I have been fortunate of late to purchase an unfired stainless/laminate and a walnut/blued pair of .405 Ruger #1's. Google isn't my friend on these, very little information. A call to Ruger got the "it's proprietary information" response when asked how many were made and I told the (nice) lady I thought they at least might know that. I would be willing to pay a reasonable fee but--nada. Do any of you experts know how many were made, or anything else pertinent about these rifles? Thanks in advance 021

Unless a Ruger was a Distributor Exclusive and they(the Distributor) tell how many they received-that is the only way you will ever find out how many were made.
I don't think either of the 405 versions of the No.1 are rare; but, they are not exactly common either. Nice rifles! I don't think Ruger's record keeping system easily allows them to tabulate just how many of a given caliber/configuration were made. Over the 50 year production history of the the No.1, it would be a pretty onerous task to sort this out and not be worth the cost to the Company.

This apply's to all the Firearms Ruger has ever built, they do not keep records of how many were made by Configuration due to the prohibitive cost.
I suggest anyone get a tour of any manufacturing facility to see how things are made or go on-line to the video's of How Things are Made.
The younger generations of today have no interest in collecting anything so I believe we are in the dying breed and when we are gone it will end.

It is seriously hard to believe, in what has been the age of the beancounters and computers for a long time, that a company doesn't know precisely how many of anything it makes has sold, or hasn't sold well. What I could believe is that they want to keep it proprietary. No sense letting competitors in on hard won knowledge. Thanks for the replies guys! 21

Running a manufacturing company, that worries about lot control and traceability of product, I'm inclined to think they do know, but don't want to reveal it, for a variety of reasons. The ATF damn sure wants to know how many they make, and I suspect the bosses do have some records they keep close to the vest, possible for some arcane legal reason.

If, heaven forbid, they decided that a batch of .257 Roberts barrels were bad and they needed to recall them, they'd publish the recall with a range of affected serial numbers.

Now, trying to go back 20-40 years ago and find out how many 6½" .44 mags were made could be very difficult, at least without a lot of motivation.

Patrick,
With regard to your 6 1/2" .44 Magnum question; collectors have pretty well sorted that out. About 29,500 .44 Flat tops were made from 1956 to 1962; ~1500 were 10" barrels, ~750 were 7 1/2" barrels, the remainder are 6 1/2". About 600 6 1/2" .44 Super Blackhawks were made.
Will say again, based on 45 years of collecting and studying the No.1 rifles that for the Company to go in to their records and determine just how many of a given caliber/configuration were made would be a difficult task and hardly profit the Company.
There is a difference between how many 1A's in 243 were made versus how many 1S's in 475 Linebaugh were made. The first is as common as they come and the Linebaugh is exceedingly rare. I have not studied the serial #s I have on the Linebaugh to determine if there were one or two production runs, but there were not many made. What is to be gained from the knowledge that the production for the Linebaugh is 143 rifles(FOR EXAMPLE) or that the estimated production is between 100 and 200. How much would anyone pay to know the exact number??

The truth is probably that they're not going to spend the time searching for arcane information just because you want to know, even if you are willing to pay them a little something to do so. "Proprietary" is likely code for PITA.

Indeed, it is undoubtedly true. There isn't much to be gained by them in answering every question they are asked. Getting information from you fellows is often the only outlet. Looking back at my post I hope it wasn't taken as anything other than me having a thought about their business practices, no disrespect intended to anyone here for sure and again, I appreciate all the replies. 21

Thanks Lee, I think we're probably saying the same thing. In our shop we make custom metal parts, and if a customer wanted to know about parts we made three years ago, then I can look up in 5 minutes all the pertinent information on the order, raw material heat #'s, QC test results, how many were shipped, etc. As the parts get older it become less certain what info we can find on an order. There's one part I can think of, that we made a long time ago, long before I joined the company, where I'd really like to figure out how it was made, because they're expensive parts, and still in demand.

Probably won't matter in my lifetime, but if a given model ever becomes valuable enough to justify counterfeiting, then knowing the range of serial numbers could be desirable. I'm thinking of the old joke about Singer 1911's - 500 made of which 3000 survive

And to Ruger's credit, a couple of times I asked them some technical details - i.e. what is the groove diameter of 7.62x39 and .38-55 barrels, and in both cases they promptly replied back with the exact specs on the groove diameter - helpful for choosing bullets.

When I was an engineer I changed companies every 2 years.

They were all up to their eyeballs in secrets. Technical secrets and marketing secrets. They did not want the competition to know how much of anything was being sold.

And yet,

one can purchase a used Smith & Wesson revolver and send for and receive a factory letter telling you when it was made, original configuration, and where it was sent from the factory. Mmmmm, why is that?

Just saying,

Ruger probably has a record of them, by serial number, etc. There's a thing called a database nowadays and many companies have even put their old paper records into one by now. Maybe Ruger is behind the times?

Geno

Not saying they can't, just that they choose not too. Companies run lean and mean these days and creating such a database from paper records and maintaining it would be an expense with little or no benefit to the bottom line.

On the other hand, the one time I had to send a Ruger product in for service, (and back again to get it done right) it cost me nothing but my time and gas to the UPS hub. They've also, on a couple of occasions, sent me small parts like front sights and mag releases free of charge with just a phone call, and exchanged scope rings for different heights and diameters, also for free. That's more important to me than knowing how many freckles Bill Ruger had on his azz in 1953.

And yet it is commonly believed that a rifle sent back to Ruger for some type of work will be 'restored' to original configuration...ie, aftermarket trigger replaced with factory, same with rechambered barrel, etc. ....that sending a 270 in and requesting it be rebarreled to 30-06 will be refused since that is not original...unless the 270 barrel was not original and the 30-06 actually was.

I think they know.

How many? Not nearly enough. Some things are self evident.