Those crappy M77's with the poor Wilson barrels :)

[Kudu m77]

Good day.

I recently asked a question on the Sierra GK hollow point bullets. Well I went ahead and loaded a few up. These 165s are seated 1mm from the rifling, using 53g of powder with a similar burn rate as IMR4320. The first time I went out I used CCI 200 primers and with three different loads 2 shots touched every time and the 3rd slightly out. I then changed primers to Federal and seems to do the trick.
This 3 shot group was fired at 100m with a 1983 M77 RS tang safety 30-06 (presumably a Wilson barrel). The barrel is free floated and the action bedded at the front action screw.

Pieter

 

[cellar701]

Nice! My experience with those "bad" barrels in the M77 30-06 is good as well (not THAT good but pretty good, MOA). In fact I recently picked up another dated to 1978 - they are absolutely fantastic " put meat on the table rifles,"

 

[wwb]

Coincidentally, I was at the range yesterday to check zero, since deer season in Minnesota opens this coming Saturday.

1976 M77 in .30-06, 57.5 grains of H4350 and a Speer 165 grain soft point boattail..... the fouling shot was 2-1/2 inches high at 100 yards. The next two shots were 1 inch high (right where I want them) and touching.

 

[rangerbob]

I have loaded the Sierra 165 BTHP GK for years in everything from 308's in M100 and 88 Winchesters to 300 Magnums and have found it to be a very accurate bullet. So much so that I that have opined that if a rifle does not shoot these well, get another rifle. Bob! 8)

 

[Quattroclick]

I have a couple of those crappy Wilson barrel Rugers as well. One, a Liberty 30/06, only shoots about 1 1/2" - 1 3/4" groups after almost a full half hour of load development work. Junk. Another, in .280 Remington, just will not shoot better than 5/8" 5 shot groups at 100 yards, no matter what I try. I have given up and will replace both of them with Remington 770s or Savage Axis rifles when I have a chance.

Or not....... :wink:

 

[hammie]

I don't mean to be snarky or a troll, but my experience has been different, to the point of setting a new standard. If I do my part, my #1 in .257 roberts with a wilson barrel, will keep five shots on an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper at 100 yards...usually. I think I could get better groups by just throwing rocks downrange.

 

[Kudu m77]

I don't mean to be snarky or a troll, but my experience has been different, to the point of setting a new standard. If I do my part, my #1 in .257 roberts with a wilson barrel, will keep five shots on an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper at 100 yards...usually. I think I could get better groups by just throwing rocks downrange.

I guess that could definitely happen, probably to just about any make of rifle. I have just read so much about guys generalizing about how bad the old Ruger rifles were and they could not shoot straight at all. This rifle of mine had a pressure point about an inch from the stock fore end. It was shooting only ok not great. I took a piece of sanding paper and removed the pressure point to free float the whole barrel channel. This together with the bedding below the action (done quite some time ago) made a huge difference. I guess there are some rifles that prefer the pressure point, but mine responded well to free floating and using that faster burning powder 4320 instead of my usual 4350.

Pieter

 

[Black Fly]

Nice group. That's got to feel good. I have had a lot of tang safety Ruger 77's. In center fire, I currently have a 22-250, 257R, 30/06, 35W, 416T. The 416 has a Shaw barrel and pretty much custom, the rest are original RS barrels, no flat bolts, so I assume they are Wilsons. All are MOA rifles with the correct load. With most factory ammo they are all 1 1/2 MOA. Of the more than 25 others that I've had, most were 1 1/2 to 2 MOA with factory ammo. I don't recall any that were worse than that. Most of them improved after a couple hundred rounds. That's not to say that other folks are making up their problems. I did work at a gun counter for quite a few years. Every so often, we would get a customer with a Ruger that just wouldn't shoot well. As I recall they were often 7x57, but my memory could be off on that. We had issues with almost all company's guns, so it wasn't just a Ruger thing. Other companies had bolt handles come off, barrels not headspaced, wrong parts or missing parts with the gun, parts not properly fitted, barrels loose, unchambered barrels, and on and on. It was not real common, but it was certainly disappointing to the customers involved.
Bfly

 

[SteveRuger]

I have no idea if my M77 PL Liberty 30-06 has what Barrel on it but since it was new it shoots 180 gr. bullets 200 yards that I can cover a 50 cent piece over all three shots. That is better than my eyes any more.
I just thought of something I would like to share:
I purchased that Rifle in the spring of 1976 @ Zinik's Sporting Goods in the Valley Fair Mall in Salt Lake @ the old age of 20. I also purchased the Redfield scope, mounts & a fancy leather sling installed everything bore sighted the scope threw it up over my shoulder ready to walk out when the store clerk asked if I wanted the box I said no this is a hunting gun! Turned around & walked right through the center of the mall to get to my truck with the rifle on my shoulder. No one even looked twice at me as I walked through the mall. Heck if I was to do that now my ugly mug would be plastered on CNN & every TV in the free world as a bad guy or something else. Funny how times have changed.

