New .404 Jeffery Ruger No. 1 rifle!

[sestoppelman]

Recently snagged this beauty (beast!) off a gun site for a quite reasonable tariff. Its a custom job from a guy in Colorado, an African veteran too I gather, rifle and seller that is. Claimed it was a good shooter with Hornady factory loads. When upon receiving it and getting it home I noticed some finish flaws around the pistol grip and top tang areas. Always being suspicious of such things, I got out the magnifying glass and to my not very unexpected horror discovered a number of small cracks and fractures, some old, some newer. So contacted the seller and he seemed genuinely surprised and made several suggestions as to how we could go about resolving the problem. To help out he refunded me some money to smooth it over. It turns out RUGER will NOT work on a gun that has been custom barreled as has this one. It started out as a .45-70 Govt. Plus RUGER will not sell you a buttstock either! Sweet! So started searching for one on GB, ebay etc. No luck. One other forum I play around on has a rifle section so asked around there and had two members offer to sell me stocks, so I bought them all! The one I liked the best with the least issues is now residing on this rifle and the others will be sold. Now the rifle. Custom Krieger barrel, a fat one of 22" length. Not sure the twist but it doesn't matter and I shall explain. Custom quarter rib sight base with a neat fully adjustable custom (I think) one leaf rear sight. Talley lever rings for 30mm scope, had to buy some reducer inserts to use my Nikon Monarch 1-4X and they work great, made from Delrin. Custom forend wood with real ebony cap. Barrel band front swivel and NECG banded front sight, ordered a hood for it yesterday. Weight with one round aboard is just 9 and 3/4 #. A bit on the light side but nice for packing. Finally got it to the range today having fitted the new stock to it. It was a factory stock but still needed some fitting. I have a gunsmith friend who offered some advice and suggestions to try to keep from doing too much damage! I took along 3 factory loads from Hornady (included in the sale), and 4 rounds of leftover Corbbon Triple Shock loads I had and 4 rounds of the sellers handload, specifics unknown. Knowing how No.1 rifles in the larger calibers have a tendency to kick the snot out of the shooter, I was more or less prepared for the recoil, well almost! I haven't fired a big bore in a while and whammo! First shot missed everything after a quick bore sight. But I thought I could see fresh damage on the back board so upped the scope a few clicks and was on paper. Fired two more of that load, the Hornady 400gr softs and placed them right next to the other. Looks promising no? I then went to the handload and put those 4 into about an inch and half, just under. Now 3 rounds of Hornady solids went into just under an inch and rounding out with 4 Corbon Triple Shocks at and inch and 3/16ths! This from a strange to me, healthy kicking rifle in poor light at only 4X. To say this rifle looks interesting is like saying JLO looks good in a tight dress! Here I hope are a few pics of it.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

Sweet, very nice stock!

 

[Witold Krzyżanowski]

404Jeffery my faworite caliber. Nice rifle and pictures.
Witold

 

[sestoppelman]

Yeah Phil, you should see the one that came with it. It was stunning! My FFL guy wants it for a project gun. Had heavy fiddleback from one end to the other.

 

[BRICKBURN]

Nice score Ses.
Pretty damned impressive grouping.

 

[TokkieM]

Nice looking rifle,a real brute! Nice looking groupings too

 

[sestoppelman]

To see this kind of groups with factory ammo is always a surprise and a good sign I think. Thanks!

 

[shuter]

Love that heavy profile barrel!

 

[sestoppelman]

Love that heavy profile barrel!

It measures .795 at the muzzle, it is a stout barrel.

 

[sestoppelman]

To correct my first post, there a total of 3 factory loads, two from Hornady and one from Corbon, not 3 from Hornady as stated above.

 

[tarbe]

So, how long until you schedule a hunt to justify the rifle?

Very nice beast and yes, you did very well with it off the bench!

 

[CAustin]

Congrats on getting everything worked out.

 

[Velo Dog]

This is excellent over all, but I especially like the solid quarter rib, that feature is a very nice touch.

 

[Bullthrower338]

MMmmmm 404
MMMMmmm....JLO
I will take one of each! Lol
Very nice rifle sir! Ya got to love it when they actually shoot well. I believe it was Ken Waters that said "only accurate rifles are interesting".

 

[sestoppelman]

Thanks for the comments guys! That quote is often attributed to Townsend Whelen but I believe it was Warren Page who said it first. Or maybe it was Whelen, that seems to be the most common version of the story.

 

[Bullthrower338]

Thanks for the comments guys! That quote is often attributed to Townsend Whelen but I believe it was Warren Page who said it first. Or maybe it was Whelen, that seems to be the most common version of the story.

My apologies, it was him, I must have been flustered by thoughts of jlo still or maybe it was the 404. Aw hell now I'm confused! Lol

 

[sestoppelman]

After I said Warren Page, I went and looked it up, its Whelen. No worries, I realize the vision of JLO is enough to spin heads around!

 

[flatwater bill]

What a great find. Even the stocks match up nicely. When You're carrying the 404 or the 375 all hunting is better. You're holding history in your hands. It's great feeling. (although probably not nearly as great as J.Lo)...................................................good find................................FWB

 

[sestoppelman]

According to the seller it had taken ele, buff and hippo with one shot apiece. All I can say is it seems to shoot very well. Recoil is pretty stout with the Hornady factory loads.

 

[Velo Dog]

According to the seller it had taken ele, buff and hippo with one shot apiece. All I can say is it seems to shoot very well. Recoil is pretty stout with the Hornady factory loads.

Hi Sesstopelman,

One of the fellow express rifle nuts here has had a Gunsmith re-chamber a Ruger #1, caliber .458, into a .450 No2 NE and he mitigates the recoil by having had two mercury cylinders installed in the buttstock.
I think it is already less punishing in the old NE caliber than the original chambering, due to significantly lower chamber pressure (almost down to half that of the Winchester cartridge for similar velocity/500 grain bullet).
However, I admit it was still a bit too much, due to the relatively light weight of this rifle design, (especially for myself).
Crying shame that Ruger has not seen fit to make three separate frame sizes for the No1 single shot - small, medium and large.

Seems like the existing #1 is about a medium.
It is however an excellent design and more than plenty strong in the breach, compared to what a human's shoulder can stand but, wouldn't it be grand to have that same action, large enough to easily handle cartridges like the .577 NE and 12 bore rifle, or even 10 bore rifle, and the larger action would add some needed weight for the NE calibers?
But I digress.

Last but not least, after my experiences with my old Army & Navy double in .450No2, I am convinced that, this cartridge never launched 480 gr bullets at 2175 fps from 28 inch barrels as claimed.
I am pretty sure that it was right close to 2050 fps, which if so, was evidently plenty, even for grumpy elephant because, there sure were literally thousands of them, (along with buffaloes and other species) that went down hard and stayed there, even during very close range charges in thick bush.

Since my experimentation with that rifle and cartridge, I have read in one of Doctari505's book that he is convinced all of Kynoch's (and Eley Bros?) Nitro Express cartridges were actually only going no more than about 150 fps slower below their pumped up advertising claims.
I wish I could say that great minds think alike but, there is little doubt that my mind is not all that great, especially these days.

So anyway, if recoil is a bit too snappy and all else fails, don't be put off by lowering the velocity to about 2000 fps, at least for awhile and then build up to 2125 fps or wherever you want it to be as you go along.
Besides, if the above theory is true, the .404 made it's excellent reputation at only slightly more than 2000 fps anyway.

Cheerio,
Velo Dog.

PS:
Now I am not just jealous of your safari with the .405 Winchester, now I have this custom .404 Jeffery to be jealous about - dang.