RUGER
OLD MODEL
SINGLE-SIX “MAGNUM ONLY” REVOLVERS
PRODUCED
1959 - 1962
GENERAL
OVERVIEW
The .22 Magnum cartridge
was introduced by Winchester in 1959.
Ruger introduced its Single-Six single action revolver in
.22 “Magnum Only” around June of that same year.
The Magnum guns had 6-1/2 inch
barrels, round loading gates, checkered black hard rubber grips,
and no firing pin groove in the rear of the cylinder.
They were roll-marked
“RUGER SINGLE-SIX WIN. .22 RF MAG. CAL” in two lines
on the left side of the cylinder frame. In early 1960 the Magnum Only guns were also made
available with varnished walnut grip panels.
These Magnum Only guns were
put in a special serial number range of their own beginning with
300000 and ending at 340XXX.
About March 1961 Ruger began to produce these Magnum Only
marked guns with an extra .22 caliber cylinder.
The extra cylinder, the .22 caliber in this case, had the
last three digits of the gun’s serial number stamped on its
front face, close to the cylinder base pin hole.
The idea of producing these dual cylinder guns or a
“convertible” came from customers requesting that Ruger
retrofit their “Magnum Only” single-cylinder guns with a .22
caliber cylinder or their .22 caliber only single-cylinder guns
with a Magnum cylinder.
The “Magnum Only” marked
guns came in a black and red box with a yellow wreath on top
like the standard Single-Six but designated with Cat. No.“RSSM”
on the box end labeling.
The production of these
“Magnum Only” Single-Sixes ended sometime in August –
September 1962. The
6-1/2” barrel length soon was made available in the standard
“Single-Six .22 Caliber/.22
Magnum Convertible” model.
The boxes for these 6-1/2 inch barrel convertibles
continued to be marked with the catalog number “RSSM”, not
RSS6, throughout the Old Model Single-Six production that ended
in 1972.
There are several rare or
scarce variations of these guns, some with only one or two
known, that I will not attempt to cover here.
If you are interested in learning more about these guns,
I suggest you become a member of the Red Eagle News Exchange.
The publisher of that newsletter has done extensive
research and study and goes into considerable detail describing
those and many other rare Ruger models and variations.
RUGER
OLD MODEL
SINGLE-SIX “MAGNUM ONLY”
REVOLVER
SOME
OF THE
MAJOR TYPES
AND VARIATIONS
Single-Six , Magnum marked:
