My only Ruger rifle is a 7mm RM that I purchased in August of '08. First 3 shot group after sighting in with factory loaded Hornady 162g BTSP was a 0.822" group.
Unfortunately, my rifle is one finicky sun of a gun. My first batch of handloads (Hornady Interbond) averaged 2.66", the best group being 1.5" but at less than 30-06 velocities. Ruger mentions in their owners manual that if an
unmodified rifle shoots
factory ammo very poorly they may accept a return. I decided to try other factory loads. The Winchester 150g Super-X 5 shot group averaged 4.3". The Federal Power-shok 175g and Super-X 175g averaged somewhere near the same. I tried a 5 shot group again with the Hornady 162g BTSP and got a respectable 1.4".
I thought about contacting Ruger but I know they don't have any accuracy guarantee. I figured since it was shooting less than 1.5" with at least one factory load they probably wouldn't do anything about it. I probably should have contacted them anyway just to see.
I was able to get a Sierra GameKing handload with RL-22 to do 1.1" 5-shot groups regularly but then I decided to void the warranty.
I had a local 'smith free float the barrel, bed the action, and take 2 lbs of pull off the trigger. The trigger was actually very crisp but came in at 4.75 lbs.
Unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of time to see how it shoots since the work was done on it. It required a re-zero but then still shot the same Sierra load into 1.1" (which is probably limited more by the shooter than by the gun or load).
I plan to try out some new loads when it warms up a bit and am quite hopeful she'll now shoot. I love the gun, I just wish it wasn't so finicky!
