Legal and practical question: could Ruger build a Mare's Laig, and should they? :)

J

Jim March

New member
Background:

Back in the '50's, Steve McQueen starred in a TV western series about a bounty hunter, titled "Wanted: Dead Or Alive".

His gun was an oddball - a Winchester levergun cut down to handgun size, packing five .44-40s in the shortened tube plus one up the spout. It was set up in a speed rig consisting of the gun's saddle ring hanging from a belt hook, and a wildly abbreviated "holster" holding the bottom 2" or so of barrel...a degree of "cutaway" even today's IPSC folk would envy.

McQueen got pretty good with the weird sucker, and recorded several sub-1-second draw/fires by fanning the hammer on the chambered round.

OK, this was all nutso with a cut-up original Winchester.

Pictures of a period toy gun and pics of the actor and gun are here:

http://members.tripod.com/~stvmcqueen/toys2.html

Another good pic of the actor and gun:

http://www.fiftiesweb.com/western-3.htm#wanted-dead

Now obviously, if you took a Ruger levergun in .44Mag with 10rd mags and chopped it like this, BATF would take a sudden interest :).

BUT - could Ruger manufacture something like this, with about an 8" barrel, as a brand new handgun?

It would have some damned interesting advantages to anything currently available. #1, 11 rounds of .44Mag is some decent firepower. With the normal Ruger transfer bar in place that's now used in the rifle, you could indeed carry it one up the pipe. With no revolver cylinder gap, you could grip it forward of the action safely, and velocity would be up a bit over a revolver. It would also be easy to control a 10" barrel with that sort of grip.

If Ruger built it, I'd buy it :).

Would it be legal?

I don't see why not. Savage sells repeating bolt-action handguns with 12" barrels in .308. The Ruger is at least still a handgun caliber.

Only possible issue I can see is that a midget might be able to actually shoulder it (GRIN!). But it should be possible to cut the rear grip to the absolute minimum and maybe "shape it a bit pointy" so that it's not even remotely functional as a short shoulder stock.

Obviously, it's not much of a retooling problem. The action would be the same as the rifle, only the wood and barrel would be significantly different.

Comments? Has Jim finally lost it :p?
 
In case it's not clear to some, this is the Ruger .44Mag clip-fed levergun already in their catalog that such a critter could be based on:

lvra.gif


Factory mags are 4 rounds...more for the rimfire variants, but let's not go there. I'm almost certain I remember reading about 10rd mags for the .44Mag Ruger levergun.

More info here:

http://www.ruger-firearms.com/rflever.html

In long-gun form, it's $499 list. Chopped, figure only a little bit less but still not bad.
 
No. I'm sure the quisling Bill Ruger would say that "honest" people do not need such a weapon. Besides, haven't you heard Ruger only makes sporting arms.
 
If they engraved it and issued it as a special commemorative Wanted dead or alive anniversary gun could it qualify as a curio and relic gun? How about in 45 long colt?
 
Why not ask Marlin and get a tube magazine. It would be a little more authentic. They could make it available in .44-40 or .44 RemMag.
 
Marlin isn't currently a handgun maker. Which probably translates to "forget it". Ditto Winchester.

One of the Italian outfits might.

Does anybody outside of Ruger make a mag-fed levergun?

What would really work well, IMHO, is .45ACP :). You could fit a LOT of 'em in the tube :D.
 
I don't think a commercial manufacturer would find a big market for a mare's laig, but I think a gunsmith would find this an enjoyable project.

But there's not much comment here on the legalities. And I'm clueless.

If it's converted, does it become an illegal "short rifle", since it started life as a rifle?

And if manufactured from the ground up as a pistol, does that then make it legal?
 
Dave, as near as we can tell, that's exactly what's going on.

Let's take an example: Savage makes a bolt-action 4-rd handgun based on their rifle action, with a 12" tube, a *rifle* caliber such as .223 or .308, a pistol grip and no shoulder stock. You buy it as a handgun, it's treated like any other handgun.

If you took a Savage rifle of the same action, chopped the barrel, added that pistol grip with no stock, you'd have an NFA-controlled "short barreled rifle" with all the paperwork crapola that entails. Even though in both cases you've got the SAME GUN on your hands, and only a serial number check would distinguish them. Such a critter built up by a gunsmith could be sold to somebody "as a handgun" and they could find out only years later that it's really a chopped rifle and that they've been a felon all that time.

This is how stupid the gun laws have gotten.
 
