I hope someone out there can help with this one.
I bought a Ruger 77/22 in 22 Hornet and can barely get it to group better than 5 inches! I have tried factory ammo both remington and winchester..I've tried three different bullets rem 45gr sp. hornady 40gr vmax and win 50gr sp. Nothing groups any better than 5 inches. I have checked all the obvious scope mounts, free floated the barrel, action screws ect. no help.
Are these rifles just junk or what? I own many centerfire rifles of Ruger make and have never had any trouble getting them to shoot. Anyone have any ideas on this one?

Kag358,
Give these folks a buzz. They are suposed to be good at reworking the Ruger 77/22 Hornet. I haven't tried them personally but I heard about them here on this forum. Hope this works for you. Let us know how things works out for you. I have been thinking of gettin a 77/22 Hornet and sending it to them.

http://www.ct-precision.com/

[ 07-17-2003, 01:57: Message edited by: WyoJoe ]

Send it back to Ruger with a letter describing the groups and a sample target. I own several Ruger rifles and have never had a problem, but a buddy of mine had a problem with a Ruger 77 that he bought USED. It was grouping poorly. He boxed it up and sent it off to the factory. It came back a 1" rifle FREE OF CHARGE! That is customer service. Good luck

Kag, I have owned 3 Ruger 77/22s and one on this small action chambered for 44 mag. NONE of them are very accurate.

Plus I have a friend who is quite a good shot and he bought a 77/22 and it shot worse than mine!

Don't ask me to explain what it is about this series of rifles from Ruger but in my opinion, accuracy isn't their strong suit. Sorry.

Thanks for the responses WYOJOE Iron Buck and Pecos45. It lets me know I have not lost my mind with this rifle. I know it's not me, I've been shooting for over twenty years and reloading for 15 plus. I will look into the customer service dept. to see if they can sort it out. And although the link provided by WYOJOE is an awesome one I can not justify spending any more money on a poorly designed rifle. According to the information I read one flaw is in the two piece bolt.

While I have, and love, a 77/22 in 22 LR, the same rifle in the Hornet have developed a reputation of being good for playing, but not capable of real serious accuracy.

I had a 77/22 Hornet. Most disappointing rifle I EVER owner, inaccurate piece of shit, that's for sure. I can't believe Ruger has the balls to put such an inferior product in the marketplace, while at the same time touting the quality of their products. 'Ol Bill ought to be rollin' over in his grave, except he was around for quite a while after this abortion hit the market.

If they are all like the couple I've looked at , the problem is pretty obvious......with the slop between the two bolt halves you have very inconsistant headspacing and also inconsistent ignition as the Hornet cartridge has no shoulder to provide a positive stop .

Either shim the bolt to get rid of the slop or re-chamber to K-hornet , and I'll bet things will improve considerably.........

I have heard a great deal of negative feed back on Ruger's 77/22-Hornet. I have owned a Savage 218-B, An H&R Topper, a Ruger #3 and now have a 77/22-Hornet. All shoot well, for me.
All the above loads are with 45 grain bulllets.
My Savage and 218-B load was 7.3 grains of IMR-4227. My #3 load was 12 gr. of W-680 [2 1/2 inch group]. I now shoot 9.7 grains of 2400 and get aa group you can cover with a dime.

I bought a 77/22 used about a month ago that was in great shape that has had about 200 rounds shot through it from my cousin. He said that it shot decent but wasn't happy with it. I gave him $325 and without firing it I shipped it out to be rebarreled to a .17 ackley hornet!

I've owned the m77/22 Hornet for 5-6 years. Mine is the 20" sporter barrel. I used to be disappointed in the accuracy, but now it shoots, no BS, sub 3/4". It is now 'bottle cap' accurate. The first improvement came with Hogdon Lilgun powder (max charge is most accurate), next I installed a Timney trigger spring and sear kit. That's it. It shoots as well as my Sako Vixen in 222Remmag. My load: 13 grs. Lilgun, 45gr Sierra Hornet sftpt, Win case, Win small PISTOL primer.
A friend just bought one of these last year, and he gets 2" groups with factory loads and 1" with my handloads. He also installed the Timney kit. By the way, we have not touched the 2 piece bolt, as it does not appear to be a problem in our rifles.
Fred in Colorado

kag358: Welcome to the club.

Although some lucky ones come across a 77/22H which will perform reasonably well in original factory configuration, as you can see from the comments, most do not. I have one which shoots marvelously, but the previous owner spent a bundle on a replacement K-Hornet barrel, new trigger, bolt rework, and no telling what else. Luckily for me, after getting it "right", he wanted to move on to something else and I bought it for probably less than the work he'd done on it.

Your gun can be made to shoot, but be prepared to spend a chunk on it. If you want to try a cheap fix, you can probably bush the bolt halves yourself. Then try dismounting and remounting the barrel, or at least try tensioning the barrel mount block to assure that the mounting screws are evenly torqued. If your nerves are good enough to overcome the tonnage of the factory trigger, you may find some accuracy improvement. Good Luck!

kag,

I have a 77/22 in Hornet too. And my first experience with mine was exactly like yours. First groups were 5-6 inches at 50 yards. Spent a very short time with trying everything I could possibly think of to try to find a magic "something" to get it to work. I failed and sent it back to Ruger.

