I have two #1's Both are Varmint models. One is .243 Win the other is .25-06 Rem. They both shoot well, but fall short of one MOA. Any suggestions for improving accuracy?
#1 accuracy. I have two #1's Bothe are Varmint models. One is .243 Win the other is .25-06 Rem. They both shoot well, but fall short of one MOA.
- Thread starter DickE
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#1's aren't popular in my area but to be truthful, I've never heard a #1 owner brag about accuracy. 
Sugar River
Buckeye
Ross Seyfreid used to write about a method to drill and tap the forearm hanger for a set screw in order to tension the forearm away from the barrel.
I believe someone makes an add-on piece which achieves the same result, maybe Hicks????
I believe someone makes an add-on piece which achieves the same result, maybe Hicks????
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#1's aren't popular in my area but to be truthful, I've never heard a #1 owner brag about accuracy.
Might be random chance, but there are #1's that are capable of fine accuracy. In the mid-1990s I worked with a gentleman who purchased a used #1 in .25-06. One of the Remington factory loads he tried would shoot 100-yd 5-rd groups well under an inch in size. I advised him, "Buy a bunch of that ammo, same lot number if possible, and don't change anything!"
Guess those rifles are (or can be) sensitive to changes - he decided to have the buttstock shortened to fit him better, and it never shot as well after he got it back.
As always FWIW, IMHO, YMMV, etc.
The forend hanger modification is the way to go for best accuracy in the No.1
I have Seyfried's article put back somewhere, I'll have to see if I can find it?
I have Seyfried's article put back somewhere, I'll have to see if I can find it?
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I have quite a few No. 1’s, they all shoot good, I did have trouble with one when I first started shooting them and a buddy critiqued my bench set up. By moving my front bag as close to the receiver as I could it drastically improved my groups.
@BULL'S-EYE i would love to see that article if you find it.
@BULL'S-EYE i would love to see that article if you find it.
OP
Thank everyone for the info. I have seen the idea about the forearm hanger in other posts. It sounds like that may be the best idea for improving accuracy.
I’ve always heard that the average No.1 needed the aforementioned modification to improve accuracy. I think at time they were introduced, it was probably sufficient, and better accuracy could be had with a bolt-action. In some sense, I always thought of the No.1 as more of a novelty item that can be used to satisfy most shooters with low to reasonable expectations on accuracy. So for me, I’m in the camp that the No.1 is ideally suited to big bore cartridges fired at short distances 50-75 yards (<100yds) with iron sights. I don’t like the looks of a No.1 with a scope, and think longer range performance is better handled with a scoped bolt-action… and all the more reason to own multiple rifles! When you think about it, the No.1’s iron sights are pretty much bomb-proof anyway, especially if equipped with NECG sights.
Just my $0.10 worth.
Just my $0.10 worth.
Pál_K
Guns. I has it.
My thoughts as well. In 1998, when I bought my new Ruger No.1H Tropical in .375 H&H, I fired 20 rounds through it, standing, at what I thought was an appropriate hunting distance for a Cape Buffalo; I wanted to be sure my shots would be in a vital area. They were.
The Preacher
Blackhawk
You say they shoot well, so don't fall into the MOA trap. If your 25-06 and 243 shoot 3 shot groups 1 1/2" or better they will do for almost every hunting application you apply them to. Yes they can be "accurized" and possibly squeeze out another 1/2" or so, maybe more, but realize that they aren't target rifles. Bill Ruger didn't intend them to be so. Enjoy them for what they are, a thing of beauty, and use them confident that they'll do what you want them to. JMHO
I believe handloading might be the key to accuracy in a #1. Many, many years ago I used to hunt groundhogs with a #1 in 22-250 heavy barrel. I remember initially being very disappointed in its 2” or worse accuracy but careful load development shrunk that down to 3/4” consistently with 1/2” groups on good days when I did my part. Loved that gun!
bocash3
Bearcat
Loving the looks and thought of a fine single shot rifle, I had 3 model 1B in .257, .243, and .223.
Always wanted a .257 Roberts but it (purchased used) grouped 3 to 4 inches with my various hand loads. It went back into the world of commerce.
The .223 was purchased new about 2006 with my FFL. Trigger not great. Groups with various hand loads about 1 to 1 1/2 inches but I’ve yet to do anything to it. I’d like to get those groups down to under an inch- or trade it for an older varmint barrel variation.
But—- purchased the .243 used. It’s a red pad 1976 build. I did place a nylon washer under the fore arm. This standard barrel rifle is amazing! Great trigger and various 65 to 100 grain hand loads regularly produce 1/2 to 3/4 inch groups- some being under a half inch! It’s a keeper.
Y’all take care. Bo
Always wanted a .257 Roberts but it (purchased used) grouped 3 to 4 inches with my various hand loads. It went back into the world of commerce.
The .223 was purchased new about 2006 with my FFL. Trigger not great. Groups with various hand loads about 1 to 1 1/2 inches but I’ve yet to do anything to it. I’d like to get those groups down to under an inch- or trade it for an older varmint barrel variation.
But—- purchased the .243 used. It’s a red pad 1976 build. I did place a nylon washer under the fore arm. This standard barrel rifle is amazing! Great trigger and various 65 to 100 grain hand loads regularly produce 1/2 to 3/4 inch groups- some being under a half inch! It’s a keeper.
Y’all take care. Bo
Paul B
Hunter
First take into account Ruger's accuracy standard for the #1 rifles. Oneand a half inches atb 50 or 100 yards, I forget whicjh . I have quite a few #1 rifles in various factory configurations and most will beat that standard. Any #1 that does better than one inch at 100 yards is one to cherish and enjoy. I only have two or three that won't meet my standard. Let's face it, any rifle, especially the #1 that will hold 1.5" at 100 yards is good enough to kill deer or elk a lot farther out than what we should be shooting. besides, there are no bench rests out in the field.
Paul B.
Paul B.
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I've only owned one No. 1 personally - a 1A .257 Roberts. It was reasonably accurate with the hunting loads I worked up for it with 115 grain partition Noslers - 1.5" groups, sometimes a bit better. I've read of some that were very accurate, but as stated, my experience is very limited. A buddy had a heavy barrel No. 1 .25-06 that wouldn't group for beans with any of many loads tried. Some of them were almost unbelievably inaccurate. He finally decided it had a bad barrel and got rid of it.
Pál_K
Guns. I has it.
I wouldn't dismiss a No.1 without investigating the methods mentioned in posts #3 and #4 regarding the forearm.
instructor
Single-Sixer
Several years ago purchased a NO 1 and a NO 3 at a gunshow held in my area. They were a bit on the rough side and had them reblued and since Douglas is only about 10 or so miles from me had barrels replaced with new ones in caliber of my choice. No 1 had a 30-06 barrel from the factory and the NO 3 was a 22 Hornet. Now the NO 1 is a 348 Winchester and a 22-250 barrel also. The NO 3 is a 6BR and another barrel is 45-70. Primary reason for the 348 used one while living in Alaska and it is a very good round and quite accurate also. The NO 3 has a 22" middle weight for both calibers and easy to handle and accurate as well. The 348 routinely delivers a group of 5 rounds under 2 moa and the 22-250 used for varmints delivers 1 moa and at times will produce sub 1 moa. The NO 3 in 6BR is extremely accurate often producing groups of 5 at half moa but keep in mind that caliber is in reality a bench rest one for it is quite easy to load and a very accurate round with proper reloads (I reload for all four cartridges) The 45/70 is for hunting in the thick brush or heavy woods. The NO 3 is my favorite one for easy to carry and had the stocks checkered (did away with the plastic barrel band on the forearm and reshaped it to suit me.) As for the front stock and to provide any help to the rifles, merely sanded out a bit of wood so there is no contact to the barrel. Keep in mind neither the NO 1 or NO 3 are considered as match rifles but rather hunting rifles and these two do very well at that chore.
OP
Lots of good info in the posted reply's! Thank you! I really love my two #1's. The style is unsurpassed and there is something about that falling-block single-shot action that is exciting for me. I reload for both rifles and I believe I can improve accuracy by tailoring the loads for them. I may also try the forend hanger modification mentioned in the posts. I'll post how it works out.
rugerjunkie
Hunter
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I have a stainless 1B 25-06. It does not like any bullet I’ve ever tried over 100 grains. The 100 grain ballistic tip did pretty good. The 90 grain Sierra hp and 75 grain V-Max will both routinely go sub moa. My stainless/laminate M77 25-06 behaves the same way. Try some lighter bullets if you haven’t already done so.
OP
Thanks! I will try lighter bullets to see how they group. I like shooting lighter bullets anyway.
