I picked up my heavy barreled Ruger 77/17 on Saturday. That's the one with the black laminated stock and gray metal finish. It came with a 50 pound trigger pull ... oh, I'll stop exaggerating for a sec, maybe more like 15-18 pounds. Couple hops and skips along the way. Seriously, I stopped once in the middle of dry firing to see if I'd left the safety on. So ... step 1 was to polish the top and back side of the trigger where they meet the sear, step 2 was to install a Volquartsen sear and spring, step 3 was to hone that down to reduce engagement to something "reasonable." Once that was livable (not good or great, just livable) I installed my Leupold 3-9X compact EFR scope in the factory rings. There's got to be 3/8 of an inch clearance between scope bell and barrel. I want it down a ways but at least I could test some loads as-is.
I took it to the range with 17 grain VMAX loads from Hornady, Winchester, and Federal, and 17 grain CCI TNT loads, and a box of the 20 grain Hornady TNT load.
Wind was blowing so I stayed at 50 yards for the most part. The hornday 17 grain VMAX was up first. It put 5 shots into roughly 0.7 inches. WW was up next. 0.44". Federal next, also 0.44". The CCI TNT was in the .5s or .6s, I forget exactly. Finally, the 20 grain TNT load from hornady went in the low .7s.
That's not too shabby.
Finally, just to see how much drop I'd have to contend with from 50 to 100 yards, I tried out the 17 grain Hornady VMAX load since I've got a pretty good pile stocked up. Basically ... no holdover. I got a 0.75" group in spite of the wind, just pushed about a half inch to the right at 100 yards.
I need to work on the trigger a little more. I'd like a bit more scope I think, maybe something in the 4.5-14X range.
All in all .. I like it!! I predict some fuzzy things are gonna die!!
Tom
