Gary Reeder
yes and no. They were similar to the original
Sunday, January 13, 2019, 14:41

in looks but didn't have the left side loading gate. I had high hopes for the guns but they began to have small problems from day one. Some parts weren't quite right so I had to have them re-cast. I had Ruger's written permission to copy their old model completely and did so but the company that was supposed to make our old model parts went under which left us hanging. We had another company make us the same parts that Ruger used when they converted an old model to a new model but these weren't as strong or as reliable as the original old model parts. So we struggled along with what we could cobble up.

Diamond Dot ordered one for John Taffin's 66 birthday with the serial number MM66, for Mile Marker 66. With all the problems we had with parts not being the way I had drawn them up the order lagged along and finally got to him months late. During the weeks we were late I was hesitant to walk in front of a lighted window fearing that Dot would have crosshairs on me.

I had frames. gripframes and small parts cast for 100 guns. We finished a bit over 40 before I gave up a losing battle and put the remaining parts and such in a safe there in the shop, where they still sit today. I lost a lot of money on that deal but every loss is a gain in knowledge. So I guess I got real smart during that time period.
here are a couple of our #5s we did get finished and out.

There were quite a few #5 revolvers made on the Ruger stainless frames. Here are a couple of them.Some were even done in all blue.

Even though I sometimes felt I was jousting at windmills, I decided to stick my neck out farther and came up with what we called the #6. This was a gun that if Keith was alive today, this is what he would have been shooting. I had plenty of the #5 gripframes, which became the #6 gripframe. The difference in the guns were the #6 guns were in larger calibers up to 510 GNR. These were different in that they were built on Ruger single action frames, so parts were no problem. We built probably 60 to 70 of them and then I had more of the #6 gripframes cast so they are still being made today. Here are some of the #6 revolvers.




I have a lot more of the original #5 pics on my computer at the shop, but only a few here at home.