Bill Ruger on plastics...in 1984

[StrikeFire83]

Okay, so I got a bunch of reloading and assorted junk from my uncle who’s moving to Florida. Among the morass were several gun mags from the early to mid 80s, and some pretty interesting stuff. Anyhow, I was thumbing through a 1984 issue of Gun World, a magazine that I don’t recognize from news stands, and there was an interesting article entitled “Firearm’s of the Future.” In this article, major players in the industry were asked to comment on where they believed guns would be in the next 20 years.

Anyhow, Bill Ruger figures prominently into the interview. I know hindsight is 20/20, and Billy was right about the basic design of guns not being altered substantially, but he also said something which in today’s world seems pretty stupid. Here’s the quote:

“There has been a good deal of talk today about the use of space-age plastics and porcelains, which will withstand great amounts of heat, in firearms manufacture. Personally, I don’t foresee this type of material being used in sporting arms. First, the materials would be too heavy to be practical; secondly, such materials would constitute a break with what matter of tradition that tends to be a part of every serious shooter’s personality. Instead, I feel there should be emphasis on improving our modern steels.”

Again, it’s easy to look back with modern hindsight and laugh at old Billy boy, but it does seem a bit short sighted to say something’s not going to catch on when you admittedly don’t really understand it very well. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Ruger make polymer pistols now?

This was interesting to me, so I thought I’d share it with yall. Enjoy.

 

[Gord]

He was right about one thing, at least. Countless people still think "plastic" guns are inferior, despite all those Glocks that have been running just fine for the past twenty years.

How many times have you read a "blued steel and walnut are best because I say so, the rest of you are (petty insult)" thread here or elsewhere? Case in point.

Anyhoo, it can go both ways with new technologies, and I don't see predictions that didn't come true as a pie to the face. I'm sure there were more than a few people who thought that Etronix was going to be the next best thing, or who thought that people would reject autoloaders because they were so much less reliable than revolvers.

As you said, hindsight is 20/20.

 

[StrikeFire83]

Yeah, you're right. The thing that pissed me off is the "no serious shooters would be willing to break with tradition" comment. I consider myself a serious handgun shooter, safe, competent and a decent shot, and I own two plastic fantastics which have been impeccable weapons.

Similar to what he said about how no body should need more than 7 or 8 shots. Egotistical to think that you can speak for all gun owners.

 

[Old Fuff]

“There has been a good deal of talk today about the use of space-age plastics and porcelains, which will withstand great amounts of heat, in firearms manufacture. Personally, I don’t foresee this type of material being used in sporting arms."

On that point he wasn't too far off. What he didn't realize at the time was how increasing costs would force manufacturers of sporting arms as well as weapons to turn to other technogies and materials.

 

[StrikeFire83]

Perhaps, OldFluff, but from Ruger's statements it seems to me that he considers' all of us civies to only own "sporting arms," and that by his string all citizen owned weapons are sporting from revolvers like my wonderful RUGER SP-101 to somebody's .223 tactical rifle.

 

[Cosmoline]

He couldn't have been talking about plastic stocks or frames. These were already well established by then. He appears to have been talking about the operating parts of the firearm, and he was right up to a point. After all, how many plastic BARRELS are there? Even titanium can't fill that roll.

 

[gezzer]

He also stated no civilians need more than 10 rounds.

One who remembers and does not buy Ruger for himself and family.

 

[orangelo]

So the old elitist bag was wrong on a large number of different topics. Makes sense.

For the price of my plastic, "inferior", "indecently unlawabiding high-capacity" H&K Mark 23 I could have bought 6 or 7 rugers. Too bad the old man's mouth decided they will never see a dime of my money.

 

[Cosmoline]

gezzer, he's DEAD and Sturm Ruger is a public corporation now. You're seriously holding a grudge against a dead guy?

 

[MICHAEL T]

Sturm Ruger is a public corporation now

Haven't seen any great change in their policies. Towards hi cap mags to public. No I have no want or need for a New Ruger Two I have are 70's Blackhawk (fathers pistol) and early 80 10/22

 

[CNYCacher]

640K ought to be enough for anybody.

Bill was referring to computer RAM in this quote.

To put it into perspective, Bill is saying that 640 kilobytes of storage should be enough for anybody.

