The Red Label was primarily intended as a sporting shotgun for waterfowling, upland game hunting as well as in skeet and sporting clays. Later produced CNC cut engraved 28 gauge gold Woodcock, 20 gauge gold Grouse, 12 gauge gold Pheasant and 12 gauge All Weather gold Duck. In 1999 Ruger's 50th Anniversary special CNC cut engraved with 24 kt Gold Birds 28 gauge Grouse, 20 gauge Pheasant, 12 gauge Duck. Adams, John Adams II, Bryson Gwinnell, Carmine Lombardy, Alvin White, Andrew Bourdin, and Jon Ashford of Ruger. Hand Engraving at extra cost was offered by several master engravers including John J. Ruger also offered an all-weather version of the Red Label with stainless steel barrels and a black, synthetic forearm and buttstock. Introduced in 1995 and produced until 2002, the Ruger Red Label Woodside used select Circassian walnut for its forearm and buttstock, which extended into the action on two side panels. Several variants of the Red Label were offered by Ruger including the Woodside. The checkering pattern changed several times during the production run.
The Red Label was available with either an English straight stock or a pistol grip stock. The butt stock and forend are oil-finished American walnut with machine cut checkering on the grip and forend.
Early production models typically had fixed chokes but most Red Labels manufactured since the mid 1980s were tapped to accept screw in choke tubes for various purposes. The shooter could determine which barrel to fire by means of a selector mounted on the tang. Later models utilized a stainless steel receiver with hammer forged barrels. The Red Label originally featured a blued receiver. In order to achieve this and put quality on par with hand-made European shotguns, Ruger invested in expensive machinery to do most of the work. Ruger's desire to produce a quality US made over and under shotgun. In 1979, Ruger began to offer the Red Label in 12 Gauge and eventually a scaled-down version in 28 Gauge (1994). It remained in production for over three decades. The Red Label soon proved a hit with the American shooting public for its affordability, reliability, and handling. The Red Label was introduced in 1977 in 20 Gauge with a 26" barrel for a price of $480.00 (equal to $2,074.95 in 2018) At the time the Remington Model 3200 was the only other quality American Made over-under, and it cost nearly twice as much. By the 1970s the Belgian-made Browning Superposed, and other over and under shotguns imported from Europe had become so expensive that they were out of reach of most American shooters, and there were no domestically produced over and under shotguns that did not cost more. The Superposed became the first mass-produced Over/Under (O/U) shotgun. Unlike traditional side-by-side double barrel shotguns that have issues with aiming points and recoil, a shotgun with two barrels stacked one on top of the other offers a single sighting plane and lighter recoil. When the Browning Superposed was introduced in 1931, American sportsmen soon fell in love with the concept of a stacked barrel double gun.