I have three tang safety RSI rifles, all in .308 Win. Got into them on the cheap because their previous owners said they would not shoot anything accurately. They were not lying. The first one took two years to get a load I would accept. I decided if I could get 1.5" on a consistent basis, that would be good enough to hunt with. It took an oddball load of W760 and a 165 gr. Speer Hot Core to finally make the grade. Velocity was a whole rip snorting 2550 FPS from the 18.5" barrel. Same load worked in all three rifles.
Later when I had noting to do and was bored as hell, I pulled the nose cap off one of the rifles and with a Cratex tip removed a very slight bit of metal from the cap and test fired the rifle. It now run about 1.25 consistently and has taken so big Mule Deer for one at six feet as it ran past me from being spooked by another hunter to one at 250 yards laser measured. Change to another 165 gr. bullet and accuracy goes all to hell again. I can't say that will work for you but it has made three Ruger RSI's into reasonably useful hunting rifles.
Years back I owned a very cherry Mannlicher-Schoenaur carbine in 6.5x54. Shot 160 gr. bullet fairly well but the 140 gr. load (Norma) were no better that 3.0". I figured the long throat had something to do with that. Still, when I shot it, deer died. I wish I still had it but some low life stole it from my truck back in 1975. Looked for a replacement that was as nice as mine was but found the RSI to be a reasonable clone. I always figure with a full stock accuracy would most likely not be MOA or less but that fact doesn't bother me at all. I just try to get a little closer, that's all.
Paul B.
