Hi Guys!

I guy I know has a NIB Ruger M77 in 7mm rem mag for sale at a good price. Are these rifles pretty accurate?

Pizzaboy

quote:

Originally posted by pizzaboy:
Hi Guys!

I guy I know has a NIB Ruger M77 in 7mm rem mag for sale at a good price. Are these rifles pretty accurate?

Pizzaboy

I own a LH stainless Ruger 77 MKII in 7 Mag and it is the least accurate and most particular rifle in my safe.

I have found exactly one load that will group <1 MOA with three shot groups after trying over a dozen bullets and half a dozen powders. I keep it because the one bullet that it likes is the 140 grain TSX and living in California wih our new lead free rules going into effect it is useful to me.

Up until the lead issue came up is was going to be converted to a 416 or 404 Ruger.

Every gun is different but Rugers as a whole (not isolated examples) are not generally known for their accuracy.

Okay, thanks for the info, I've heard that the Savage is much better on accuracy, but the price was nice on the Ruger.

My left handed Ruger 270 would shoot about 3 different loads all less than 1" and that was prior to the installation of the Hart barrel.

It would shoot the 130 and 140 ballistic tips very well and also the 150 Speer flat based spitzer with IMR4831...the latter being the most accurate.

If you get the rifle and can get a 1" group with a decent bullet, you can easily hunt hogs, deer, antelope, etc. to 275 yards easy.

It will depend on when it was made. Some of the early M77 had poor bbls. I had a 200yr aniv. model that was quite accurate. Sold it to my friends son, he killed his first deer with it & just had to have it.

I own 5 rugers.

7x57
375 H&H
.270
'06
257 bob

the first 4 are MOA shooters with factory ammo. I had triggers replaced on two of them.

the 257 was probably a 1.5 MOA until my son found a load that worked and now its a .75 MOA

Great, solid, american made guns.

I bought a Ruger M77 back around 1980. It had a neck so tight that fired casings would not allow a bullet to be placed in it by hand.........very tight neck! With good handloads this rifle would shoot 1/2 MOA with Nosler 150 grain Ballistic Tip bullets. Used over a twelve year period for deer culling (spot lighting at night; legally, on a special permit for crop damage), this was the most accurate mid priced rifle I ever owned. I guess it is just the luck of the draw.

I bought a Ruger M77 7mm mag in 1985 that was about a 4 MOA shooter, it was pretty much minute of barn from the inside. I understand the newer ones tend to do better but this soured me on rugers.

The Ruger MkII's use hammer-forged, Ruger-made barrels, unlike the earlier version, and exhibit decent accuracy. Ruger uses a unique action-bedding method that is petty good and generally doesn't require re-working. Like most production, slim-barreled hunting rifles, the barrel is damped by tip pressure, which can benefit from some attention. Using cardboard shims, experimentation will tell whether more or less tip pressure helps, or if the barrel wants to be free-floated. Hardware-store epoxy and neutral shoe polish for parting compound are all you need. My local Ace has Devcon, the primo bedding compound.

Cutting a round off of the trigger spring will help, too.

If the rifle has a tang-mounted safety, it is the original Model 77 and has been around for 20 years or longer; its virginity may be questionable and incapabilities pre-determined. Barrels on these models were out-sourced and displayed varying capability.

Otherwise, I would sure as hell prefer the Ruger to a Savage.
.

i have only owned 2 rugers in these past 30 something years. one a tang 270 win i purchased in 73' in alaska for hunting everything (in alaska) for many years, and a mk2 i purchased a few years back. both are excellent shooters and have never given me a problem/concern. i had the tang model glass bedded from the rear tang to the forend tip for the alaskan elements and it never changed poi. i had the mk2 glass bedded (action) and floated the barrel. they both shoot several loads moa. in my experience, they are very capable rifles which will give you a lifetime of service. we all have our personal favorites and our own opinions. mine is positive regarding rugers. ymmv.......

A good friend have a M77 / 7mm Rem mag.
It is a very accurate rifle.
He will take it to South Africa in May for hunting springbuck and plains game in genral.

He has also used it for hunting lynx in the winter, usually long shots on animals laying down in the snow in steep mountain sides.

The Ruger has never let him down so far.

A buddy of mine bought a new in the box Ruger M77 MKII recently. It had a slight bedding issue, once we took care of that high spot and I smoothed the trigger it shoots fantastic. It is shooting just about any Winchester factory load to the same point of impact at 100 yards and doing it at or under 1" with them all.
Nice rifle!

I've got two 77MK2 in stainless, 22/250 and 300 Win, both are MOA shooters and dependable rifles. The factory trigger pull was lightened by replacing the factory trigger springs with the Timmney springs which gave both rifles a 3.5 pound pull instead of the 6-7 pound. I had one 7mm express/280 M77 tang safety model, it was a 2-3 moa shooter with a barrel that coppered up badly, I sold it.

