Thoughts on Ruger M77 Action Potential?

[North River]

Can the factory thin profile M77 tang barrels be threaded?

Also, has anyone tried doing a full length bedding and had good results with improved accuracy? I glass bedded just the action and first couple inches of the barrel on mine. It helped with accuracy, but I’ve heard bedding the entire barrel channel helps these guns a lot.

With a good quality, heavy barrel and a really good bedding job, I’ve found 77s to shoot decent with free floating. But with lighter barrels it has been my experience they improve with slight tip pressure on the barrel. I take electrical tape and add a little to the barrel at the front of the forend to vary contact pressure.

 

[Kenny Hart]

Can the factory thin profile M77 tang barrels be threaded?

Also, has anyone tried doing a full length bedding and had good results with improved accuracy? I glass bedded just the action and first couple inches of the barrel on mine. It helped with accuracy, but I’ve heard bedding the entire barrel channel helps these guns a lot.

You'll want to measure the diameter at the length you want threaded, but Karl at Kampfeld Customs can add a permanent shoulder to a thin barrel by threading 1/2x28 and attaching a very clean adapter for 5/8 with the appropriate material for a shoulder. He did my Tikka Lite...looks top notch and the threads are perfect and straight.

He said he could also do my Ruger 308 RS if I so choose. It has the ultralight barrel profile and I gave him the diameter, so I imagine yours would be good to go. Per his current pricing, barrels with an OD smaller than .63" are an upcharge from his standard pricing. ADCO can also perform this service.

I don't know if full-length bedding is any better/worse than free floated. I understand the old NULA rifles were fully bedded because the stock materials used were stiffer than the barrel and wouldn't flex under pressure. You could always try the electrical tape trick mentioned above and see if it improves, though accuracy may be subject to forend pressure. I just choose to free-float mine and take that out of the equation.

 

[walk2112]

Can the factory thin profile M77 tang barrels be threaded?

Also, has anyone tried doing a full length bedding and had good results with improved accuracy? I glass bedded just the action and first couple inches of the barrel on mine. It helped with accuracy, but I’ve heard bedding the entire barrel channel helps these guns a lot.

In the ones I've messed with to any extent, it seems a little bit dependent on the barrel itself and the cartridge. So still not totally settled in my mind if there is a single best answer. When Ruger used to do the FTW Predator model in varmint cartridges and 6.5/308, those had a little fore-end pressure on a heavy sporter type contour and shot very well.\

I always have to bed the front half of the action and the rear tang, but I've had a 300 win mag that much preferred free floating and shot well with most 180-200 gr bullets, my 375 ruger though shoots much better with full length bedding, had a 260 rem that shot ok free floated but was picky and then much better across the board with a little fore-end pressure, and my 308 GSR shoots 150-168 gr bullets very well with a generous free float. So kind of a crap shoot based on my experience.

Punchline is: After years of goofing around with them, now I free float the foreend, then when bedding the action carefully use electrical tape at two spots on the barrel to act as a centralizer and am careful to not induce torsion or stress in the action when bedding. Shoot and test with the free floated barrel and if it's not going well I fold up a business card or similar in the fore end to see how barrel bedding would change/improve things. If I want to keep the barrel (usually the case) if the test shows fully bedding the barrel makes sense, I do that and rock on.

If I really want things free floated on that rifle, and the barrel isn't happy that way.... my latest venture (that hasn't been tested yet) has been having a hardened stainless 'washer' machined that allows a factory take off tikka barrel to be headspaced to the ruger bolt/receiver (same tenon threads).
I saw someone else on here did this a different way and I couldn't resist trying it out so fingers crossed.

Here's a 30+ year old M77 Tang Safety (my first rifle) with an 8 twist 243 barrel. Calling it the 'Tiger'.
Thanks to Stephen @ Denali Arms for the work! In theory I'm setup now to spin Tikka prefits on this action.

 

[TaperPin]

In the ones I've messed with to any extent, it seems a little bit dependent on the barrel itself and the cartridge. So still not totally settled in my mind if there is a single best answer. When Ruger used to do the FTW Predator model in varmint cartridges and 6.5/308, those had a little fore-end pressure on a heavy sporter type contour and shot very well.\

I always have to bed the front half of the action and the rear tang, but I've had a 300 win mag that much preferred free floating and shot well with most 180-200 gr bullets, my 375 ruger though shoots much better with full length bedding, had a 260 rem that shot ok free floated but was picky and then much better across the board with a little fore-end pressure, and my 308 GSR shoots 150-168 gr bullets very well with a generous free float. So kind of a crap shoot based on my experience.

