Going International: Ruger’s ode to Mannlicher
Since 1966 Strum, Ruger has made a number of their rifle designs with a full-length stock that harkened back to the days of Imperial Germany and Austria. These guns, the International series, have an interesting back-story and provide collectors with a good shooting rifle that also attracts immediate attention.
Where did the design come from?
In 1889, Paul Mauser was revamping his Model 71/84 bolt-action rifle, in an attempt to gain some more overseas contracts. One of his guns, a short carbine with a full-length, one-piece wooden stock that went all the way up to the muzzle crown, was eventually sold to the Argentine government as the M1891 Cavalry and Engineers series carbines.
1891 Argentine Engineer’s Carbine
The one-piece stock allowed the horsemen to pick up their rifles and put them back inside leather scabbards or over their shoulder without a barrel, hot after fast or prolonged firing, burning their neck, or melting the scabbard or horseflesh.
Other cavalry carbines had much the same idea and even the British Short Magazine Lee Enfield rifle had a full-length stock that ended very near the end of the muzzle.
In 1903, the Austrian Mannlicher–Schönauer rifle, using new and innovative rotary magazine of Herr Otto Schönauer, kicked off a much larger production run of these guns with a similar stock, which soon were offered for the civilian market– proving very popular with aristocratic European hunters pre-WWI.
While the military left this concept behind, the style remained a hit with sportsmen who frequented the Alps, Carpathians, Pyrenees, and other European mountain chains as the full-length wood stock allowed the gun to be used as a walking stick when needed to boost up trekking up hills and added a modicum of protection for the barrel when you’re banging it against trees and descending from a bluff. In fact, Mannlicher still makes these full-stocked guns in a dozen different calibers today, proving that a 126+ year old design can still prove popular.
Enter Ruger..
Ruger M77 RSI International Hawkeye in .270. You know that’s swag.