It was fun to re-read through this old thread.
My stone-nuts reliable go-to rifle for many years was a tang-safety Ruger 77 in 7x57 that I bought brand-new, with a Leupold M8-4x. It killed a lot of critters with factory ammo during a very busy period of my life when I lived in the big city and didn't have a good range to use. Later when I got serious testing it and loading for it, I found that it was truly about a 2 MOA rifle, no matter what I tried with the rifle or load. It had one of those poor barrels that Ruger put out a bunch of back in those days.
I liked the rifle enough that if I had it to do over again, I would have simply re-barreled it. I wound up trading it in on a customized Rem 722 in 257 Robts that was a much better shooter.
I missed the rifle and the 7x57 cartridge enough that, fast forward many years, my current dead-nuts go-to rifle is a:
Win M-70 pushfeed Featherweight 7x57 in a McMillan synthetic stock, wearing the Weaver K4-1 scope that came on it and keeps working so well that I haven't bothered replacing it.
The rifle is a very good shooter preferring almost any bullet of the 140 grs. range, and has held its zero for years now without being touched. And I do like this rifle even more than the early Ruger M77 I had, so now I don't really miss the Ruger like I did for awhile.
It is fun, and necessary, I think, to go through using many different rifles to learn what one really likes the best. And to find what works the best for an individuals specific wants and needs.
