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Shooting: Grits Gresham
Option Play: Red 28
Last year, with very little fanfare, a new shotgun became available to hunters and shooters. Only now are some of us realizing that the introduction of the Ruger 28-gauge Red Label should have been accompanied by bells, rockets and champagne. The quality that sets some scatterguns apart from the rest is difficult to define, but when you pick this one up--the only over/under 28-gauge made in the United States--you want to say, "Let's go get 'em."
Groundwork: Bill Ruger's journey from semi-obscurity to fame began in 1949 when his Standard Automatic, a 22 rimfire autoloading pistol, was placed on the market. In 1977, he unveiled the very first Ruger shotgun, the Red Label over/under. It was a 20 gauge, the 12 gauge following five years later. In typical Ruger fashion, the Red Label was solid in construction and sound in design. It was a good-handling, workmanlike shotgun and, even in an era when a host of other O/Us were available, it continued the Sturm, Ruger & Company string of very successful firearms introductions. Over the two decades since then, both the 20- and the 12-gauge Red Labels have been fine-tuned even further.
New Frame: Ruger did not build this delightful shotgun by installing 28-gauge tubes on the old 20-gauge frame. This is a new 28-gauge&endash;sized frame scaled to the 28-gauge barrels. The perfect balance is readily apparent to any shooter the moment he or she shoulders the gun--it seems to leap there.
Construction of this small-gauge Red Label is virtually identical to that of its bigger brothers. The barrels are hammer-forged Cro-Moly steel, and are topped with a free-floating ventilated rib. Each Red Label features unbreakable firing pins, a single trigger, and rebounding hammers that can not reach the firing pins unless the action is locked, providing safety and easy opening (Ruger claims the Red Label has the world's strongest shotgun locking system).
All Red Labels have a single, selective trigger and automatic ejection of empty hulls. The sliding tang safety allows barrel selection. Choke tubesare standard, and the 28-gauge comes with five interchangeable screwin tubes.
Four versions constitute the current lineup: A pistol-grip stock or a straight-grip stock, each with either 26-inch or 28-inch barrels. Stocks are of straight-grained American walnut, and have cut checkered grips and semi-beavertail forearms. Length of pull is 14 1/8 inches; drop at comb, 1 1/2 inches; drop at heel,2 1/2 inches. It has 2 3/4-inch chambers, a gold front bead, and weighs six pounds. Price: $1215.
The chamber length is the standard 2 3/4 inches because three-inch, 28-gauge ammunition does not exist--gunmakers have sensibly resisted the urge to extend this one to "magnum" proportions. Except when hunting waterfowl with steel shot, that standard 2 3/4-inch load is still the best balanced one for all gauges.
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Good Loads: The 28 lags far behind its bigger brothers in sales, but the fact that it is one of the requisite gauges for all-around skeet competition keeps ammunition in demand. For such competition, lavish attention has been devoted to development of 28-gauge target loads, which, incidentally, are superb for hunting quail, doves, snipe and woodcock. A sizable group of excellent wingshooters around the country, in fact, believe that the 28 is the best gauge of them all.
How has the 28 gauge Red Label been received? "We don't have a single one in stock at the moment," said Robert Stutler, General Manager of Ruger's operations in Prescott, Arizona. "But we'll build more."
For details, call Sturm, Ruger & Co. Inc.; 602/ 778-6555.
The 28-gauge Red Label comes with either a straight-grip or a pistol-grip stock and 26-inch or 28-inch barrels.
⌐ 1997 The Hearst Corporation. All rights reserved.
