Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ruger M 77 over time

They are getting hard to find around where I live. But, I walked in the LGS a couple of weeks ago and found one that had a Shilen bbl (6MM REM) and custom trigger (unsure which brand yet). Work was done by a well known (around here) gunsmith and was being sold for a great price IMO. Didn't have the cash so put it on layaway. Hope to have it in my hands in 2-3 wks. Can't wait. Already have a Leupold M8 6x to put on it!

The 6mm is a deer killer.

Interesting, I never heard of a M77 tang safety that would open the action with the safety on.

I put a Timny on my Mrk II. and I love it. Even got it in stainless to match my rifle.

Autofive-I bought my wife a Rem 788 in the caliber a couple of years ago in the caliber when she said she wanted to deer hunt with me. So far, she hasn't hunted with me but she loves shooting it. Had to put a Timney trigger on it to be able to shoot it accurately, but look forward to her getting a deer with it. I'm sure at some point I'll have to try the new rifle on WT's.

Jericho-I had owned several of the earlier ones before I traded a guy a 700 BDL in a 270 for his Ultra Light in a 270 (he couldn't stand the recoil). I was surprised when I was able to open the bolt while on safe. I do like the feature myself.

I have all three model Rugers (M77, MkII and the Hawkeye). The Hawkeye stock is definitely a big improvement over the others. The slimmer fore end really fits my hand better, much like the Ultralight stock does.

Twist?

I have owned three M77 tang safety rifles for decades. None have the original stocks, barrels or triggers. All have McMillans with the two SAs have the long discontinued ultralight stocks. The LA has a hunter stock. Timney triggers. All had their magazines lengthened as well. They are my favorite actions. The safety is in a good location and the actions are very strong.

Rebarreling is easy as there is no notch for an extractor nor is there a recess for the bolt face.

That may be true, but 99% of the ones I've owned have been extremely accurate, after a little bedding work and trigger fine tuning... To the guy that just discovered the tangers, I'd suggest finding a round top. They are cool and a little more rare. The one I had was phenomenally accurate..

If there was an icon for sarcasm, I would have applied it to my post.

roundoak, I've seen some with "bad" barrels. It's true, some did have terrible barrels. There was one in particular that was so bad, that it appeared to have part of the rifling missing about half way in. It was a 300wm and was terribly abused by an indian fisherman around these parts. I don't know what he did to it, but it was pretty rusty and slightly pitted when he brought it in to the gunshop. I was there when he was selling it to the gunshop owner. Generally the gunshop owner is very generous when buying firearms, but this time he only offered $150.00 for the rifle. After the indian guy left, I said do you want to make $50.00? He said, what do you mean? I said, I'll give you $200.00 for that tanger.... He said, "hell yes".. I had it cerakoted, glass bed the rifle and adjusted the trigger. It was actually pretty sweet looking when I was done:






Like I said, even with a small part of one land (for what looked like about an inch) missing, it still shot very well:



To answer the OP's question on which trigger I prefer. I like the LC6 the best. It's basically a modified MKII trigger. The LC6 is the easiest to fine tune. Usually just a quick polish and you are down to 2.5-3 pounds. Sometimes not even requiring a lighter trigger spring. The MKII's can be fine tuned like that as well, but require a lighter spring and a lot more honing and polishing. The tang safety triggers were not bad, but had a lot more working parts in them. The beauty of the MKII and LC6 is their simplicity. Kind of like a good ol pre 64 model 70 trigger. Someone mentioned the 2 stage Ruger trigger, I also have those, but do not like them as much as a good single stage.

As i recall there were two versions of the original M77 trigger. The first version was as noted earlier in that it was fully adjustable. A few years later it was explained to me they limited some of the adjustments that could be made. Then the third trigger design was with the Mark II models and the fourth version (I am omitting the two stage target triggers) being the LC6 trigger which as been mentioned was a factory cleaned up tweak of the Mark II trigger basically. I myself speculate that they may very well have gone to the Mark II trigger because there seemed to me a bit if similarity between the original M77 trigger and the Remington Walker trigger in that it was a somewhat enclose unit with lots of parts and possibly subject to accidental discharge if not kept cleaned. I have no evidence of such just mindless speculation on my part. If anyone has any specific knowledge to the reason they could share I would appreciate it. Anyway I personally like Rutgers and don't care if they ever will win any target contest. At least all of the dead deer I've taken with Rugers over the years never complained.

Great post Jim. Looks to be pretty spot on to me..

Nice job and great story.

This 77VT 22-250 built in 1973 has the dog-leg bolt handle and 'scooped' bolt knob. The single stage trigger was adjusted from 5# pull to 3# pull with out disassembling the rifle by turning the screw on the trigger as shown below.

A friend has an older Tanger with locking bolt. It's easy to convert to non locking bolt.

You remove the safeby wire connector, the rotating safety pen then can be moved left, allowing the "C" clamp retainer to be removed.

With a Dremel cut off wheel, the part that engages the bolt slot is cut off. Reassemble in reverse order and you now have the safety operating independent of the bolt.

Easy fix, maybe 10 minutes included take down and reassembly.

DF

Actually, they did have slimmed forends on the early "FlatBolt" rifles. Thses were great stocks. I think Ruger later went with the wider forearm stock to inletted for sporter or heavy barrel rifles as needed. This ment manufacturing only one stock profile

Not sure, Mathman. How can I tell?

Roundoak...I have one of the old Flatbolts as well. Mine is in a 243. Well...actually it is my son's. Traded for it when he was a baby. But right before he started hunting, I bought him a Mk II in a 270. But the old Flatbolt is still around here.

How many of you guys replaced the trigger overtravel adjustment set screw encouraged by Ruger? If you called or wrote them they would send a new screw with allen wrench and instructions.

If there was a "T" inscribed under the bolt it meant the updated screw was installed at the factory.

I installed several for myself and friends.