 

[Chief 101]

I don't mean to be snarky or a troll, but my experience has been different, to the point of setting a new standard. If I do my part, my #1 in .257 roberts with a wilson barrel, will keep five shots on an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper at 100 yards...usually. I think I could get better groups by just throwing rocks downrange.

What I found with that same gun is to be a reloader and make sure you shoot 100 gr bullets and load the out as long as you can...then they will shoot like these others...very long throats they have

 

[picketpin]

I've never fired any factory ammo in any of mine but I do have four or five 77s, from the first ST in 1972 up through the mid 80s all have Wilson barrels unless the STs had Douglas barrels and all shoot sub MOA after tinkering with the hands loads. I went ahead and throated all of mine to an AOL of 3" with a Nosler bullet .030 of the lands. That leaves all of the case for powder with the bullet seated just to the bottom of the neck.

One of my R models is fondly referred to by others in the family as The Lazer Guided rifle. I killed ton of deer and antelope with it and the ST from the 70s until the mid 80s when I switched to using #1s. When my wife hunts, she carries it.

There are 9 family members that own and hunt with 77s in 257 Roberts and nobody has the problems you seem to.

I know you have mentioned this before but I have to think you have an "issue" with something. Whether it's ammo, the scope or maybe forearm pressure it's hard to tell BUT I have never seen one shoot that poorly. The 257 tends to be an accurate cartridge and is just under bore balance and 77s while not target guns usually deliver much better accuracy.

As mentioned and confirmed by the likes of Ken Waters and Jack O' Connor the 257 Roberts TENDS to shoot best with 100 grain bullets. That said several of mine do just fine with 115 Nosler Partitions and the Go Too load we all use is loaded with 115 Ballistic Tips.

As far as Wilson barrels, the single most accurate #1 or Ruger at all for that matter started life as a 22 Hornet and I had it rechambered to 22 BR. I'm also pretty sure that my 22PPC is a Wilson barrel and if I manage to do my part it'll shoot into the .3s

Yes, early on there were some issues with Wilson barrels BUT it was mostly about rifles chambered with excessively long throats. Frankly I can't tell the difference between Rugers with Douglas, Wilson or Ruger barrels with the exception of an early 7x57 77 that is throated so long the only thing you can even get close to the lands are 175s!!

RWT

 

[Chief 101]

Actually I shot 120 Hornady hp bullets at an oal of over 3.25...they would print like your lazer, not so good with anything shorter...the magazine was the limiting factor with the longer bullets but they shot well anyhows

 

[Ladobe]

I agree, anybody who wasted their money on the Ruger 77's deserved exactly what they got!

Still have my 1974 77R 270Win I bought new, but sold the 77R 243Win I also bought new with it at the same time. No idea what brand of barrel is on the crappy 270 though. I'm not a paper shooter except for sight-in on firearms I only plan to shoot factory ammo in, but the best it ever shot when I first got it was near 1/2MOA with Federal Premium 130gr ammo off a bench. Damn those whispy sporter barrels anyway. Guess I should have floated it, but never got around to that. Even so it was good enough to take a lot of mule deer bucks and a couple of pronghorns with the FP 130's, a few elk and a couple of bears with the FP 150's. Was also disappointing that the longest deer it took with one shot was only around 400-450 yards cross canyon in some wind. Just pure luck that I hit it right where I wanted to. BTW, the only thing I ever shot with it more than once was a big 4X4 mulie that was DRT from the first, but didn't know it so tried to get up again (how I don't know).

I never started loading for it until I stopped hunting big game. Felt bad it had become a safe queen, so started shooting long range varmints with it for awhile just to get the dust off (and share some time with an old friend again). Tried a few 110's in it, but I liked the 130's more simply because I knew exactly where it put them at any range. Years later I put a Timney target trigger in it, but never got around to trying it before the health failed. Thought maybe that would have made it a shooter finally and so worth the investment so many years ago. The cheap Bushnell 4-12 scope it wore from when new was long gone too, although it still had/has the Leupold base and Leupold "blind" screw rings. So the still new in the box Leupold VX-3 4.5-14X40 WD RE Matte I bought for it 8-10 years ago is still waiting in the wings to be mounted on it. Maybe it would have helped make me feel more like I didn't waste my money when I bought this crappy rifle so many years ago. :wink:

Old picture of it when it still wore the junky Bushnell, still had the factory "unworked" trigger (which I still have for it). Has a few bumps and bruises, a gouge from a fall down a rock slide, and i still have some of that origianl factory ammo I bought so much of for it, both 130's and 150's. Just didn't hunt BG enough years with it to get it all used up one shot per animal.

