WoodlandCritter
Lil-Rokslider
I started life as a "gun guy" first and foremost, then fell in love with hunting as an adult. Up until now I have always hunted with firearms that I already had in my collection for reasons unrelated to hunting. But now that I'm debt free (besides mortgage), I finally treated myself to my dream do-all, hunting-specific rifle.
What that ended up being is one of the latest SKUs of M77 Hawkeye, so I figured some of you might appreciate hearing about my experience thus far with this new yet very much old school gun.
I purchased the blued, walnut stocked, 16" barrel Hawkeye Hunter chambered in 6.5cdm. I wanted something handy for carrying up the thickly forested mountains where I live, but that would also be at home in the Eastern parts of the state in case I draw an antelope tag. This rifle seems to fit the bill perfectly.
Before its first range trip, I equipped the rifle with a Maven RS.1 and a YHM Phantom mini flash hider for ease of affixing my MG7k .30cal suppressor. Upon arriving to the range I used cheap ball ammo to get onto paper at 100 yards. From there I shot 3 factory loads for groups.
In order of least to most accurate they were:
Hornady 129gr Superformance SST - 2.06"
Hornady 147gr Precision Match ELDM - 1.63"
Hornday 143gr Precision Hunter ELDX - 1.25"
Note that these were all 10 shot groups shot off of a table with just my rangebag for support. Furthermore, virtually all my shooting practice for the past 5 years has been centered around action pistol sports. It is entirely likely that a better practiced rifle shooter could have produced tighter groups. Although I can't definitively say, I do believe this rifle is capable of better than 1moa accuracy in a 10 shot group.
Speaking of 10 shot groups, my 10 shot average velocity came to 2433fps with the 143gr ELDX out of this 16" barrel. That means the bullet reaches minimum expansion velocity right around 500yds, which is perfect for my use case. Much farther than that and I become uncomfortable with the animal having time to move after I pull the trigger.
As far as flat range performance goes, I couldn't be happier.
Fit and finish leave a bit to be desired. The barrel is heavily biased towards the right side of the stock channel, almost to the point of contact. The action was very rough out of the box, although this was ameliorated by a few hours ofpissing my girlfriend off cycling the action in front of the tv. Probably the worst offense was the fact that the screw holding in the takedown lever came loose and had to be loctited in place.
Most of my gripes I believe are fairly nitpicky, and as a manufacturing engineer I totally understand the Ruger has to cut corners somewhere to be able to offer a CRF action at 1100$ in the current day.
Overall, I was looking for a wood and blued rifle, with a threaded; carbine length barrel, was capable of ~1moa accuracy, had CRF, was chambered in 6.5cdm, and cost 1200$ or less. That is a mighty specific niche that Ruger has managed to fill perfectly for me. I am extremely pleased so far and am very much looking forward to bringing it bear hunting in the next month or so. Its hard for me to make a strong recommendation without using a gun for at least a couple years with regularity, but if you're looking for something similar to what I was, I would give this a tentative "buy".
What that ended up being is one of the latest SKUs of M77 Hawkeye, so I figured some of you might appreciate hearing about my experience thus far with this new yet very much old school gun.
I purchased the blued, walnut stocked, 16" barrel Hawkeye Hunter chambered in 6.5cdm. I wanted something handy for carrying up the thickly forested mountains where I live, but that would also be at home in the Eastern parts of the state in case I draw an antelope tag. This rifle seems to fit the bill perfectly.
Before its first range trip, I equipped the rifle with a Maven RS.1 and a YHM Phantom mini flash hider for ease of affixing my MG7k .30cal suppressor. Upon arriving to the range I used cheap ball ammo to get onto paper at 100 yards. From there I shot 3 factory loads for groups.
In order of least to most accurate they were:
Hornady 129gr Superformance SST - 2.06"
Hornady 147gr Precision Match ELDM - 1.63"
Hornday 143gr Precision Hunter ELDX - 1.25"
Note that these were all 10 shot groups shot off of a table with just my rangebag for support. Furthermore, virtually all my shooting practice for the past 5 years has been centered around action pistol sports. It is entirely likely that a better practiced rifle shooter could have produced tighter groups. Although I can't definitively say, I do believe this rifle is capable of better than 1moa accuracy in a 10 shot group.
Speaking of 10 shot groups, my 10 shot average velocity came to 2433fps with the 143gr ELDX out of this 16" barrel. That means the bullet reaches minimum expansion velocity right around 500yds, which is perfect for my use case. Much farther than that and I become uncomfortable with the animal having time to move after I pull the trigger.
As far as flat range performance goes, I couldn't be happier.
Fit and finish leave a bit to be desired. The barrel is heavily biased towards the right side of the stock channel, almost to the point of contact. The action was very rough out of the box, although this was ameliorated by a few hours of
Most of my gripes I believe are fairly nitpicky, and as a manufacturing engineer I totally understand the Ruger has to cut corners somewhere to be able to offer a CRF action at 1100$ in the current day.
Overall, I was looking for a wood and blued rifle, with a threaded; carbine length barrel, was capable of ~1moa accuracy, had CRF, was chambered in 6.5cdm, and cost 1200$ or less. That is a mighty specific niche that Ruger has managed to fill perfectly for me. I am extremely pleased so far and am very much looking forward to bringing it bear hunting in the next month or so. Its hard for me to make a strong recommendation without using a gun for at least a couple years with regularity, but if you're looking for something similar to what I was, I would give this a tentative "buy".
