doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Custom Ruger No. 1

Picked up this Ruger No. 1 today... Caliber: 7x57... what caught my eye was the custom checkering... a perfectly executed Al Biesen "Triple fleur de lei" pattern... there is some corrosion on the rear of the receiver... I will attend to that when I get it home. the price was well below market for a 7x57 and to tope it off, a Burris 1 3/4 x 5 gloss scope came with it... I just couldn't leave it behind...

That corrosion reminds me of a No. 1 i owned many years ago purchased new. It was caused by salt cured wood...the corrosion much similar to yours.

I had a 1976 one corroded like that.

Mine would have been from the same time frame.

That is some very nice and well executed checkering in an attractive pattern. Looking at tiny pictures earlier today on my cell phone simply didn't do it justice.

Very nice, professional quality checkering~
I'm not much of a Fluer Fan, but that is very well executed and good design.

I have restocked 15 or 20 No. 1's over the last 25-30 years and that looks like a pretty normal stock for the earlier years. I would suspect that it was sanded down enough to rechecker and then refinished. A lot of them I have worked on have been somewhat proud of the metal and could have stood up to the change. I notice this one is right to the metal. It also looks like there was a little sanding boo-boo to the left stock cheek. I would find it amazing for someone to pay for the price of a full custom stock job just to get fancy checkering and not upgrade the wood. The cost of the stock job would have been 2-3 times the value of the gun already and much nicer wood could have been used for maybe 10% more. Spending another $200-300 would have added an impressive piece of wood.

My guess is that the checkering itself was damaged and this was the cure.