(courtesy 123rf.com)

The same folks who own GunBroker.com broker TTAG’s advertising. And for that we give them thanks; their sterling salesmanship gives me, Dan, Nick and the rest of the TTAG crew the freedom to focus on providing you, gentle reader, with the gunblogosphere’s freshest and most frequent content. Some of which is genuinely surprising. For example, did you know that GunBroker.com’s best-selling revolver isn’t a Smith & Wesson? Ah, but what is it? Guess, then make the jump for the reveal via the manufacturer’s proud presser. I bet you won’t see this one coming . . .

094

Heritage Manufacturing, Inc., an American legend in single action revolvers, retains the #1 spot on the online auction site for gun sales, GunBroker.com.

In the New Firearms-Revolver Category, the rugged Rough Rider Small Bore revolver took the top spot in sales in the May 2015 Top 5 – Best Sellers Gun List and now repeats this position for June 2015. The Heritage Rough Rider is also rated #1 Best Seller in the Cowboy Action category.

The .22 caliber Rough Rider unites the ageless features of the renowned single action army revolver into a scaled down small bore version. This dependable firearm revives the timeless revolver in distinctive ways that are enjoyable for the traditional marksman and those new to shooting. The tight cylinder lock up and the perfectly timed action makes it the ideal plinking partner.

“The Heritage brand provides the traditional look and quality craftsmanship that many revolver and cowboy action fans seek,” said Tim Brandt, Director of Marketing. “These firearms are made right here in Miami and we are thrilled to achieve the top position for a second-straight month. We thank our customers and GunBroker.com for our success.”

About Heritage Manufacturing, Inc.

Heritage Manufacturing, Inc. proudly produces western-style revolvers in the Small and Big Bore Rough Rider Series. These time tested, traditional western firearms are made affordable in 22 LR and 22 Magnum. No Heritage Rough Rider Revolver is manufactured without outstanding craftsmanship, accuracy, and quality as the cornerstone.

Learn more at http://heritagemfg.com.

About Taurus Holdings

Headquartered in Miami, Taurus Holdings, Inc. owns or represents some of the most recognized and valued firearm brands worldwide, including Taurus, Rossi, Heritage and Diamondback. Taurus Holdings is an industry leader with over 200 years of combined manufacturing experience that offers quality and value-packed firearms to the United States and Canada.

For more information, visit www.TaurusUSA.com.

82 COMMENTS

    • You won’t suppress this in 22 WMR , good shooter if you get a good one , This company has come a long way and this is a decent revolver for the price . Practice with LR , kill with the magnum . Buy the longer barrel ones .
      I have 2 of these and never had a glitch , Compare to a Ruger Single Six .

      • Got one at a really low price–didn’t come with the .22 mag cylinder, but they are available for only $30 from the company. One problem I did have, tho, if I wasn’t careful about putting it on half-cock, and pulled the hammer back a bit too far before releasing it, the whole cylinder/trigger/hammer mechanism would lock up, and the only way to fix it was to pull the retaining pin, take the cylinder out, and re-assemble.

  1. Well, I would have been closer than most. I would have speculated that it was a SAA clone, and perhaps in .22LR.

    I would not have guessed Heritage, however. I was thinking of Ruger, quite honestly.

    • I’d actually want to own the Ruger version. I do, but in .44 mag. But if Heritage gets folks in the game that’s fine by me.

      • A couple of years ago I picked up a used but unfired anniversary .44 mag Blackhawk (1956-2006) for $450 on GunBroker. They’re not that uncommon, but as with most stuff on GunBroker 90% of the people selling seem to have no desire to actually part with their firearms. Anyway, can’t go wrong with a Ruger revolver.

        • Considering all the “I never should have sold my…” stories floating around, can you blame them?

        • I noticed the ” don’t seem to want to sell” trend on GunBroker too; seems like a huge percentage of the auctions get no bids, or at least no bids high enough to get past the reserve. One or two here and there wouldn’t be a surprise.. but on GunBroker it seems like it is the majority by a fair margin.

    • Same for me, I guessed an SSA clone, but either Ruger or Uberti, and in a larger caliber. I haven’t heard good things about the reliability of the Heritage, but it is inexpensive. bud’s sells them too, and they are often on sale or clearance, unlike the Rugers, Ubertis, or (Traditions, etc.) Piettas.