It came back a few weeks later with a new barrel on it. I started again. Some improvement....3-4 inch groups at 50 yards. Not good enough for me, so I sent it back to Ruger again, with a note saying to not bother sending it back unless it was fixed. A couple weeks later, I got it back again. This time it had another new barrel and a new stock, and though I can't be certain, I think they worked the trigger over, too. That trigger aint perfect by any means, but I "know" it is a ton better than it was before! And the new stock they put on it was simply gorgeous. It is one of the prettiest stocks I have ever seen on a firearm, other than in a catalog!

This time they did something that made a difference. It began shooting about 3/4" groups at 50 yards. Now, I understand this aint outstanding, but I could live with it for the time being. I played with it off and on for the next year or so, as I didn't exactly have the time to be too serious with it, and was consistantly getting about 3/4", 50 yard groups, with the 40 gr. Hornady VMAX.

Then, Hornady came out with their 35 grainer and this little rifle came alive. I got many 3/8" - 1/2" groups with it and figured I wouldn't tempt fate anymore; I quit shooting it on paper!! That was probably close to four years ago.

The past three years, this little rifle has been my main go-to gun for varmint type critters. I have put a lot of rounds thru its tube and boy... is this thing a lot of fun!

I say send it back to Ruger...more than once if necessary. Include a note with properly chosen words, and maybe they will fix it as good as they did mine! I realize it is a bit of a hassle and you don't have your rifle for a short time, but they should do it all for free and you might get your new favorite rifle. Down the road, if you want to send it off to CT or some other shop, go ahead...but for now, I'd say let Ruger do the work.

[ 07-17-2003, 22:48: Message edited by: Trapdoor ]

Kag358,

Listen to Trapdoor and send it back to Ruger. They will make it right. I have 2 .22 Hornets, both Rugers(1 a No.1 anf the other a M77/22VHZ) and both are tack drivers. Under 3/4" is normal and 1/2" happens all the time. This has to be the most fun shooting caliber going. Give Ruger a chance as ALL rifle companies make "lemons" every so often. Lawdog

Maybe you guys are right. I can't stand wasting ammo with it now..so being without it for a while would not hurt my feelings at all. I have to take other rifles out to the range to make me feel better after shooting that thing. At least when shooting sub MOA with my 223 smith & wesson I encourage myself that it's not me. One question though and I do not mean to sound stupid. Do I send it back with scope mounted or pull it off? I have never had to return any firearm back to a mfg. so I am not familiar with it.I really thank you all for your insight and knowledge. This forum has been the best thing I have come across in a long time. THANKS TO YOU ALL.

Kag,

Take your scope off! Don't send it with the rifle! Personally, I would just take the rings and scope off together...then when it comes back, just put them back on and you dont have to worry about realigning the crosshairs, and your point of impact will be pretty close! Easy!

Good luck and don't get down on it too fast...sooner or later, it ought to get right! Unfortunately, it wasn't right to begin with...as it should have been!

To me, my problem became a quest to get the rifle to work....I was not going to let myself fail! Some people would rather get rid of a problem than fix it. There isn't anything wrong with that...it just aint me!

Mine wouldn't shoot better than 3" at 100, regardless of loads or factory ammo. This was '98 or so. I wrote to Ruger, and they offered to fix it. Before I could ship it, I sold it to a shooter that liked a challenge---thought he could make it right. I don't know how he made out with it.

I love Rugers and own several. But the early copies of that gun should have never left the factory. But being a glutton, I plan to get another someday. If it doesn't shoot, I'll rebarrel in .20 Ackley Hornet.

Mike Johnston

A friend owns a 77/22H and it does factory ammo in the 1-1.5" range. I have a SS 77/44 that plops 300 gr paper patch into 1" groups with a red dot sight at 100 yds. Go figure. Only experience I've had with them.

Its almost pointless to echo what others have said already except it really is the truth. Ream the sucker out to K-Hornet and let CT-Precision do their stuff. They know this rifle. My VHZ version was a turd till they got it. It is a 1/2" group rifle now with the K chamber, the bolt fixed, and the trigger smoother and lighter. And yes, get some Hornady 35 gr. V-Max bullets and push them. They love it.
My father has one of the lucky few factory standard 20" Hornets that will shoot under 1". He would like it even if it were less accurate as he really can't tolerate alot of noise or muzzle jump, so its perfect for him. If it ever goes south on its shooting, it will go to CT-Precision too.

Rick

I went through the same deal as everyone else with 2 77-22 hornets. I traded the sporter for the heavy barreled one and it shot just as poorly.
I sent it to ct-precision. It was reamed to K, bolt tightened and a trigger job. It will now shoot 1/2 to 3/4", 5 shot groups. I also glassed the action and free floated the barrel. It's a shooter now but it was a long road!
W.B.

Quit wasting money. Dump the tomato stake and buy a CZ 527. You'll be mighty glad you did.

Kag,
Ever check your private messages?

Yes I did jim. Thanks for the information I've made the shim but have not been able to get out to check the results on the range yet. One thing I can say for sure; already the fit seems much tighter. I was not ignoring you but I wanted to do the work and test it at the range before I replied. But I do thank you very much for the specs. and the idea. I sure hope it works.