I had a chance to actually handle a Ruger Guide Gun at my local gun shop. I am not a fan of the color of the laminate but it is a nice well built gun. The one I looked at was in .300 RCM.

I also found a little bit of powder so I am good to go for awhile. No RL 15 though.

www.whittakerguns.com has the .375 Ruger and the 300 RCM Guide Gun, stainless and laminate, sitting in the racks gathering dust, 10% over wholesale.
Been there for over a month and I go visit those lonely rifles to comfort them at least weekly.


Says Whittaker:

We will ship to any FFL dealer
Shipping cost start at for firearms & goes up from there depending on location:
Hand Gun:
Call for pricing
Long Gun:
$1.00 - $500 = $25
$500- $1,000 = $30
$1,000 & up call for shipping cost
Black Powder Firearms: $20
Prices are for cash, check, or money order.

I bought a Guide Gun in .357 Ruger about three weeks ago. I like it. It looks nice, handles well and is very accurate, particularly with 300 grain bullets. I have shot it with and without the break. Much easier on the shooter with the break not surprisingly. Feeding and functioning is flawless. I have only shot it open sights, no scope mounted yet.

RIP:

What is your feeling about the .375 and .416 Ruger? Do you think they are good cartridges?

Dave,
Yep, they are good, excellent cartridges in fact, no doubt about it.
The .375 Ruger shades the .375 H&H, and the .416 Ruger factory gun is almost as light and handy as a .416 B&M, and quite a bit more powerful, for those few extra ounces of rifle weight:
A 7-pound rifle capable of traditional .416 Rigby ballistics.

Also the Ruger rifles themselves are great.
I bought my first Ruger rifle 35 years ago, and it was so good that I still have it, 30-06.
The only gripes I have had with several dozens of them over the years was one 270 Winchester M77 Lightweight that had a pencil-thin barrel and was not accurate enough to suit me.
And one other recent Hawkeye that needs a stronger firing pin spring from Brownell's, so it will make all primers go off reliably.

I have a great compulsion to collect all Ruger rifles, have one each African and Alaskan .375 Ruger Hawkeyes, and an Alaskan .416 Ruger Hawkeye.
If I ever see a .416 Ruger Hawkeye African, maybe even the .416 Ruger Guide Gun, it will likely go home with me.
Just trying to pace myself. A new Ruger is like a new girlfriend. Evertbody ought to have about 72 of them.

Read a pretty nice review on the new guide gun in RifleShooter magazine today (I know - gun rag article...) and was hopeful to fondle one at cabelas today (to no avail). Glad to hear they seem to be on par with the older Alaskans. I'd like to add one to my collection at some point, and the laminate stock colors are growing on me the tiniest bit, but would like to lighten it up from the advertised 8+lbs bare weight.

Good golly, Whittaker's last .375 Ruger Guide Gun has gone to Texas! And he has some .338 RCM Guide Gun rifles standing in the rack now.
Those .375 Ruger Guide Guns must be popular as hell. I had to settle for a South Carolina Winchester M70 in .375 H&H for $909.99 today.
I am whole again. I won't rechamber that one.
We are still waiting for a .416 Ruger African here.

There is a nice two part article at RealGuns about the Ruger guide guns.

This is a quandary for me. I have two 9,3X62s and I really don't think the .375 Ruger gives me anything that I don't already have in the 9,3s. My CZ weighs 8 pounds, about the same as the guide gun. My Blaser weighs less. Plus, I have a really nice .375 flanged so I really don't NEED another .375. Yea, I know, need has nothing to do with it. How about the .416 Ruger Guide gun? Again, I already have a .416 Rigby that is so cool. What's a boy to do?

quote:

Originally posted by RIP:
Good golly, Whittaker's last .375 Ruger Guide Gun has gone to Texas!

I wish Whittaker's would keep their website current with the used guns they have...I used to like to check in on them and see what they had.

setch,

Whittaker Guns has been a madhouse since late last year.
Good luck getting through by telephone too.
They never were very good at updating the web site, and it has gotten worse with all the unloading of trucks for the hordes of shoppers to carry away.
Powder and primer and ammo are rationed, but still seem to disappear on the day they arrive.
Less-in-demand items remain on the shelves a while longer.
I visit gun shops wherever I go in this country, but have not seen anything approaching the size of their "operation."
Again, a few things remain in stock that don't move very fast,
like the Dakota Traveler in .416 Rigby + .338 Lapua Magnum,
just too rich for us local yokel hordes mobbing them whenever they are open.
They are there to please the masses with the common items, mainly, and doing the best they can.
Since March 2013 they have decreased store hours to only 5 days a week, 10-hour days, closed on Sunday and Monday, for sanity/humanity purposes.
There is no end in sight with the current political climate.

That's pretty incredible. I can attest to the difficulty getting through on the phone. Awhile back I was checking out what coopers they had and it was really difficult to get someone to answer. I hope some day to get to KY and visit there as it sounds like a shop worth the time...in person of course.

ps. sorry for taking the thread off topic

The 375 and 416 rugers are very good and totally modern efficient cartridges. I like the 338 RCM although I wonder why they shortened the base to shoulder distance rather than keep it like the 300 RCM. They lost a few grains of capacity doing that.

The shop itself is nice. I was there in 2009 and it was packed to the gills with rifles. Their website, on the other hand, is an abomination. Seriously, if they are going to have a website they could atleast make it more user friendly and update it once every couple of years. And clean it up a little. Everything is so jumbled and disjointed.