    • Sure would have picked a Ruger revolver! Manufacture a line of beatiful form & excellent function revolvers. Have SP 101, GP 100,
      LCR .38 P+, even a vintage SP 101 9mm revolver. Also have vintage Colt Detective .38, Dan Wesson .357 model 14 & model 15. Just something about firing off a revolver
      that does not scream “ant fart” like some semi auto pistols

        • Actually was thinking of the popular .22 lr semiauto pistols. Unintended discharge happened right next to me on firing line. Did not hear it so much as see it hit the ground & very embrassed shooter

    • DG, I bought the Ruger single six with extra .22 mag cyclinder several years back and could not be happier. But it was more than 4 bills.

      I see Heritage filling the slot taken by H&R in my youth. Functional and cheap for people on a limited budget.

  2. I was thinking the Colt Python, seeing they’re not made anymore and highly sought after.

  3. NOT surprised-one is selling as I type for $110 on GB. Taurus means more bang for the buck. My next gun will likely be a Millennium 111 G2 for 200bucks.(And I get a free NRA membership). And I believe they make the Heritage in the USA…

    • I’ve been thinking of snatching up one of the Millenniums for $200. I really don’t have a use for one, but it’s so cheap I’m tempted to buy one anyway. Probably the same reasoning so many people are buying the Heritage.

      • I had a .45 millenium until someone stole it. The cops have it now…Anyway I thought it was a deal at $365, 200 is twice as good. Chamber a round, pull the slide back until the bbl drops, pull the trigger and you’re in double action mode. Don’t know why that one isn’t in the owner’s manual. 🙂

  4. Wow-didn’t know they came in 22lr/22mag. cylinders…maybe I’ll pick one up. Great reviews at Cabelas…

    • I have had one for a very long time. They aren’t the highest quality thing in the world, but cheap fun. I bought mine ages ago with both cylinders for $109. Prices have gone up since then, but still not too much.

      • “They aren’t the highest quality thing in the world, but cheap fun.”

        What the hell do you mean ‘cheap fun’?

        Good luck finding ammo for the damn thing!

        (In all seriousness, I need to check that bad-boy out…)

      • Second that opinion. Bought one to have as a revolver for my NRA Instructor training. They’re fun to shoot, though not horribly accurate. Hey, a revolver for $139? Why not?

    • If they’re so widely accepted/bought, then I should pick up on for detailed examination. I like revolvers, so one more in the safe won’t burden me overly much…

      • Well, DG, there’s one good thing about being a gunsmith.

        With the volume of guns moving in and out of your shop, sneaking a new one past the wife and into your safe is lots easier than for the rest of us…

        *sob*

        • Well, there is that. But the downside is having to buy more safes, because I adopt guns the way some people adopt stray animals.

          “Well, it followed me home, and it hasn’t done anything wrong… so… I can’t just leave it wandering the streets to get lost, can I?”

          An exasperated sigh usually ensues…

        • “Its a write off, honey- a business expense on my Schedule C.
          You know I got to stay on top of my game, and this is the latest trend in hot-selling handguns…”

  5. TTAG probably just sold another couple hundred of them by writing this article.

  6. I have one of these Heritage revolvers, and I like it. It doesn’t have the machining that a Single six would have, but the wood in the grips is really nice, and you can’t beat the price, usually under two bills.
    An excellent choice for a beginner.

    • Mine was technically under one bill–Xmas special, $99.97 at Academy. As I noted above, it didn’t come with the extra cylinder, but that’s only 30 bucks more.

  7. I’ve had mine a few years and it is probably the best value I have. The case hardened finish on mine looks great and it is accurate. I bought my Rough Rider and a Henry lever action rifle for less than the cost of a new Ruger Single Six. I would buy it again without hesitation.

    • I believe Heritage Arms stated out as an importer down in Florida where they made and or imported a lot of Saturday Night Special stuff , mainly Rohm revolvers , I own a few of these . The Rohm 22 short was a real dangerous gun , The wheel holes wouldn’t meet the barrel properly and had too much space between the two . They were very inaccurate , spit powder and lead everywhere and weren’t worth the fifty dollars they sold for .

      Heritage Rough Rider with the combo cylinders of 22LR and 22WMR is a decent purchase for the price if it is put together well , examine closely before firing .

  8. I’ve been trying to win one on Gunbroker, but after shipping and fees I don’t go past $75 as I could get it at Academy with the 22Mag combo cylinders.

  9. I bought one to use as my single action demonstrator in classes. Wanted the cheapest single action I could get as I didn’t envision it being shot very often. Wrong. It is my second most popular shooter, just behind the Witness 9mm.

    Was pleasantly surprised when I first put some rounds through it, Nice little shooter, Plan to take it out next squirrel season and see how I do, The gun is plenty accurate to hunt small game with, Not so sure if I am.

    It is somewhat cheaply made, but much better than expected at the price point. Not sure what the long term reliability will be, but definitely feel like I got more than my money’s worth.