Ruger makes a dependable rifle, but accuracy is their downfall. It's always a gamble with Ruger.

The general consensus is they are not the best if you are looking for sub moa from the box, but as far as dependability, they are good rifles. For hunting accuracy at reasonable range, they'll do the job.

Sure, there are a few accurate unaltered Rugers from time to time, but I can tell you I've seen far more inaccurate Rugers than accurate ones.

It's a gamble with any factory rifle, but many other brands have a much better rep for accuracy.

Good Luck

Reloader

Good Luck

For me, I've sworn off Rugers. Have to admit I do like their features - the safety, and the open sights they used to come with. Their downfall for me was their inaccuracy (I expect a consistant group under an inch), and their trigger. Every Ruger I ever owned got glass bedded and a new Timney trigger. I finally decided that it was stupid to buy a new rifle then have to have that type of work done.
I do currently have a Ruger .338 mag. that gives me close to 1 1/4" groups but that rifle is used in relatively heavy cover for moose so I can live with it's accuracy. My other main rifle is a pre-64, mod. 70, .270 that shoots a consistant 3/4" group. I can't comment on the latest Rugers but I would agree that they are "hell for stout".
I'd say if you can live with what I consider mediocre accuracy and a crappy trigger then go for it. Bear in Fairbanks

I bought my 7 RM M77 tang in 1979. I've always liked the rifle action and the stock. It shot 2" groups until I had a Shilen barrel put on it. Now its a track driver with many bullet weights.

I just tried to fix a problem Ruger last Thursday. Thing wouldn't shoot worth a damn. I told my friend to drop the coin on a Timney and I bedded the action and removed the upwards pressure against the barrel (effectively floating it). Got a call Sunday afternoon, the groups went from about 4" to around 1.5" which is definitely minute-of-deer but kind of sad when lots of the "budget" factory rifles can pull that off with factory ammo.

We're going to try a few different bullets and powder levels to see if we can't do anything about the accuracy, if it could do MOA with a decent hunting bullet it would be a nice gun but a lot of work to get it shooting straight.

On the other hand, my old man's got a .223 Mk.II varmint gun that shot MOA out of the box with cheap ammo, and half that with tuned handloads.

The potential is there but the amount of effort you may need to put into it to get the results you want might get a little tiresome after a while. Which sucks because the Ruger is a good design.

Oh, how can I forget my hunting buddies Mk.II, stainless with laminate stock in .338 - one of the most accurate out-of-box .338's I ever shot.

i have found that some early ruger barrels make good jack handles

I have an early LH Ruger 77 MK2 it is a little fussy but will shoot under 1" with the right loads. Took some bedding work to make it shoot.
I have a LH SS Ruger MK2 Laminate 06 that shoots extremly well. The more recent Rugers have shorter throats and better accuracy.
Sent in a early 257 Ruger RL Tang safety with a
bad barrel (bent) & they rebarreled it for shipping costs, the new barrel had a much shorter throat & very accurate.

I also have an early M77 Mark II. Mine has been a very accurate gun. It is a 300 win mag & will shoot factory ammo right at MOA with just about any 180 grain bullet I have tried. I have had lots of luck with Rugers as far as accuracy goes. They have been much more accurate for me than my Left hand M70s as a rule. I think they are great hunting rifles & would not hesitate to get another if a deal came along.

quote:

Originally posted by pizzaboy:
Okay, thanks for the info, I've heard that the Savage is much better on accuracy, but the price was nice on the Ruger.

Don't believe all you hear! I have owned 11 Ruger rifles over the past 30 years. All were purchased new, except for one No. 1B in .30/'06. With the exception of the .30/'06, (and a Mini-30!!), all were capable of shooting 1 MOA or better right out of the box with nothing done to them except to mount a scope! The '06 was a 1.5MOA rifle until I put a rubber shim between the forend and the barrel, and it now shoots 1" groups. One, a 1B in 7mm Rem Mag., started out right off shooting 1" groups at 200 yards.....

I have heard horror stories about the accuracy of Ruger rifles, but the only one I've seen that was a real problem was that Mini-30. It would shoot 1" groups, all right. But they moved around from one day to the next-the rifle refused to stay zeroed, and NOTHING I did to it, includiong a "National-Match M1"-type steel accurizing & bedding job, ever made it stop. I would zero it today, shoot some nice groups, and tomorrow it would shoot 6" away from where it was hitting today!

Here are a few example groups shot with my Ruger M77 Tang-Safety model, 7X57mm Mauser caliber..... Those black squares are GI target pasters, 1" X 1" .



This one was shot with a No. 3 in .30/40 Krag @ 100 yards...

This is with the 7X57mm No. 1A........



And this with my 1B in 7mm Mag. @ 200 yards: