Henry Rifle Forums

As some of you know, I'm a fan of the little Ruger Bearcat single action 22 LR. I found another one, yesterday. I traded a local shooting buddy a couple of airguns that I wasn't using and that he wanted in order for me to get this Bearcat, so it worked out for both of us.



Now, this isn't just any old Bearcat, at least not to Bearcat fans and collectors. It's called an alpha cat because it's a Bearcat with a serial number that starts with a letter. The first year of production for the Bearcat was all the way back in 1958. The alpha cats ran only a little over a year, running late '58 through 1959. You can spot an alpha cat by those dark rosin impregnated rosewood grips without a medallion. Right after the Alph cats, Ruger switched to the more familiar oiled walnut grips.

The alpha cat pairs up nicely with my other old model Bearcat made in 1970, the last year of production for the old model Bearcats. Basically first and last production of the old model Bearcats in this pic.


A lot of folks, even some Ruger fans, don't appreciate just how small and petite these little jewels of a sixshooter really are. Here's my current production 2019 vintage New Bearcat with a familiar object to give a better sense of its size.


And here's the three Bearcats in my now growing Bearcat collection.


Questions/comments welcomed.

That is a beautiful pistol. Nice horse trading.

All beautiful classics. Are they 7/8 scale like my Uberti Cattleman?

No, they are actually smaller by quite a bit. The Bearcat was one of Bill Rugers pet designs and one of his favorites. He based on the 1858 Remington, so its origins are more Remington than Colt. The Ruger Single Six is actually a 7/8th Colt or Ruger Blackhawk and the Bearcat is smaller, yet.

Here's Bearcat with a Single Six for comparison


And here's a Bearcat with a full size Pietta Colt clone for comparison.


Don't have a Wrangler, but the Bearcat is still smaller. What makes the Wrangler so popular is the quality for the very affordable price. The current Bearcat is every bit the build quality of Ruger's full size Blackhawks and Super Blackhawks, but it also has the same kind of a price tag, even higher because Bearcat production numbers have always been lower than other Ruger Single actions.

Thanks Joanie I always learn a lot from your posts.

You are very welcome, as always, Gene.

Very nice. You always make such nice acquisitions. I try to stay out of the gunshops these days. I'm afraid they may get in something on my bucket list. I have something tucked away in case they do, but....

Since I sold a lot of firearms to move I’m back in the market for purchasing.

Ever since we got back into airgun shooting and made it our main type of shooting, we've been accumulating air guns and now we have more air guns than we can shoot on a regular basis. Same old story when we were shooting regular guns as our main type of shooting.

After selling off most of our regular guns some years back, I am now slowly accumulating regular guns that have a lot of sentimental value for me. Single action revolvers have the most sentimental value for me, by far. I learned how to shoot handguns with one, took my first deer with one, only kind of gun I've ever carried in the woods. I even use one as my bedside gun, though I know full well the limitations of a single action for self-defense. Sixty years of shooting, now, and when I think gun, I visualize a single action.

Closest type of gun to SAs in sentimental value for me are my single shot pistols/silhouette pistols, given I used to play that game a lot.

Quigley may not have had much use for handguns, but I guess I've always had use for them.

I believe he said he never had much use for them and never said he didn’t know how to use them.

Interesting that your newest production Bearcat has grips similar (in color) to the Alpha. Personally I like the darker grips much better than the mid production with the lighter grips. Thanks for posting the different Bearcats as well as the comps to the Single Six and the Pietta clone. Nice to put everything in perspective.

You're very welcome.

No coincidence that the alpha grips are dark like the current grips. Both are actually rosewood, but with different treatments.