I have two No.1's. Both in 30-06.
This one shoots Hornady165 gr SST Superformance at sub MOA
This one shoots the exact same bullet at 2MOA
I'm going to play around with some different weights on the second one to try to get it tighter, but I honestly don't know how often it will ever see anything but the range.
This one shoots Hornady165 gr SST Superformance at sub MOA
This one shoots the exact same bullet at 2MOA
I'm going to play around with some different weights on the second one to try to get it tighter, but I honestly don't know how often it will ever see anything but the range.
I’ve always wanted a Ruger 1 but never found one in the caliber I wanted at a reasonable price. Maybe a good thing. A rifle that can’t shoot 1 MOA is no fun. I’m disappointed.
Don't sell the No. 1 short. There are a lot of posts in this thread, including my own, of them shooting sub-MOA. With the first on in my post I was shooting clovers at 100 yds, with the occasional shooter caused flyer. As for a reasonable price, what caliber are you looking for?
.257 Weatherby
Don't know what you consider reasonable, but brand new (if you can find them) that caliver is a $1600-$1800 gun...
Paul B
Hunter
I beg to differ. Even my two #1Bs in 30-06 that don't group worth a damn are fun to shoot. One's best rrsults are 2.0" and the other 2.5" and guess what? The will kill deer very very dead. The longest shot I've taken with them as game was about 250 yrds. One shot and down. All my Ruger #1s are red pad guns from the mid 70s to the around 1978 or so except one from 1994 which has a black pad and a Ruger made barrel. The rest all have Wilson barrels which I think compounds the known problems with the #1.
You said you wanted one in 257 Weatherby. So would I but they're kind of like hens teeth. Mighty scarce. Probably the best shooting #1s I own are chambered to the .300 Win. Mag. I have four and they all shoot sub half inch groups. Three are red pad guns and the last is a black pad. I found that those in that particular cartridge seem to prefer heavier bullets so run the 200 gr. Speer Hot Core or Nosler Partition in those rifles. I've taken elk at 530 yards with that load and the Speer bullet.
I've been hunting since I was eleven years old and didn't get really serious about hunting, shooting or reloading until age sixteen. I'm currently eighty-six but thanks to a bad car wreck don't get out as much as I used to or would like. I've been collecting and shooting Ruger #1s since about 1975 when I bought my first one, a B model in 30-06. The best it'll do is 2.5" at 100 yards and has brought home venison from the first year I owned it. I could do a reasonable stalk and get close enough most of the time. I never felt a single shot was a handicap.
I've said before, any rifle that is a consistent 1.5" gun is more than adequate for hunting bug game. The best I can do is maybe 2.0" with the open sights using my .416 Rigby. Considering it's a cartridge for stuff like Cape Buffalo or elephant at rather close ranges it doesn't need to shoot sub MOA groups. The same would go for my .404 Jeffery. They're fun to shoot but ammo is expensive as hell. These days they stay at home mostly because of the possibility of a detached retina in one or both of my eyes.
Paul B.
Perhaps the most accurate three rifles I ever owned were as follows. .22 PPC, 6mm ppc and 6mmBR.
I might add at 200 yards my 6mm ppc will group 1/2 inch providing the wind is not blowing like crazy. 1/4 inch in the normal grouping at 100 yards even on days when the wind is as high as 10mph. For longer ranges the 6mmbr will give you higher velocity.
The concept of the "short" cartridge certainly has proved that it made a tremendous improvement in accuracy. Powder burning is more efficient and the cartridge being shorter in length has less "lean" in the chamber. In the longer older designs the case is much more difficult to manufacture without any run out.
If you want more accuracy out of the two calibers mentioned the custom made barrel is the only way to go. You will most likely get a higher quality barrel, you can get a tighter chamber on request, and the barrel will probably be made more straight. Part of the high cost of a custom barrel is that they throw away barrels that are too far off spec as far as being straight. Factory made barrels are almost never thrown away, they are bent straight in a press and when the barrel heats up it warps even more and the a groups open up. Few people know that the perfectly straight barrel does not exist even in a custom made barrel.
Also the larger diameter of a barrel the less vibration and the shorter the barrel the less vibration that is why you see such short barrels in some Benchrest competitions. Do not expect miracle's out of barrels less in diameter than 7/8 of an inch.