    Conversely, got a handful of Sig Mosquitoes for loaner guns. Did not do enough research. Caught ’em on sale. Thought, “Wow, that’s really cheap for a Sig.” Crappola guns. Frequent malfunctions, lousy triggers, hard to break down, clean, and reassemble. Just a bad choice, in spite of the name.

    • My wife has a Mosquito. The manual says to use Mini-mags but they should be more specific – Mini-mags are the only rounds that gun will cycle reliably. Good for malfunction drills though, just put in some Winchester bulk ammo and every third shot will jam.

        • Yea I flipped through it before we took it out with 500 rounds of Winchester. I figured that Sig and CCI were owned by the same company or something until I started shooting it.

    • “Wow, that’s really cheap for a Sig.”

      Technically, I don’t think the Skeeter is a “real” Sig. It’s made under license by GSG, and sold with a Sig nameplate.

      • But all the feedback I’ve gotten on the GSG guns has been positive. “Just like a Sig without the name or the price.”

        But I still should have known better. After all, what is a Mosquito? Annoying, right?

        Point of my original post was, sometimes a name don’t mean a lot. Heritage turned out to be a better than expected deal. My first experience with something wearing the prestigious Sig Sauer name, not so much.

        • ‘After all, what is a Mosquito? Annoying, right?’

          In all fairness, the mosquito is the most deadly animal on earth. Perhaps a more appropriate name would be the Sig Chigger? Or maybe the Sig Asian Lady Bug? The Sig Fly? The Sig No See ‘Em?

  10. I’ve had a heritage revolver for about 7 years. For the price, it is a decent little revolver.

  11. Proof that not everyone plays at the high roller table. The Heritage stuff feels nice, looks to be fairly well made, gets generally good reviews for quality and accuracy and is a fraction of the price of it’s competitors.

    I wouldn’t have picked it as the reigning sales king, but I get it.

    • In the 40’s and 50’s, Mossberg sold truckloads of .22LR rifles that appeared to be cheaply made (and they were – some of their products in that era didn’t even have serial numbers), but they shot like a house of fire. Why? Because Mossberg put their money into the quality of their barrels. I’ve got an old Mossberg 152 that can throw down groups almost as tight as my Annie, if you can manage the really crude trigger on the Mossy. How did this happen? Mossberg lapped their barrels. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the barrel quality on a Mossberg .22 in the 40’s and 50’s. Sometimes, I’ve thought about buying up some of these old Mossy’s and re-purposing the barrels onto a better action (like a custom .22 bolt action) and stock. Someone who wanted to start shooting 3-position seriously could start at a worse point than buying an old Mossberg 44 or 144 target bolt gun and working up from there.

      That’s where accuracy’s biggest contribution comes from – a quality barrel, properly machined (ie, chambered and crowned). If Heritage has re-discovered this formula, then more power to them.

      • What does lapping do to a barrel?

        Is the bullet less prone to ‘chatter’?

        Is this something that can be done at home, as in does Brownell’s sell DIY kits?

        • As I recall – you drive a hard cast bullet coated with abrasive through the barrel multiple times. Removes any small burrs and high spots there may be in the lands to promote a more perfect fit between the bullet and the barrel. That may not be a totally accurate description, but it is close.

          Tests I’ve read show a measurable increase in accuracy.

          Yes. any major gun supply store should have lapping kits. Totally doable as a DIY home project. Just somewhat tedious as it is repetitious and you need to measure your progress frequently.

        • Lapping polishes out the tool marks left behind by the reaming of the original bore (ie, the marks on top of the lands) and the tool marks at the bottom of the grooves.

          Classic “lead laps” are made by casting a bit of lead onto a pushrod that is already in the barrel with a jag on it, then you coat the lead with some lapping compound and you run the lead lap back and forth in the bore, coming about halfway out at each end so you can add more lapping compound when necessary to the lap. Some barrel makers lap their bores before they rifle and after they rifle, and some lap only after rifling. I think if I were doing the job, I’d lap before rifling, then I’d air-gage the barrel for uniformity and those barrels that can’t be used in target work wouldn’t get the second lapping after rifling. They’d just be sold as “OK, but not hummer custom barrels.” (“Hummer” is a benchrest slang for a rifle that can lay down incredibly small groups).

          The net result depends on how much lapping you do and what level of grit you started with. You’ll typically want to lop off about 1″ at each end of the barrel when machining the barrel for use on a rifle (eg). Fortunately, most standard length rifle barrel blanks start out at 28″ long, and most rifles will have a 20 to 24″ barrel, so there’s plenty to cut off. You lop off the inch on each end because the “turn around” zone for the lap tends to bell out the bore diameter in this area.