 

[hammie]

I'm sorry. I've become a chronic complainer about my .257 rbts and I need to stop the whining. And I do appreciate all the empathy and suggestions. The gun has never seen factory ammo, and I do seem to get "hunting accuracy" (3 inch, if I recall correctly) groups from a 100 grain ballistic tip, seated out pretty far. I've tried about everything from free floating the barrel to tensioning the quarter rib per some obscure brownells article. I haven't tried a hicks accurizer yet, but I suspect it may be just a gimmick.

Actually the accuracy challenges with my old #1 don't bother me that much anymore. It's sort of like learning something dubious about your parentage. You're initially traumatized, but you eventually become OK with it.

 

[43north]

If I do my part, my #1 in .257 roberts with a wilson barrel, will keep five shots on an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper at 100 yards...usually.

Hammie, I had a #1B in .257 from the first batch (JT Ruger sent me a letter saying 'your rifle is ready - go to a dealer and ask for it'). I'm guessing that's '78 or '79 from memory.
I wasn't up-to-speed with accurizing a #1, and the results I got with Remington factory loads duplicated your experience.
Handloads were 2 1/2 inch groups at-best, Federal Factory ammo was hard to come by for the Roberts.
My father's 1970 M77 in .243 would shoot dime-sized groups all day, Federal or Handloaded.
I sold the gun in the early '90s, and bought a #1A in 7 Mauser. It shot "fair" about 1 1/2 inch with Federal HiPower be they 140 or 175 grain.
I free-floated the barrel, and bedded the mounting strut to the fore-end with Acraglass. Lapped the bore with JB Bore Cleaner, and fed some 140 gr Federals through it. One hole "budweiser" three-shot groups, shots 4 and 5 were high 1/4 and 1/2 inch after I added a slight bit of fore-end pressure with a 1/4 inch strip of electrical tape solving the wandering 5 shot groups.
That, admittedly was a newer model gun, with a different barrel maker. Sadly, both gun and Swarovski scope had to go to new hands, when dire economic situations presented themselves.
More recently:
A "Liberty Model" in 7x57 has undergone the same treatment.
That year is notorious for it's "bad" barrels with a long throat, and supposedly will only shoot 175 gr round nose to any degree of pie-plate usefulness.
Hornady Light Magnums might be a great round - for a different gun.
The Light Magnums shoot 1 1/2 inch groups 3 inches high with a 5th shot, hot-barrel flier each adding an inch-plus away from the others. (4 shots @ 3 inches, 5 shots @ 5 inches)
Federal Premium 140 gr. Nosler Partitions at standard velocity can be covered by a quarter. Five shots by a half-dollar.
Trigger work might improve those groups as much as anything else.

Thus, my suggestion is to Acraglass bed your fore-end strut, or have it done by a competent Smith familiar with the #1 action. I'd also use Kroil and some JB Compound to get any copper fouling out.
Brownells sells all of this stuff.

This fellow does a better job of telling you how to do this, than I can:
http://varminthuntinginternational.com/accurizingnoruger.html

Your Roberts should shoot 117-120 SP bullets well, and I'd make the effort to find Federal P257B Nosler Partitions.
Handloading, I used BTSP and BTHP bullets from Speer and if memory serves me, IMR4064.
I wasn't able to seat them out far-enough to make the .257 happy.
The flat based bullets shot better, as I could seat them to the bottom of the neck, and have a non-standard length round. My .257 didn't like the 87 grain bullets at-all, and the 100 grains didn't have the accuracy of the heavier weights. Close, far better than the light bullets, though not quite up to the 117-120 grain range.

 

[hammie]

@43north: Thanks for the suggestions. I will give them some thought.

What a coincidence. I also had a liberty 7 x 57 mm. I didn't think that there were that many of them made. My 7 x 57 would never make a benchrest rifle, but it gave decent enough hunting accuracy with 140 grain hornadys. I guess every rifle is different. My wife bought both the #1 and the liberty 77 for me as a surprise. I still have the #1, my son has the liberty 77, and I still have the wife.

 

[roofinspector]

I tend to replace whose ever factory barrels with aftermarket. Just my thing. I have a fair stash of factory takeoff barrels laying on the bench. I like the way the aftermarket barrels perform and clean up, with a preference to the stainless varieities; but can be swayed by a nice aftermarket chrome moly with a fine grain rust blue.

Most of the factory barrels are just that, and I realize that once in a while a dilly comes down the pike. Just depends on what you like in rifles and their performance in general.

Most of the larger caliber sub inch single shot hunting rifles I have gotten to hear about are one timers. I think the aftermarket has the ability to do it more than once in a while, some consistency if you will, just my own opinion. Plus the ease of cleanup if you clean the rifle at all. Probably the larger factory calibers are easier to take that way, as not shot like a varmint rifle with mass quantities of ammo on occasion.

On the rare occasion a guy with a hot factory rifle comes to a match, he usually cannot shoot the half inch groups on that day for some reason, and never comes back.

I think one finds hummer and losers in factory and aftermarket barrels, everyone puts out a goody or a poor one on occasion. Barrel quality is all in the eye of the beholder and/or dreamer...............guess I am little of both............ :)