The short-lived Ruger Gold Label SXS
Just after the turn of the century, Sturm, Ruger made an effort to produce a light side-by-side 12-gauge shotgun that could compete with what was coming out of Belgium, Spain, and Japan. This double-barreled beauty, dubbed the Gold Label, was a brief but now beloved classic.
Red Label daddy, Superposed grampa
Back in the 1970s, Bill Ruger introduced a honey of an American-made over and under (O/U) shotgun by drawing inspiration from Browning’s Superposed and Winchester Model 21 (which had moved to overseas production by that time) and proceeded to over engineering a new shotgun.
The classic Ruger Red Label
With a box-lock receiver that was CNC milled from a steel block, the gun was given an incredibly strong lock up. Checkered American walnut furniture fore and aft provided just the right amount of old-world styling while a set of hammer-forged barrels made of high-strength chrome-molybdenum steel and auto-ejectors at the breech completed the package.
Chambered for 3-inch shells, the double-barreled Red Label was introduced in 1977 in both 12 and 20-gauge cylinder-bore variants and while the price ran higher than domestic pumps or semi-autos it was less than most other O/Us on the market.
Fast forward a quarter century later and Ruger tried to have lightning strike twice by doing what the Red Label had for O/Us and trying the same with a SXS– enter the Gold Label.