          OK, what does lapping do for your barrel? Sometimes, it increases accuracy. That’s not a given. Don’t let anyone tell you that lapping “always” increases accuracy. I’ve seen some barrels that look like they were rifled with a cheese grater that shoot pretty well. They foul like a demon, but they shoot pretty well. I’ve seen some lapped barrels that were mediocre in accuracy.

          Lapping usually increases velocity, and lapped barrels copper or lead foul much less than unlapped barrels. The biggest reason why I would lap is the fouling issue. Time you’re not cleaning is spent doing something else – like shooting. To me, a cheap barrel that loads up on copper or lead from shooting is a pain in the neck.

          If you want a lapped barrel, I recommend purchasing a barrel lapped at the barrel manufacture. The high-end custom barrel companies will lap their barrels before a barrel leave their shops. Both Krieger and Bartlein lap their bores before rifling and after rifling – and both of these shops rifle with single-point cutters, which yields the most accurate barrels made.

          Pac-Nor laps their barrels, and they make button-rifled barrels. I like Pac-Nor barrels for hunting rifles, where a rifle that shoots 1″ groups is more than enough. Shilen laps their stainless barrels, last I knew. I don’t think they lap their chro-moly barrels. You’d have ask them. Dan Lilja works on his machining to get a good interior finish, and might lap some barrels. The easiest marks to take out of a barrel are the ones you didn’t put in there. That’s my motto on machining in general: The easiest marks to polish out are the ones I didn’t put in.

          David Tubb has a “fire lapping” kit for some target calibers, where you get a series of bullets coated in abrasive grit. You clean your barrel very well, then load up some rounds with the grit-encrusted pills, and shoot them down the bore. For most people who want to lap a factory barrel, this is probably a better way to go than trying to pull/push your own lead lap through a barrel bore.

          As a summary, I’d like to NB that it is possible to get a rifle bore too smooth. There seems to be a sweet spot where fouling is minimized after polishing to a certain level of grit, and making the barrel rougher or smoother from that point increases fouling. That point will vary according to the tooling used by each barrel maker.

        • Thanks Dys, bookmarked this post just for that thread. “Fire lapping” on to-do list for next new gun.

  12. Just checked out the Heritage website-I see they sell extra cylinders for 30 bucks(I just saw a 22lr selling for 75bucks on Auction Arms)…

  13. A few months ago I inherited dads old 1963 Ruger Single-Six in .22 that I enjoyed abusing as a kid in the 80’s. It’s a bit beat up and rough, but still shoots as good and reliably as I remember it…

  14. No I didn’t see that coming. Oh, I actually thought of Heritage when I saw the question–but it was definitely in the “wouldn’t it be funny if…” category.

  15. Perfect to wear to the piggly wiggly!! I had one of these worked great at a great price!

  16. Criimson trace should be realeasing a grip for it this week. SIg will release a brace and magpul will have a “free floating” forend w quad rail the week after. 🙂

  17. saw it coming and got it right because it is an inexpensive and fun gun . I spent some time shooting with some friends this weekend with my single six. I’ve had it about 20 years and it is a great gun . people who have never shot a handgun before like it. no recoil, good trigger , big easy to see sights. easy to teach safety with too.
    but money doesn’t grow on trees, and rugers sigle ten now goes for north of 4 bills. I believe it would be worth it. but a lot of people wouldn’t so i assumed that this would be its more affordable heir – apparent.

    the single six is absolutely accurate enough for small game.

    They also shoot what was once cheap ammo….

  18. Not surprised. The Heritage .22LR is a tremendous value. I’ve had one for several years and while the fit-&-finish may not be on part with Ruger’s, mine has a fine action and is the most reliable of all my handguns (although my SR22 comes close). The company is also very responsive- I ordered the magnum cylinder right after I got the gun, and I had it in my hands with ten days. They may never become collectibles, but with care they’ll likely become heirlooms.

  19. I guess I was sorta right in that I was thinking Taurus. I’m not familiar with the Heritage Company’s product line, so they didn’t specifically come to mind. But now after reading all the above posts, I feel the need to go check one out.

  20. A 22 is better than nothing. I think in India a 22 is the only caliber hand gun a person can legally own. We are lucky in the great US OF A. The American Rifleman magazine did an article last year about single action revolver carry. With most DGU’s only one shot is fired if at all when the criminal see’s you have a gun, they run away.
    I read about heritage guns 3 years ago. Not surprised they are so popular now.

  21. Should have done this as a contest. Heritage Arms was what I was thinking. I’ve been thinking about getting one they’re a nice little shooter for a stupid low price.

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