1024 Kilobytes = 1 Megabyte
1024 Megabytes = 1 Gigabyte

It's not uncommon to have a PC with 2 Gigabytes of RAM now a days. That's three thousand times Bill's predition! A couple hundred gigabytes of disk storage isn't uncommon either on a modern PC

 

[GunnySkox]

gezzer, he's DEAD and Sturm Ruger is a public corporation now. You're seriously holding a grudge against a dead guy?

Policy's policy. I'll go on holding a grudge against Ruger (the man and the company) 'till I'm red in the face and black-and-blue on the fingertips and/or the company changes their policy. Bill Ruger will continue to get the metaphysical middle finger for his treachery, but I'd be a lot more smiley at the company if I could buy Ruger Factory from Ruger, instead of having to pull some skeevy expensive end-around through some other company.

We're giving ruger the business about this because it continues to be their policy, regardless of ol' Bill's health.

http://ruger.com/webapp/wcs/stores/...ent_category_rn=13653&lastCatId=13653&faNav=y

Show me a 20-round magazine for a Mini-14/30 on that page, and I'll take every word back.

~GnSx

 

[Keith Wheeler]

Ok, I'm not a big fan of B. Ruger's idiotic comments and whining that he didn't intend for civilians to get the evil evil folding stock and high caps that were only intended for LE....(I love my factory folder Mini-14 and wish I could afford an AC556!).


BUT Ruger is one of the most prominent firms in the area of dealing with stainless. Maybe a bias against "modern" materials, but they sure know what they're doing with stainless, and it's earned them a lot of non-firearms work. In business this is called "focusing on your core competency".

 

[JohnBT]

"“There has been a good deal of talk today about the use of space-age plastics and porcelains, which will withstand great amounts of heat, in firearms manufacture. Personally, I don’t foresee this type of material being used in sporting arms."

1) Anybody own a space-age porcelain gun?

2) Considering that H&K was making the VP 70Z prior to Mr. Ruger's statement in 1984, and in fact discontinued the pistol in 1984, I claim he was talking about the parts of the gun that must "withstand great amounts of heat" - which is precisely what he said. I know I don't own any guns with plastics barrels. Anybody got one?

(H&K 70Z - "...the receiver and grip are molded from plastic." - Standard Catalog of Firearms)

 

[50caliber123]

The H&K G36 has a polymer upper reciever. Even less steel part than the AR's and M16's in use right now. Only the barrel, bolt and a few other parts are made of steel or any other metal

 

[atblis]

Not stupid at all

... being used in sporting arms

Sporting arms, not weapons.

and he's right.

 

[Lucky]

Whatever people think about 'new plastics', the fact is that 'old plastics' get brittle and frail far easier than they were supposed to. Of course the 'new' ones are going to have advertisements of indestructibility, just like the old ones did. But only time can tell.

On the other hand you can find 100+ year old rifles where the wood hasn't become brittle or frail at all.

It's not sentiment, it's chemistry. The tree trunks naturally survive in sunlight and air, while plastics degrade.

 

[atblis]

WHat?

Did you people actually read the quote?

He's not saying the stuff doesn't work.

Mark 23. Ha Ha. HK is laughing all the way to the bank on that one.

 

[Robert J McElwain]

Bill Ruger designed some fine guns, and I own several of them. And I'll probably buy more. And my Great Grand Children will still be shooting them someday. Bill Ruger's guns will live a lot longer than he did.

Bob

 

[ArmedBear]

Offhand, I can think of only two current off-the-shelf sporting arms applications of plastics in working parts: the Benelli Nova and the new Remington 105CTi.

But, both guns still rely on metal to strenghthen their receivers; in the low-end Nova, it's steel pieces in a molded receiver, in the high-end Remington, it's a trimmed-down titanium receiver frame with a carbon-fiber epoxy shell. The Nova has been successful, though not flawless. I wouldn't buy one, given reports I've heard. I don't even want to shoot next to one. The 105 is too new to judge.

The Nylon 66, though neat, is long gone from retail shelves, and more recently the 710 was converted to a tubular steel receiver soon after its introduction, because the original plastic design was crap.

Other polymer designs I can think of, including Ruger's newer centerfire pistols, aren't sporting arms, they're defensive weapons.

