Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters John M.Browning / Bill Ruger

Do you think Bill Ruger was a “modern” John Browning?

I don’t consider him such. A brilliant man no doubt but he mainly worked to streamline manufacturing methods via the lost wax casting process. He brought out some great products at the right time but I don’t see any truly new and innovative designs that he was responsible for creating from scratch like Browning.

We have both to thank for their contributions no doubt but I don’t consider them equals.

There was no 45 cal semi auto pistols, so John Browning designed one. There were no bottom eject pump shot guns so he designed one. There was no semi automatic shotguns so Browning designed one. The military needed machine guns and Browning designed them including the 50BMG

John Moses Browning has no equal when it comes to designing firearms

^^^^^This^^^^^^^^^^ I don't think Ruger ever came up with any new, ground-breaking designs. The closest he came, probably, was with his original product, the Ruger Standard Pistol. It was somewhat different than anything (that I'm aware of) that was available at the time and designed to be cheap to manufacture. Everything else was just a new take on an old design that could be produced more affordably. More a Henry Ford than a John Browning.

When the industry was moving largely toward the California school of firearms design (think Weatherby and beyond) he brought it back down to earth with the classically designed 77. He brought us a latter-day falling block in the No.1 . Probably Ruger was responsible for a resurgence in interest in single-action revolvers as well, not to mention resurrecting a lot of classic calibers. Without Ruger we might not have modern versions of the .22 Hornet, .220 Swift, .257 Roberts, .250-300, 7X57 and others. The other gun companies (which is to say Winchester and Remington) wouldn't have gone anywhere near that stuff if he hadn't shown that it was viable. They were way too busy trying to outdo each other with more "latest and greatest" than the other guy. It might be interesting to see what the current US gun market might look like without Ruger's influence.

I feel very much the same way. Ruger had a way of tweaking a proven design and like The Kid said streamlining the manufacturing process.
Thank Bill for the 10-22 rotary magazine / uh…. Savage 99. Just one example that comes to mind. Arthur William Savage.

I don’t think that Ruger was a straight out copycat as Ruger has a lot of patents. But he did “update” a lot of designs it seems.

Just spit balling here because everyone with half a brain knows that a .220 Swift will kill a grizzly bear just as fast as a .458 Winchester mag as long as the bullet is in the right place.

Bill Ruger's genius was in manufacturing and ability to read the market well in producing firearms that sold well

I think an oft overlooked Ruger design is the Security Six line of revolvers. The one piece frame on the Security Six is an innovative approach that led to a stronger frame AND much less manufacturing cost compared to a Smith & Wesson. If you've ever tinkered with a Security Six vs a Smith with the side plate you know what I'm talking about. This design concept carried forward to the Ruger GP100 as well.

Yep. Bill Ruger did a lot to improve gun manufacturing and production costs. And upgraded some previous gun designs to be more robust and a little safer like the Colt SAA Peacemaker To his Ruger Blackhawk.
His best “ invention” was the Ruger Mk-I .22 semiauto pistol.
Most everything else he mfg was an update on previous designed guns.

John Browning has no peer or equal when it comes to new and innovative gun designs. Period. His genius will never be equaled or matched by another gunsmith / Firearms Inventor.

Ruger did a good job of making the new model Blackhawk less expensive to shoot by providing two cylinders with many offerings. Having two cylinders in these revolvers increases the fun factor too.

Eg.
I have a Blackhawk with both a 357 magnum cylinder and a 9mm cylinder.
I have a Blackhawk with both a 10mm cylinder and a 40 S&W cylinder.
I have a Blackhawk with both a 45 Colt cylinder and a 45 ACP cylinder.

Browning and Ruger are certainly not equals but both made significant contributions to the firearm industry.

Refreshing to read most all this. ^

WBR was unique in his own way, but not quite a JMB.

Glad both were in the industry.

Browning designed and built all kind of guns, many still relevant.
Best of my knowledge, he never said stupid Shït like,

Our guns are hunting guns, not target guns. They are accurate enough.
The triggers are good enough. (Paraphrased, and condensed)



Also don't think he refused to sell any models to civilians, or limited ammo
capacity to civilians.

I see Ruger as an arrogant was. He was at the helm for the years of using
substandard barrels. But he ran them out the door. Screwing customers.
He had some good designs, but sure wasn't very particular about his
products. He is gone, and I bet they still screw up 45Colt throats.

Ironically, there are more of his product in my safe than any other brand.

My 3 Ruger revolvers are not as good as my smiths and colts.

