I just picked up an older tang safety Ruger M-77 in .458 Win Mag. Looks to be in great shape. No obvious issues or splits in the stock.

Anyone else on here have/had one of these and do any of you know of any issues I should be aware of?

Great rifle! Congrats.
Sorry I have never had experience with one as they aren't very common up here.

quote:

Originally posted by Dead Eye:
Great rifle! Congrats.
Sorry I have never had experience with one as they aren't very common up here.

Exactly, they are not very common up here. First one I have ever seen in the flesh. Imagine I will use it to thump bears until I can save enough nickels to take it on a hunt it was meant for. I think I will plan on getting a good bedding job done on it initially, just to hedge my bets on any future stock issues.

Good call. Bedding and trigger job for sure. And an original red pad is super cool... But a decelerator might be more practical. Nah... Red pad!!!

Skyline

I've owned a tang safety M77 in 458 WM for quite a while. It still has factory bedding. No cracks and it shoots MOA at 100 yds. I am perfectly capable of bedding the gun but if it aint broke don't fix it. I have a Leupold 1.5 - 5 scope in factory mounts. It has perfect balance and points like a fine shotgun.

The gun loves Hornady 350 grain soft points. It hits big hogs like a freight train. It is great for whitetail deer too. Leaves a 50 cent piece size hole going in and coming out. Does not damage the meat at all. Like Elmer Keith said, you can eat right up to the bullet hole.

The only issue this gun has is the magazine box is too thin. When the cartridges hit the front of the magazine box in recoil, it deforms it causing the sides to bow in, then it wont feed. That's probably why I was able to buy the rifle at a very good price. All you have to do is reinforce the front of the box.

The early M77's in .458 are fine rifles.

Craftsman……… thanks for the info. I will make sure to address the issue with the magazine box. I knew someone on here had to have some first hand experience with these rifles.

I owned one for a few years, and while I like the Model 77 Ruger's, especially the tang safety models, the .458 I had seemed to be a lot heavier than was really necessary.

Hi Skyline, nice pick up, I'm sure you will enjoy the old boy !

I have used a Tang Safety Ruger M77 in .458 Win Mag as my work/back up rifle for over 20yrs & it has been a great rifle killing lots of Buff & Banteng Bulls & Boars-Dingos-Goats-Deer-Cats even crows !

A real tack driver with a varmint light trigger that I don't need but the first owner was a real frantic & rebarreled from new & did trigger work also, I have not had any mag well issues but my mag spring does need renewing now .

I have just rebarreled a Ruger Alaskan from .416 to 458Win as I think this makes a better work gun for rough conditions where I can't tend to my rifle some times .

I have owed this model over 35 years. The only caution I would give you is to check the screws in the trigger guard and the action to be positive they are tight. Living where we get big moisture and temp swings, I have had the screws either get loose or the wood shrink.
I did gouge the stock on my .338WM version because I did not tighten the screws before taking it to the range. I was luckily able to get a replacement stock from Ruger. I explained it was my fault but the were kind enough to give the replacement to me for free. The other reason... great people and service that keeps me shooting Rugers.

I've got one that I picked up pretty cheap, about 4 years ago. The only issue I had was the magazine floorplate would pop open during firing and dump all of the loaded rounds. I sent it back to Ruger and they replaced the floorplate, as well as the stock before sending it back.

quote:

Originally posted by pagosawingnut:
I've got one that I picked up pretty cheap, about 4 years ago. The only issue I had was the magazine floorplate would pop open during firing and dump all of the loaded rounds. I sent it back to Ruger and they replaced the floorplate, as well as the stock before sending it back.

A "Tang Safety" Ruger M-77 in .458 Win Mag ?

Im surpised they had a stock ?

I picked one up last year and had Wayne at AHR go over it, add a red Decelerator, and fit a red dot sight. Safari Arms loaded some light loads for me. Now I need to pop some pigs with it...

I think I am also going to put a red decelerator pad on it as I would like to increase the LOP a bit and that would be the easiest.

Should be able to work up some loads that are similar to the heavy +P type .45-70 loads for thumping bears and such. May also try working up some loads with the 400 grain A-frame and then the 450 grain Swift and Barnes.

The 350 grain Barnes X is a hammer with pretty good ballistics.

quote:

Originally posted by Skyline:
Anyone else on here have/had one of these and do any of you know of any issues I should be aware of?

I received this info from a guy who lived in Connecticut and used to work with Bill Ruger and was sub-contracted by Ruger and Winchester during those days as a ballistic expert. An issue you might have with it is the barrel of all things, Ruger subcontracted out their barrels in this caliber to other companies during the early manufacture of that specific caliber. That means there are some with good barrels and some with bad barrels. Some folk who shot them quite a bit in those days complained of short barrel life. Hopefully you have a good barrel on yours.

Well as soon as I have all my reloading components we will find out how it shoots. Has proven to be a chore getting a few things. The stores up here do not carry a lot of big bore supplies and all are having trouble getting the stock they want……….. always getting shorted.

quote:

Originally posted by Skyline:
Well as soon as I have all my reloading components we will find out how it shoots. Has proven to be a chore getting a few things. The stores up here do not carry a lot of big bore supplies and all are having trouble getting the stock they want……….. always getting shorted.

The one I had would shoot the 500gr Hornady RN into one-hole groups of 3.

I much preferred the tang safety and mine had an original 22" barrel. It balanced well and was about right in weight for such a rifle. I wouldn't fool with the stock. It has a lot of metal under the barrel holding things together. In my view, a much better all-round Big Bore than some that came later from Ruger. It does make a great bear and moose rifle as well. Easy to load for using H335, H4895 and RL-15. I used Win brass and WLRM primers. Shot a bear using the 350gr Speer at a modest 2335 fps/4237 ft-lbs.

Caution: Be careful NOT to use the 350 TSX at an MV of less than 2500 fps. If they fall below 2100 to 2200 fps on impact they may fail to expand on bear. They will still kill but not as quickly as a soft-point lead tip. The 400gr A-Frame would be great as it will expand down to an impact of 1650. The Woodleigh 400gr PP is recommended for a minimum of 1900 fps at impact to insure expansion.

Good luck with yours; I should have kept mine. I liked it much better than the CZ550 I later owned.

Bob

www.bigbores.ca