By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Call it the reverse of “buyer’s remorse”; the feeling one gets when realizing you should have bought a particular sixgun when you were younger and could have enjoyed it over the years through all kinds of adventures.
But, like a durned fool, I probably bought a set of tires for the family car, instead. Oh, the humanity!
That’s probably what I felt when I came across an old photo showing me with a Ruger Single-Six stainless .22-caliber single-action revolver next to one of those resealable rubber targets made by Champion. This was years ago, before the lines on my face started looking like the road map of a housing development in Arizona, where no matter which way you turn, you can’t find the exit back to the highway.
Narrowing my focus, the purchase should have been for a Single-Six Convertible, which I can guarantee would always have had the .22 Magnum cylinder installed. The ones I’ve had the opportunity to shoot over the years invariably left me delighted. They were accurate, absolutely reliable, tough as ten-penny nails and I cannot recall a crummy action in any of them.
Naturally, I’d have tossed the factory hardwood grips and replaced them with something from Jay Scott—the famous grips with the wood base covered with some sort of stag or faux ivory material—or more recently, something from Eagle Grips.
The Single-Six features a barrel cut with six lands and grooves on a 1:14-inch right-hand twist. Depending upon barrel length, they can weigh anywhere from 32 to 35 ounces
The.22 Magnum cartridge has fascinated me since my youth, perhaps because my dad at one time apparently owned a rimfire chambered for a cartridge called the .22 Special, which is not the same as today’s .22 Magnum (WMR) round. The cartridge appealed to me because it had additional power, which never hurts when conking rabbits, raccoons or some other small game.
Loaded with a 40-grain bullet, the .22 WMR is capable of impressive ballistics. Warping along at maybe 1,500 fps out of a six-inch barrel, that little bullet is the worst nightmare a cottontail might have, and I’ve heard stories about people dispatching bobcats and coyotes with the .22 Magnum, which I’ve never had reason to doubt.
Once, on a hunting jaunt in South Dakota with some other writers and a couple of guys from Ruger, I had the chance to do some range time with a Single-Six fitted with a 7 ½-inch barrel and topped with a scope. Now, that was a treat but when I checked Ruger’s website, I learned this wheelgun is not currently available.
Oh, well, in the interest of domestic tranquility, I’m probably better off!
But my memory of that revolver is one of high approval. I was shooting at a target maybe 70 yards away, or it might have been a bit farther. That little scoped sixgun just couldn’t miss. It had a very crisp trigger let-off, the scope was dialed in and the additional weight, firing from a bench, provided plenty of stability.
Way back in my mis-adventurous youth, a pal of mine had tried unsuccessfully to get me a good deal on a Colt Frontier Scout, but it fell through and at the time it didn’t occur to me I could have opted for a Single-Six for a lot less money. In retrospect, I’d have been a happy camper for sure.
From my time as a youngster, thanks to my dad’s coaching, I was always pretty good with a handgun. More than once, while he was watching, I managed to hit moving targets. I learned to clear leather fast as well, and managed to make every shot count. I hunted raccoons with an old guy who had hounds, and managed to knock a few out of the trees with whatever handgun I was using at the time.
I once owned a .22 LR single-action produced by the old Hy Hunter company and I carried it while elk hunting for a couple of years, hoping for a shot at a grouse. That gave way to packing a .357 Magnum for a while, and then a Ruger Blackhawk.
But finding that old photo reminded me there’s a gaping hole in my travels through life, and it has a sign which says “Single-Six Convertible” at the edge. Just sitting here trying to calculate the small fortune I’d have spent on .22 Magnum ammunition is the only way to calm down.
Looking back—a habit old guys like me seem to adopt while staring at too many campfires—I’d have to say my choice would have been a blued model Single-Six Convertible with a 6 ½-inch barrel. The aftermarket grip panels would, by now, be stained by decades of palm sweat, and I would be spending lots of time at the bench with an old tooth brush, scrubbing powder residue from around the forcing cone, and running a wire bristle brush soaked with Hoppe’s No. 9 down the bore.
The revolver would rest in a high ride holster, with either a snap strap or—more likely—a leather hammer thong, on an oiled leather cartridge belt with 50 loops which would always be full of cartridges. It would hang just inside the door, or from a bed post, or from the stub of a broken tree limb in camp, its work done for the day.
Those would have been the days.
