a scope and I ran it for a while with a NECG peep and with 250''s at 2500, well, let's just say, 'no thank you'! Ended up selling it here to ol' Larry Root of all people!

Picked up a 1S in 9.3x62 'bout a year and half ago and find it much better balanced and much nicer to shoot. Decent wood (not as nice as yours) and a pretty good trigger. I like it a lot and also got it for $860 at my LGS (couldn't believe they had it that price!). She's a keeper....

Got away for the weekend and saw some action with the Whelen.

He was chasing a doe across a narrow field. Had just enough time to whistle and shoot when he stopped. Not a huge buck but he'll eat good. The 250gr Partition way over-penetrated.

Nice! Can't wait to bloody my 1S .35 Whelen next year.