Gentlemen, my understanding is that the difference is all in the paperwork - that those savages built off identical receivers are just marked as 'handgun' in all the appropriate forms, rather than as 'rifle'.

I really don't see any reason that this would not be legal, provided that you could get a manufacturer to cooperate, or a bare, virgin receiver to start from.
 
A bare reciever wouldn't help - at the time it's sold to a member of the public, it has to be marked as "handgun" or "rifle" in the paperwork somewhere.

Now, maybe if Marlin would sell bare recievers to a currently licensed handgun maker of modest volume, somebody like Les Baer or such, then perhaps Baer could legally build the as-yet-unmarked reciever up into a handgun and sell it that way?
 
I remember the sawed off pistol shotgun that James Caan's character "Mississippi" (Alan Bedillian Trahern) carried in the 1967 movie El Dorado (with John Wayne)

One of my faves...
 
If the gun were made as a handgun, there would be no legal problem.

I am sure it would sell like hotcakes to the 6 or 7 people who remember (and liked) "Wanted: Dead or Alive."

I'm not one of them.

Jim
 
A rifle that shoots handgun ammo, chopped down, so it holds less than a revolver, weighs more,can't really be shoulder fired, has a similar sight radius and takes longer to cock that an SAA? Why again would they do this? (Sorry, my nostalgia factor runs more to the Mini-14's from the A-Team, than Steve McQueen) ;)
I don't think they have magazines larger than 4rds for the Ruger.
 
:D

I'm pretty sure somebody does make a 10-rd for that gun. Ruger uses the same mags in their bolt-actions as their levers. It would certainly be legal for them to make such, even for the current rifle.

The only way to legally sell something with a magazine forward of the triggerguard, at least here in Calif, is to make it something other than semiauto.

As to first shot speed, just swipe the safety off and fire - it can be carried cocked'n'locked as it has both the transfer bar and a manual safety, if I recall right?
 
Some guy in Californa was building a non firing replica of the "Mares Laig" with holster using real Winchester 94 carbines.

Price, you ask $2850. There's an article in June 1996, Guns Magazine.

Now if people are willing to pay nearly three grand for a solid barrel replica, I'm guessing a market exists for a $4-500 Ruger "pistol" copy.

Actually I've seen a couple of "gumboot guns" as we call them down here, normally cut down Ruger 10/22's, Winchester .44's, and Lee Enfield 303's.
Popular with pig hunters they're also illegal.

My cousin and soon to be brother in law both have Ruger .44's, deerfield and lever respectively and are both interested in a 10 round magazine. Hopefully an aftermarket manufacturer will step up, like with the 10/22 market.
 
Yes, yes, God yes.

Also, I remember a Roy Huntington article a while back where he talked about his chopped levergun. He had started with, I believe, a 94 carbine, 16" barrel, and had the stock cut so the whole thing was 26". With a half inch, I would imagine, for a margin of error.

I want one of those, and I want one of what Jim is talking about.

Shoot, call Ruger. He has the Secret Money Eye, and if he thinks it will make huge amounts of money, he will make and sell it, quisling tendencies aside.

Don't sell it as a concealed carry piece. Sell it as, uh, uh, a woodswalking "last-ditch deer defense" piece. Dem deers be aggressive.
 
Ruger won't make it, as previously stated, ol' Bill only makes "sporting arms".

I believe this would fall under the classification of an SBR(unless it was truly a pistol). An SBR requires registration and a tax/transfer fee. My interest in an SBR stopped there, since I have no desire to register anything else with the government if I can help it.

Zane
 
No, if it was factory original as a handgun, I think it'd be OK...like any other handgun. Especially if the stock was set up so it couldn't possibly be shouldered any more than something like a Vaquero could be :).

(scratches head)

Let's think about this a sec. Carry it on a shoulder sling hanging from the strong-side shoulder...just let it dangle underarm. Grab it, swing it up, and "lean forward" with it with both hands and...it might handle a lot like a rifle. It's legal to have a "shoulder stock" that consists of nothing but a sling - that's how some "stockless" H&K MP5s are set up. That would also make operating the lever real easy.

Hmmmm.

Sounding better yet?

Get Ruger or *somebody* to do a 10rd mag, we got us quite a toy, no? First shot is just sweep the safety off? 6" to 8" barrel, maybe even more as desired...?
 
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT IS MANDATORY

Exactly how would this thing be better tactically than my 5.5" Redhawks? Hmmm? Well? Can't hear you..............

Of course it would be very cool.
 
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