Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots #1-S in 300 H&H AVAILABILITY

Contacted my gun dealer(First Stop Guns in Rapid Ciy) and asked him to order a #1-S in 300 H&H for me. They said that none of their distributors had any, and did not know when they would get any.
The rifles are in the Ruger 2010 catalog.

I emailed Ruger and asked when they would be available. The response was that production had not been scheduled. I then called Ruger, and talked to a very helpful CS lady. She said that they did not have any info on when manufacturing would be scheduled, but then she transferred me to the sales department, where they told me that manufacturing would begin in "60 to 90 days."

I hope that is not a rolling 60-90 days, and in any event, I took a chance and placed an order with First Stop. My guess is that Ruger won't begin production until they have a certain number of orders. Of course if customers can't find out when or if they will get their rifles, they may not order.

I love the #1's I have, and would love to try out a 300 H&H. We'll see if it ever works out.

Steve

Steve,

Well, that's very interesting, because I bought a 1-S .300 H&H at Capital Sports & Western in Helena 3-4 weeks ago. It was one of a pair they got in, and they said they had some more coming.

Steve,

I ordered a #1-S in 300 H&H from my local dealer a fortnight before Christmas. The importer to Australia has given an arrival date of June/July into the country but this is usual when you order a specific rifle. The last rifle I ordered (a Ruger MkII left hand action in 25-06) took 12 months to get here. Ah the pleasures of living in the colonies.

John and Wantok,

Well now I don't have a clue as to what is going on at Ruger and wonder if they know their ass from third base. Can't figure out how they could estimate that they will not start production for 60-90 days when in fact they have already built and delivered some of them.

I'll not be at the SHOT this year or I would ask Ruger for an explanation. But I have no confidence that I would get a straight answer if I asked the question.

Anybody have any ideas?

Steve

It may be that the ones available now are the special Bodington issues (matte finish, Circassian wood, express sights) and not the cataloged run-of-the-mill 1S. I also seem to recall that there was a recent uncatalogued run of 300 H&H in the 1B configuration. Maybe they did some at that time as 1S too.

No, this is the production model, with semi-shiny blue, standard wood and folding rear sight.

I am a regular customer at Capital Sports and they called me when the two rifles came in. I asked them to hold the one with the nicer wood for me and picked it up an hour or so later. Mine has some nice figure on the top half of the butt but it is by no means the best wood I have seen on a production No. 1. The other rifle's wood was quite plain.

John,

Do you have an impression of your rifle yet? Accuracy, load data, bullet choices?

The #1 would seem to be an excellent fit for the 300 H&H cartridge that would combine nostalgia with modern powders,pressures, and bullets. Plus, I just like #1s.

Steve

Steve,

Who are you using for your FFL transfers?

Greg

Greg,
PM sent.
Steve

Ruger has a way of doing things that keep people guessing, especially when it comes to the Number One.
Knowing that newly catalogued guns are almost never available right away, I'll bet my limited gambing money that these rifles are indeed part of a pre-catalog run. They have done this with other #1 offerings in the past. The 1A 7x57 started as an uncatalogued run in 1976, as did the 1S 218 Bee and 1B 22 Hornet before they made it into the catalog. There are other examples I'm sure, but memory fails me at the moment.
At any rate, I like the older guns, but would seriously have to consider a 1S in 300 H&H. It doesn't get much more classic than that in a #1. Can the 303 Brit. and 32-40 be far behind? ;-)

Update: I will pull in my horns on the second sentence above, because I see that the #1 in 480 Ruger is showing up for sale now too. Maybe Ruger finally has it together with catalog accouncements coinciding with production. Still, they have had a history of producing some caliber/configurations before actually making them a catalog item. I'm looking forward to reports on the new 300 H&H.
John - I liked your single shot article in the latest Guns magazine. Can we anticipate something in the near future that includes the 1S 300 H&H?

Hey John, I must have been right behind you at Capital Sports. When I walked in they grabbed the other one off the rack to hand me as I walked up. They told me you had just bought the first one. I've been telling myself for years if Ruger ever comes out with a 1-S in 300 H&H, I will buy the first one I see, so it is now in my safe. I figured you had picked the one with the better wood, and would add the wood to metal fit on this one is not as good as my other No.1's.

I'd be curious to hear how yours shoots - I've only had mine out once so far. I seem to be getting vertical stringing, possibly due to a forend bedding issue.

Jerry

I'll try to answer several questions at once:

I've only been to range once with my rifle. It was stringing shots up and down, so I took it home and made a couple of simple forend modifications that usually help (make sure the rear of the forend isn't pressing against the front of the action, epoxy bed the tip of the forend channel) but haven't been able to get back to the range since, mostly because of weather.

I have fooled around with .300 H&H's before (and have another one, a Model 70 Classic rebarreled by Dan Pederson at www.cutrifle.com in a Super Grade stock) and they generally reposnd to the same powders as the .300 Winchester: the 4350's and 4831's, plus RL-19 and RL-22. I generally run 180's in mine but 165's and 200's also work well. This time I also loaded up Ramshot Hunter and RL-25 to see what they will do, but as I said before, haven't been back to the range yet.

I try to write about single-shot rifles as much as I can, but magazines will only take so many articles on the subject. I doubt we'll see one in GUNS again for a while. I am doing a piece on "classic cartridges" for SPORTS AFIELD which would be a natural for this rifle.

I've had one of the Boddingtons in 300 H&H for several months now, have shot it enough to know something about it - it's far and away the most accurate #1 I've had, and I've had several over the years. I expected the need to do some adjusting (as MD notes above, which worked well on the others I have), but this one shot sub-MOA right out of the box. It has a marvelous trigger to boot. In addition, it shot 150s, 165s and 180s very well, and to nearly the same point of impact at 100 (mostly IMR 4350 powder). Hard not to like...

It appears Kimber isn't the only manufacturer who can't come up with the facts. I think we all can understand unforeseen problems in manufacturing but when one doesn't know what has been already built - jeez how bush league. Must be former government employees!

JB,

I've had pretty good results with Ramshot Magnum with 180's in my Rem 721 300 H&H. May be worth a try, if others fail to do the trick.

Jeff

I hear you are on speed-dial there.

For certain things!

Ingwe

A number of years ago a friend who works at a local shop called me at work saying "You need to come in here, you need to come in today." IIRC I went in on my lunch hour. When I got there he showed me a very special Python at a price I didn't even have to think on. I'll never get another deal like that if I live to be a hundred.

Good friends are always good to have; good friends who work at gun shops are a priceless.

John,
Thanks for the info. Now I need to get the rifle. I've already ordered the brass. I'm going to give it one more try of contacting Ruger and see if I can get some accurate data.

I'll post what I get.

Steve