My 2 Ruger semi auto pistols, I have no complaints.

My 2 Ruger 10/22s are better than most of the old 22 semi autos I have bought at pawn shops over 30 years.

My 3 Ruger #1 rifles are so well designed, they astound me.

Ruger was a self serving putz;

Bill Ruger received criticism from some gun owners for suggesting that rather than ban guns, Congress should outlaw magazines holding more than 15 rounds. On March 30, 1989, Ruger sent a letter to every member of the United States Congress, stating:

The best way to address the firepower concern is therefore not to try to outlaw or license many millions of older and perfectly legitimate firearms (which would be a licensing effort of staggering proportions) but to prohibit the possession of high capacity magazines. By a simple, complete and unequivocal ban on large capacity magazines, all the difficulty of defining 'assault rifle' and 'semi-automatic rifles' is eliminated. The large capacity magazine itself, separate or attached to the firearm, becomes the prohibited item. A single amendment to Federal firearms laws could effectively implement these objectives.

William B. Ruger

Expanding on your last point, not many realize that the #1 includes an internal hammer block, such that when the safety is engaged the hammer is physically blocked as well as locking the trigger - the equivalent of an intercepting safety sear on a fine double gun.

When designing the rifle, I suppose he knew that a number of his customers would hunt with a round in the chamber and made the rifle safer for this condition. In any case, it is a superb design in its own right, not simply a modern copy of a Farquharson action.

A lot of good points made here!

Different Times for sure. Both innovators in their own right.

JMB, Made everything by Hand! Yeah back in the Day they ran Belts to power up more than one machine,
but He never wanted to own a production Gun Company either, Hence all the different Patents,
and selling them to the Different Fire Arms Manufactures. Pretty Smart Man! IMO

WBR, had the benefit of different Machines, and Such, and later, CNC, computerized Machinery, and such.
I'm not saying that he had it easy in any way at all! He was smart enough to study and learn from the past Manufacturer's,
and Capitalized on it.

IMO! I gotta give the edge to JMB!
He started from scratch ,creating Ideas in his own Mind!
Truly pure Genius!

HS58

Well one only has to pull the butt stock off a ruger red label and a browning citori, it takes maybe 2 seconds to figure out that the browning is the pick for real value. Ruger never spends a dime on how nice the inside is compared to the outside. No more machining inside than absolutely necessary. JMB didn't design the Citori but set it next to a Superposed and you know where it came from. Ruger has never made anything better than it has to be to work for awhile. That isn't genius it's cheap ass yet some rugers are ok. So many rugers were designed to minimize production costs but not last a lifetime like browning designs. It's hard for me to even compare the 2 men, the mold was broke when JMB died but he did give us Val. When ruger died he left a son who carried on business and people who pull guns off the end of the assembly line stuff them in a plastic bag and a box without any QC/QA . Then send them out to let the new owner end up sending them back. JMB lives forever thru his guns. Ruger is just dead. Way I feel...mb

No way I would compare the two, Browning was head and shoulders above Ruger.

Another way to look at it is, that over time Ruger is responsible in some ways for lowering the quality of firearms industry wide. His advancements were good for him, good for production, good for the profit margin, but over all were they good for us? Maybe not so much.
That's not to say that it may not have happened eventually anyway.

(and I own a whole lot of Rugers)

And the bastard, no friend to gun owners, managed to work a loophole around to keep his mini 14 from the expired assault weapons ban, while saying nothing about the AR ban itself. Pure and simple greed. NO spine to stand up for gun owners as a whole.

Due to that I still to this day won't buy a ruger as a first choice. I have a few. But I prefer to spend my money other places that have not stabbed gun owners in the back.

But most know my feelings about him. He is one that ticked me off so bad with that stunt I'd probably pee on....

To think my goal once was to have a 77 in every caliber made...

Funny too we all love the 10-22 it seems. Once I replaced the trigger, it was better. Thank GOD its designed to allow that. Replaced the barrel and it became more accurate. Again a great idea. Suppressed its even better. Really very few hiccups.

Yet move back to the mid 70s and a glennfield 60. That I put 100-300 rounds a weekend through often as a kid. For years. Its had more pieces fall out of it, IE time to replace the buffer I suspect, and I have one sitting here to replace it with, but its on the rack of the mule with a 6x leupold on it and its still running just fine as is. Trigger isnt' bad, but not great. Accuracy has always been there. I'd suspect likely its had 20-30,000 rounds through it.

OTOH I suspect the 10-22 as it was out of the box or as now a much updated rifle, will live past our lives also.