CELEBRATING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE RUGER BEARCAT, THE PERFECT KIT GUN!

NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION
137TH ANNUAL MEETINGS AND EXHIBITS
MAY 16-18, 2008 LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY

The NRA held its 137th Annual Meetings and Exhibits May 16-18, 2008 at the Kentucky Expo center, Louisville, KY.
The Ruger ...

NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION
137TH ANNUAL MEETINGS AND EXHIBITS
MAY 16-18, 2008 LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY

The NRA held its 137th Annual Meetings and Exhibits May 16-18, 2008 at the Kentucky Expo center, Louisville, KY.
The Ruger Collectors’ Association attended and presented an award winning display! The exhibit won the NRA’s prestigious “Best Educational Exhibit, Contemporary Arms” award. The RCA has supported the NRA with continuous displays since 1976.

Thursday was spent setting up the display and getting ready for the public viewing Friday through Sunday. Many RCA members participated in making this show a success. Matt Olivier was the overall show coordinator. The guns and memorabilia were furnished by Jeanine May, John Dougan, Rod Kirian, and Bill Hamm. Jay Hansen brought a new great looking RCA standing sign for display in our booth.

The RCA’s display theme was “Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Ruger Bearcat, The Perfect Kit Gun”. Jeanine May furnished the majority of the guns on the large standing display which exhibited 26 of the finest and some of the rarest examples of this great little single action revolver. The exhibit included examples of the earliest models through the just issued 50th Anniversary Bearcat. Examples of catalogs, instruction manuals, bulletins, a New Bearcat magnum cylinder recall notice, and various period packaging were shown in this educational exhibit. A notebook was available for the public to view all the details of the display, Bearcat facts, and history of the Bearcat.
Some of the guns included in the standing display were Bearcat #19, originally owned by Pete Kuhlhoff, “Argosy” Magazine Guns Editor from the 1940’s into the 1970’s; #375, a 3-digit example; five Alphabet Series guns that represented the different variations with beginning and ending examples; early 4-digit and 5-digit examples; Duplicate “D” marked prefix and suffix examples; two #99XXXX out-of-sequence six-digit examples; an “S” marked second; a mint “Blackguard”; a Bearcat without the roll marked barrel address; an early Super Bearcat #91-00010, demonstrating the early Super with the gold/brass colored trigger guard; a late blued steel trigger guard Super; the New Bearcat #93-00010; a new .22/.22 Magnum Dual cylinder New Bearcat; an asterisk marked “used” New Bearcat *93-00549; the just released 50th Anniversary Bearcat #SBC-00010. A Remington 1858 New Police percussion revolver was shown to demonstrate the likeness of the Bearcat’s design to this revolver. The Remington 1858 New Police’s design heavily influenced Bill Ruger when he designed the Bearcat.

The two glass cases out front of the main standing display exhibited four guns that presented the “Evolution of the Bearcat”. They were all serial number 11; the original Bearcat #11, the Super Bearcat #91-00011, the New Bearcat #93-00011 and the 50th Anniversary Bearcat #SBC-00011. Two of these guns were provided by John Dougan and two by Jeanine. There was some interesting discussion from time to time between these two folks as to where all the #11 Bearcats belong.

The glass cases also exhibited some extremely rare memorabilia provided by John Dougan. Included were the original numerical and alpha character stamping tools that marked the first 30000 Bearcats and copies of invoices for the same. Also displayed were an as-cast cylinder/grip frame ready for machining and one serial numbered frame ready for final polishing and finishing. Two unfinished in-the-white cylinders, one roll marked and one non-roll marked, were displayed along with copies of the original invoices where the original Bearcat roll mark die was designed and purchased. A 1958 Bearcat “Press Kit” with rare photographs was laid out for viewing. A rare pewter clad shot glass roll marked with the Bearcat grip panel medallion trademark eagle logo was displayed. It was the 1967 Ruger employee and friends Christmas gift. Examples of the various grip panels were also displayed.

Rod Kirian provided Bearcat #23 and Super Bearcat #91-00023 with all their original packaging for display in the glass case. These guns were originally owned by Pete Brown, Guns Editor for “Field and Stream” magazine from the 1940’s into the 1970s. The #16, One-of-a-Kind Herb Glass Bearcat and #91-00015
Elmer Keith Super Bearcat with all their original packaging were provided by Bill Hamm. John Dougan provided a unique one-of-a-kind Alphabet Bearcat, #D854, that has a solid brass “square-back” trigger guard. It is possible that this was a tool room model; it was once owned by a company employee.

The turnout was great! There was a never ending crowd of visitors. We had a good gathering of RCA members both old and new. Several RCA members volunteered to man the booth and were very busy answering questions and greeting folks viewing the display. Almost everyone who came by had either once owned a Bearcat, still own a Bearcat or wished they still owned a Bearcat! Several of the Ruger Company employees including Michael Fifer, Ruger CEO, visited our booth and complemented the exhibit. John Sigler, NRA President, and his wife visited and
asked questions about the display.

Several members spent a considerable amount of time at the Ruger Company booth and were able to talk to several of the Ruger staff at the show. It was great to talk to those folks about their products and future plans for the company.

Some members were able to hear some good speakers. Just to name a few there were Senator John McCain, Governor Mike Huckabee, Former Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove and Lt. Col. Oliver North.

We had a great RCA dinner with about 50 in attendance. A special thanks goes out to Mike Thomblinson who worked with Matt Olivier to arrange for the dinner and private dining room. Jay Hansen presented our Webmaster/RCA website designer, David Fagan, a life membership to the RCA. The Leadership team met on Saturday morning and John Dougan reported to the members our accomplishments since Tulsa’s 2007 report and our next quarter’s goals. Lee Sundermeier and Matt Olivier gave reports on the Journal status and display shows, respectively. David Fagan answered questions about our RCA website.

Participation in this great annual event by the RCA certainly promotes the importance of our individual right to own firearms and our Ruger firearms collecting on a national scale. Appreciation is due to all the individuals who dedicated their time, money and goods to travel and support this event. A very big thanks goes out to all the RCA members who attended, especially those who volunteered to help during set-up and tear-down and those who manned the booth. Please try to attend the NRA Annual meetings and Exhibits next year in Phoenix, AZ. The RCA will need your help and support.

Posted by Bill Hamm on Tue 27 May 2008 07:01:17 PM PDT