Trigger pull:
I have often said that 1/2 your accuracy comes from a good trigger. Its no accident that benchrest guns have 1 oz and 2 oz triggers and the people that have them practice to the point that they can master such a light trigger because of so much of the competition that they do. Once you have a trigger that is over 2 oz. the accuracy decreases for each more ounce that you have to fight when you attempt to pull the trigger. No matter how heavy your gun is or how carefully you grasp it the gun will move to some degree when attempting to pull even a 1 oz trigger. I am not attempting to brag but I have gotten to the point in competition that when I accidently do not put my finger squarely on the trigger face I already know I just opened up my group before the bullet even hits the target that is how critical mastering of even a light trigger is. Now think about how difficult it is to master even a 1 lb trigger in comparison.
The stock:
Factory stocks are mostly made from the injection molding process and they are flimsy and bend and even warp in hot and cold weather and no amount of fancy bedding tricks are going to do you much good. The laminated wood stock or the composite synthetic stock is a different world altogether. Of course none of this comes cheap, especially with today's out of control outrageous prices. I bought a bench rest gun off of my buddy and he had over $1,000 in just the stock in its "unfinished form" , he had to finish the outside of the stock, pillar bed it and float the barrel and then glass bed it, all of which took him a lot of time and effort before he could even use it.
The bullet:
Sadly with the fantastic demand for ammo the quality of bullets even from such formerly prestigious makers such as Sierra has really fallen off. Last summer I tested some 6mm Sierra bullets alongside some custom made bullets from a home town maker, made in his basement. Now do not laugh this guys bullets shot 1/4 inch at 100 yards and the Sierra's shot 1/2 inch. And they were even cheaper in price than the Sierra's. Unfortunately he is behind 2 years on orders, why wouldn't he as he does not make garbage. To make it even worse he suffered a heart attack so the bullets on back order may never be delivered if he does not recover sufficiently.
A mirage strap will often help as well as it breaks up heat waves coming off of a hot barrel.
And then there is the scope.
In optics there is never a free ride, you really get what you pay for. Do not expect a $300 scope to shoot like one that costs $2,000. Tracking and optical clarity are light years bettered in the top end target scopes. You will not have as much parallax in the high end scope or as much pin cushion , barrel distortion, problems in tracking or spherical aberration.
The Ruger No. 1 Rifle.
Unfortunately the Ruger No. 1 is based on a design that is well over 100 years old and has a much slower lock time than modern bolt action rifles. It takes a tremendous amount of practice and mastery of the slower lock time action to equal that of the quick speed lock time of more modern bolt guns.
I once installed a double set trigger in one of my Anschutz rifles because it had a much lighter trigger pull but I got even worse accuracy because its lock time was slower than my original trigger.
Having said all that you can get good accuracy out of a set trigger and out of the slower lock time of the Ruger No.1 or even the slow lock time of say a 98 Mauser action but its just one more problem I do not want to put up with. For an old guy I need all the breaks I can get when shooting and slow locktime is not one of them.
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MOA/Sub MOA are 21st century expectations!!! 30+ years ago 3-5moa was decent and anything under 2 was a benchrest gun.
I am happy with my No.1 RSI in 35 Rem., but I am only using it for deer hunting with most shots under 100 yds.
5 shots at 100 yds
5 shots at 100 yds
Paul B
Hunter
All well and good. BUT! The Number One is NOT and bench rest target gun. Apples and oranges here. On barrels, I only have one Ruger #1 with a Ruger made barrel. It's an "S" model and with handloads it likes .25" groups are rather common with many more in the .375" to .50". The rifle is completely unaltered and comes as is from the factory. The rifle is chambered to the .300 Win. mg, The load used is a 200 gr. Speer Hot core at nearly 2900 FPS. FWIW, I have three more #1s in .300 Win. mag. and every one will run to .50" with ease. Two are "S" models and one is a "B" model. The load in question also shoots about the same in a Winchester M70. All five rifles have 26" barrels. If you have to ask, yes, I like the .300 Win. Mag a lot.
Most of us use our rifles for hunting and simple target or plinking. To try and hunt with a dedicated bench rest gun would be an exercise in futility. Most likely too damn heavy to carry and how would one control a one ounce trigger in the field. I only have one rifle with a light trigger. A Mauser in 30-06 with a trigger set at one and a half pounds. I wouldn't have it any lighter but I'll admit I've made some mighty good shots with it on game.
Paul B.
