What are your experiances with the ruger ultra lite rifle,does it heat up quick and are they farily accurate?They sure are liteweight,I have a new one in the box in 308 and cant make up my mind to shoot it and keep it...Seems like a nice little mountian/hikeing ultralite rifle or great for treestand work at woods ranges.

They are great little guns. They do heat up quick when you start shooting them. Break the bore in right and it will shoot good and won't foul so fast. Some of these #2 taper barrels will walk when you heat them up.

Most hunting conditions won't allow more than three shots anyway, so sight it in with that mindset and you'll be happy with it. I had one in 30-06, and I have a weatherby ultrlight, in 338-06 and a remington mountain rifle in 7mmX08 and they all shoot well.

I bought one, Ruger Ultra Light in .257 Roberts for the girl in my life about 9 years ago. This rifle shoots fantastic. 100 grain Sierra's into .5" or so.
Very nice little rifles.
My brother has one in 30/06 and it is a handful to shoot with full power 180 grain loads.
Good luck with yours.

Some time ago I too had a Ruger Ultra Light in 257 Rob. It was very accurate

I had a tang safety RLSDZ Ruger Ultralight 30-06 with sights and laminated stock, and 18.5 inch THIN barrel. It shot real good and handled even better. Man, I wish I would have kept that one.

I have a new one in 7-08mm and It's super accurate as long as you don't over heat that pencil thin barrel. But then you really don't need more than one shot. Right?

Once had a RUL.308win as a backup unit,simply shootin factory 150 Rem CL, about 1.5 moa.
Id like something like that again, but in 250sav.

Ruger does not have a reputation for very accurate rifles on average. Some of them do very well but others are mediocre. According to folks who have sent rifles back to Ruger, the warranty department thinks that 2" groups at 100 yds are just fine.

I used to have a M77 MkII that would never shoot much better than 2 MOA at it's best. I changed ammo, scopes and tried my own reloads, but it didn't improve. It went down the road and was replaced by a Tikka which is currently the most accurate rifle I own.

Like Snellstrom, I currently have a M77 MkII Ultralight in .257 Roberts that I have worked down to around 7/8" at 100yds. I can probably get it to do a bit better with a little more load developement.

The barrels do heat up quickly but I don't think much faster than standard sporting contour barrels. Personally I wish they would have left the barrel length at the regular length. Mine seems to benefit from using a bit faster powder in reloads than the loads folks use in longer barrels. Gotta burn up most of the powder before the bullet leaves the barrel.

I really like the three position safety, the controled round feed and stout scope mounts that are included. BTW if you need a different height set of scope rings call Ruger. A few years ago they swapped out rings with me. My only expense was mailing in the old standard height rings.

Black bear.
I would love to have that rifle. If you decide you don't want in send me a PM, I have trade bait.
I am another guy who has one in .257 Roberts.
Kind of a cool story.
I had been looking for one for a long time, and finaly found one in seaside oregon , about 80 miles from my home in Portland.
Was a bit strapped for cash but put it on layaway , and made payments by phone for about 8 weeks.
Went down and picked it up, and 10 days later the whole freekin store burnt to the ground!.
Anyway. Mine took some work. It was about 2 inches out of the Box.
But I installed a timney trigger witch was fairly easy and is a great trigger.
Then I had to free float the barrel witch was not trick at all.
Now it shoots a bunch better on avarage, but the best improvment came with load development.
46 grains of H-414 will push a 100 grain barnes TSX out of my 20 inch tube at 3125 , and is usually well under an inch at 100.
But yes the barerel does heat up.
But you should have a little less heat with a .308.
I strongly recomend you shoot that thing.
If it does'nt make you happy PM me.
Love to have it myself as I am a .308 loonie these days...tj3006

I agree with Thomas on MkII mods. My MkII (.257 Roberts) benefitted from a trigger job & glass bedding the action. The gun still has the pressure point on the barrel and this spring I am planning to remove it and see how it shoots with a free floated barrel.

