I like Rugers, own several, have owned several more, since sold, but, generally, from the factory, they suck. IME, some exceptions apply, but a good glass bed and free-float with trigger job is definately in order! This, IMO applies to all non-glass bedded factory rifles.
You don't need an after-market trigger on the 77 - just a good trigger job on the original.
Here are 3 of my experiences -
RU77V OM in .25-06 factory standard - shot 5 inch groups at 100 yards with factory ammo. Handloads using once ( or more) -fired brass with a $19.95 Lee Loader (basically neck-sizing) produced sub MOA groups. 22 caribou with 23 shots- and the first one didn't know he was dead with the first shot... the subsequent 21 were all bang-flops, out to something over 500 yards, estimated. Never messed with it, beyond reloading. 30 years later, I'm still kicking myself for selling it in a moment of stupidity. Sucker had a stock fiddlebacked from stem to stern....
RU77 OM - .30-06 factory standard - bought rusted, badly water damaged for $80 for a knock-about "boat-gun". Basically purchased for the receiver, tho I figured the stock was salvagable. After cleaning out the barrel and finding the bore in decent shape, I whacked the bbl to 17 inches to get rid of that unsightly bulge just aft of the muzzle. The damned thing then proceeded to clover-leaf the first 3 rounds, then go to 5 inches on 5 rounds. After thinking about it for a year, I glass bedded and free-floated - it now shoots a consistent 1.25 or so group for 3 to as many shots as I care to put thru it. While still in "original" 17" mode that first year, stock unmodified, however, I killed a Dall ram at @330 yards, and 4 days later, a bull moose at 80 yards, 4 days apart. After that, i modified it to it's current glass-bed/free-float configuration, deeming consistencey more important than a half inch of bench-group accuracy. In the last 3 weeks, about 20 years later, it has taken 5 caribou with 5 shots, the first two at 200-250 yards. Dunno about the last 3 yardages, as I loaned it out... But several years ago, I killed a big bull caribou at 356 long paces with it, one shot, and the following year, a similar bull, a half mile from the previous year's kill site, at 180 ranged yards. The Stub lives!
My .338 Mag RU77 OM, I got relatively cheap because it "wouldn't shoot". He was right - tho the groups weren't bad- about 2.5 inches for any particular load, the bullet weight groups were wildly divergent, with the 200 gr handloads going 14 inches higher than the 275 grain handloads at 100 yards. There was a LOT of forend pressure there!! After glass-bedding the rcvr and freefloating the bbl, all (handload) weights go into a 2" circle at 100 yards, the heavier ones slightly lower than lighter ones. Individual groups almost always go 1.25 or so for 5 shot groups. At longer ranges, of course, the different bullet weights will diverge more due to gravity.
A "junk load" just thrown randomly together to get rid of those ugly 250 grain Hornady RN that came with the rifle over a decade ago, shoot sub MOA. Damn - I hate when that happens! Now I'm stuck with them for my current moose hunting load, tho I have another "junk-load" waiting in the wings that shoots groups plus or minus an eight of an inch either side of 1 inch at 200 yards... I don't really care for that bullet either....
Kinda superfilous when only one of 20 moose has been shot in excess of 100 yards....and then not by much.
Me, given my experience, I'd glass bed the receiver and 3 inches of barrel FLAT in the stock, along with the trigger assembly, and column or pillar bed the receiver screews, with clearance all aroundl and free float the barrel.
Most of us just don't want to carry around a torque wrench to get the "just right" acrew pressure under varying field conditions.