Punchline is: After years of goofing around with them, now I free float the foreend, then when bedding the action carefully use electrical tape at two spots on the barrel to act as a centralizer and am careful to not induce torsion or stress in the action when bedding. Shoot and test with the free floated barrel and if it's not going well I fold up a business card or similar in the fore end to see how barrel bedding would change/improve things. If I want to keep the barrel (usually the case) if the test shows fully bedding the barrel makes sense, I do that and rock on.

If I really want things free floated on that rifle, and the barrel isn't happy that way.... my latest venture (that hasn't been tested yet) has been having a hardened stainless 'washer' machined that allows a factory take off tikka barrel to be headspaced to the ruger bolt/receiver (same tenon threads).
I saw someone else on here did this a different way and I couldn't resist trying it out so fingers crossed.

Here's a 30+ year old M77 Tang Safety (my first rifle) with an 8 twist 243 barrel. Calling it the 'Tiger'.
Thanks to Stephen @ Denali Arms for the work! In theory I'm setup now to spin Tikka prefits on this action.
View attachment 805396

That’s a nifty idea. I see a ton of high quality barrels of all sorts with that thread pitch - I always assumed the money and effort to headspace them on a receiver would be prohibitive, but that solution doesn’t look bad at all.

 

[allstajacket]

A good friend of mine and old boss owns a decent size gun shop. Could hunt with anything he wants basically, but he ALWAYS grabs his old Ruger m77 in 30-06.

This is just MI whitetail, but the gun has never let him down after all these years. I think he got it in the 80’s used from a buddy.

I think Ruger and Winchester make some of the nicest “traditional yet modern” rifles on the market right now with the new M77 Hawkeye, and Winchester with the Model 70 Extreme MB.

The Hawkeyes need to lose a couple lb’s though in my opinion.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Jordan86]

In the ones I've messed with to any extent, it seems a little bit dependent on the barrel itself and the cartridge. So still not totally settled in my mind if there is a single best answer. When Ruger used to do the FTW Predator model in varmint cartridges and 6.5/308, those had a little fore-end pressure on a heavy sporter type contour and shot very well.\

I always have to bed the front half of the action and the rear tang, but I've had a 300 win mag that much preferred free floating and shot well with most 180-200 gr bullets, my 375 ruger though shoots much better with full length bedding, had a 260 rem that shot ok free floated but was picky and then much better across the board with a little fore-end pressure, and my 308 GSR shoots 150-168 gr bullets very well with a generous free float. So kind of a crap shoot based on my experience.

Punchline is: After years of goofing around with them, now I free float the foreend, then when bedding the action carefully use electrical tape at two spots on the barrel to act as a centralizer and am careful to not induce torsion or stress in the action when bedding. Shoot and test with the free floated barrel and if it's not going well I fold up a business card or similar in the fore end to see how barrel bedding would change/improve things. If I want to keep the barrel (usually the case) if the test shows fully bedding the barrel makes sense, I do that and rock on.

If I really want things free floated on that rifle, and the barrel isn't happy that way.... my latest venture (that hasn't been tested yet) has been having a hardened stainless 'washer' machined that allows a factory take off tikka barrel to be headspaced to the ruger bolt/receiver (same tenon threads).
I saw someone else on here did this a different way and I couldn't resist trying it out so fingers crossed.

Here's a 30+ year old M77 Tang Safety (my first rifle) with an 8 twist 243 barrel. Calling it the 'Tiger'.
Thanks to Stephen @ Denali Arms for the work! In theory I'm setup now to spin Tikka prefits on this action.
View attachment 805396

Thank you! I appreciate the detailed answer. I’ll try some front pressure and see if that works.

 

[Bwalker]

The 77 is a heavy action. It's basically a brick of cast steel. As a result they are very heavy. If this doesn't matter they aren't that bad, although aid pick a few others to build on first.

 

[TaperPin]

It was a long time ago and I can’t remember the magazine or book it was written in, but a comment about the M77 that made sense at the time and still seems to hit the spot. Back then it was still popular to accurize factory rifles for competition - he was asked why nobody is shooting the Ruger in competition and he said it comes down to weight. If switching to a lighter weight Remington ment a heavier contour barrel could be used and still make weight for that class of shooting, that’s significant. In silhouette, weight out in the barrel is more valuable than weight in the receiver.

I do remember a number of high volume varmint shooters with really accurate rebarreled M77’s.