When they shoot accurately and have a decent trigger the M77 MkIIs are a great rifle. The bluing is deep and wears like iron except for the floor plate of the magazine which is an aluminum alloy. You want to be a little careful with that.

Its interesting what I'm seeing here re the Rugers accuracy out of the box.
An old hunting partner of mine was a real
Ruger junkie and he owned a bunch that I helped him reload for and got to shoot to.
Lets see... 270 win, 300 win mag, 338 win mag, 358 win, 257 Bob in bolt actions that I can remember clearly. These were all the original M77 tang safety style and every single one of em shot well. I floated the bbls on em and that was the only mod done. The 270 win would go 1/2" the 358 win was the next most accurate. None of them went over 1 1/4" with the right loads.
When my brother finally shot the throat out of his 264 win mag he opted for a M77 in 7mm rem mag and it shot well too 1 1/4" with factory stuff.
Could it be that the bbl/accuracy thing crept in there with the MK II model.
I checked them out and said no thanks should have left well enuf alone.
Have not had much experience with the newer Hawkeye model but it looks like now they are trying to correct their Mk II mistake maybe.

WestCoaster,
As I understand it, the early flat bolt M77 rifles were produced with Douglas barrels from their introduction in 1968 to about the 1973 period when Ruger changed over to Wilson barrels. Wilsons were used until about 1991 when Ruger began hammer forging there own barrels. Douglas Barrels had a fine reputation & Wilson barrels were hit or miss in quality control.

The MkII rifles were introduced in 1989 and from then till 1991 there was a mixed bag of barrels from Wilson and Rugers fledgling hammer forging operation. I don't know if there is any way to tell one barrel manufacturer's product from the other.

Certainly the Hawkeye trigger is much better than the old legal liability 7# trigger of many of the MkIIs and that certainly helps more accurate shooting.

I have owned about 6 Ruger rifles over the years. tang safty, and MKII. All but one shot quite well.
Some did need a little work but the same can be said for the other brands in my experence.
...tj3006

Thomas ..PM sent

I've owned several, all Mk I's. They've been a 308, two 30/06's, and one in 257 Robts. I've shot two in 270 that belong to friends. All but the Robts were great shooters. The Roberts did not like bullets over 100 grains, and tended to get lousy groups at three hundred yards. The groups were MOA to 1 1/2 MOA at one and two hundred, but opened to about 6 MOA at three hundred. Got tired fooling with it and sold it.
They are a joy to carry.
Bfly

Will the Ultralights also be available on the Hawkeye model, once the remaining Mk2 are sold off?

Good Question,I have never heard this one before.....

We're getting off topic into overall Ruger accuracy, but a lot of the information was enlightening. My dad has what was described as the "flat bolt" original M-77. It's a 7mm Mag and shoots very well. He has a later model M77 tang safety from the late 70's, I'd guess, and it's been one thing and then another. I won't go through all the crap it's had fixed. It recetly got a glass bedding with a pressure point out front that has helped a bit. But not something I'd ever get if I knew how it shot.

I have currently two Mk2, one #1 and a 77/22, all shoot well, so did the handguns and the shotgun I owned. I like Ruger's aproach offering good value for money and providing good customer service. On top, they make money...

Take a look at this.

Looks like the Hawkeye will be out in a compact.

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/...act-rifles-carbines/

quote:

Originally posted by DUK:
Will the Ultralights also be available on the Hawkeye model, once the remaining Mk2 are sold off?

For 2009 H'eye UL models are available in SS & synthetic, and blued & wood.

Their website shows the new for 2009 items.

Wow, very cool! The problem is, should I get a Hawkeye compact, a stainless 77/44 or a Mini14 tactical?

Damn budget restrictions!

According to the Ruger homepage, The Ultralight will be continued in the Hawkeye series. These will have the slightly shorter barrels (20" in most calibers) of the MkII series. The compact series looks to have 16-1/2" barrels, which is way to short for my preferences.