Sturm, Ruger & Company History   Sturm, Ruger opened for business in October 1949. William B. Ruger had a fascination for guns since childhood and during his high school years in Brooklyn, N.Y., he began designing guns and visiting machine shops to satisfy his interest in mechanics and manufacturing methods. He spent the war years working as a production engineer at the Springfield Armory and Auto Ordnance Corporation. In 1946, Ruger rented space in a little red barn in Southport, CT and formed the Ruger Corporation with the object of producing sporting firearms. Shortly thereafter he perfected the design of the Ruger .22 caliber target pistol and obtained financing from Alexander Sturm, a young man of unusual talents who understood the logic of Ruger's ideas. Sturm, a graduate of Yale Art School, was a writer, artist, and designed the Company's famous trademark. The new company became Sturm, Ruger and Co., and a write-up in the American Rifleman brought in the first orders. The Southport Post Office had to expand just to handle the Ruger mail! The Company never looked back. In expanding the Company's line, Ruger focused on his unique market profile. He created products for gun enthusiasts like himself, not only for hunters and target shooters, but people who bought guns for their esthetics and their precision mechanisms. His credo was "Arms Makers for Responsible Sportsmen." Sturm, Ruger has become the most profitable manufacturer in the firearms industy. The company is the only firearms manufactureer to make a complete line entirely in the USA and employs over two thousand people. In 1990, Sturm, Ruger began trading on the New York Stock Exchange ("RGR") and enjoyed tremendous success. In a period of declining firearm sales, Sturm Ruger's sales grew and profits more than doubled. The Company has made a profit every year of its existece, and has never borrowed any money. Its success has been repeatedly written up in such publications such as Forbes, Business Week and by the Harvard Business School. The Company has continued to expand its product line, introducing four or five new designs or design variations per year. Its foundries have branched out into other endeavors (including automotive parts,) perhaps the most famous of which are the cast titanium golf club heads for Callaway Golf's "BIG BERTHA" drivers. The Company's corproate headquarters remain in Southport. The "little red barn" where business started in 1949 still stands, a symbol of the extraordinary continuity of Sturm Ruger-the same leadership and the same vision of quality firearms during four decades of change and growth. To visit the Ruger Firearms homepage, click here.