I don't know what was in Bill Ruger's heart of hearts, but this I will say: because of his political savvy during an anti-gun period, we can still buy all the Ruger autoloading rifles, even here in California. Had he not defused some of the rabid rhetoric with some of his own, "assault weapons" might well have included all semiauto long guns. That's what happened in Australia, so don't even try to tell me it couldn't happen that way.

If Ruger doesn't want to make money selling 20-rounders and folding stocks to the mass market, others have certainly stepped in to meet the demand. But that allows Ruger to keep their guns out of the sights of many of the gun-grabbers. They've been pretty good at achieving this, like it or not.

I like what Barrett is doing. Personally, I don't think a single California LEO should have a single weapon, magazine, bullet, gun accessory, less-lethal weapon, smog-exempt car, or any other thing I can't freely buy here. Anything else means we are drifting towards a police state, which we are, given the sorts of laws that our police enforce, including a ticket for smoking in one's own enclosed vehicle in a local town! The laws being enforced by people who are allowed many exemptions I don't have, are often extremely intrusive malum prohibitum, not laws against murder or rape or something.

But I can't say that Bill Ruger's game was a bad one, either for gun owners or for his employees. He played it as he saw it. He's gone now, anyway. His old hunting property in AZ is being parceled out and sold to yuppies from here.

 

[orangelo]

because of his political savvy during an anti-gun period

So if I sell you out because I don't like revolvers or I support a ban on .50BMG rifles because there is no 600-1000 yard range where I live, as long as I get to keep mine, you'll be all cool with that?

Maybe shotguns should all be banned because getting hit with a single 00 buckshot shell is like getting hit with a 8 round burst from a 9mm SMG. Wait til Feinstein hears about that!

As for the 'quality' of ruger's products. Not even the new cash-strapped Iraqi army wanted to use their handguns. They're getting plastic 'inferior' Glocks. The US military hasn't used a ruger product in ummm... since 1776? Bill Ruger was a peddler of 2nd rate junk that signed a deal with the devil to hurt his competitors because he had no other competitive advantage.

Plenty of 'sporting' firearms use plastic/composites. The Benelli M1 shotguns, Kel-Tec SPORT UTILITY rifles, National Match AR15s have plastic stocks and handguards, those fancy McMillan stocks for Remington and Winchester rifles too.

 

[asknight]

orangelo, I must ask you to cite your official sources for your information pertaining to the Iraqi Army dismissing the 5000+ US funded and provided Ruger service pistols in favor of purchasing their own Glock service pistols.

For the record, none of the Ruger products that I own are "2nd rate junk," as they have never failed to function when I needed them.

 

[RooK]

What kind of second rate junk does Ruger produce? How about Caspian's Titanium frame and slides (until recently) and Smith and Wessons Scandium frames? You'd be surprised how many other guns are made by Ruger and relabeled due to their leading facilities in investment casting.

You can hate Bill, but you have to admit he was a good firearm designer and they do make good firearm designs. Just look at how unpopular the 10/22 is

 

[orangelo]

10,000 Glocks

50,000 Glocks

13,500 Glocks

Glock 19 used by Iraqi Police

40,000 Glock 19s

If there are any Rugers over there, they are a drop in the bucket compared to the "nonserious-shooters-only" plastic Glock. I'm not even a fan of the Glock, the grip angle is funky, but just do a google search on 'Iraq Glock' and then do 'Iraq Ruger'. See for yourself.

 

[asknight]

I feel that I must point out that just because they're using other weapons as well (of course), that doesn't mean (and none of your quoted articles said) that they don't like and/or refusing to use the "inferior" Ruger service pistols, which you boldly stated.

The reason there is a proliferation of Glock products is the same reason they stormed the US LEO market. Glock basically gave them the products in exchange for their existing products in which they refurbished and sold to cover their expenses. It was strictly Marketing 101... and no tests have proven that the Ruger was unreliable in an environment where the Glock wasn't.

Glock is still making their money by civilian sales and by refurbishing/reselling trade-ins of other brands. This is why us civvies have to pay $550+ for a pistol that costs no more than $75USD to manufacture. Would you like for me to dig up the article in which Gaston Glock admitted such things?

By the way: In no shape, form, or fashion will I ever accept mainstream media articles as "official" sources for .mil information.

The only .mil source you cited simply mentions that the Iraqi's are doing some training with the G19. It doesn't state that they're officially adopting it over an "inferior" Ruger product.