Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only 375 Whelen rebore

If one had a Ruger 77 in 30-06, what say those of you who own & use the bigger Whelens about a JES rebore to 375? I've followed a few of the threads on here & the lengths that some of you guys have gone to repair/fix/prevent split stocks etc. was pretty interesting.

Bedding the recoil lug is a given, but will the stock need reinforcing, should the whole receiver be bedded? Thru bolts?

Is the angled front screw more of a liability than a good thing?

Would another brand of rifle be a better idea for the conversion?

Maybe a Leupold 1.5-5x would be perfect if it plays well with Ruger's long action ring spacing. If not, does anybody make a useful barrel band front sight & maybe a peep that will fit into Ruger's rear ring slot?

Thinking CH for dies.

Any other thoughts/ideas/tips/warnings without burning up too much of the kid's inheritance?

Thought I remembered a thread about similar, but search didn't help much & it's gone from the first few pages.

Thanks.

Bedding any Ruger 77 in a wood stock is a must, regardless of cartridge but I do not like them for heavy recoil rounds in a wood stock as they are some stock breaking SOBs.

JES will rebore as long as 0.1” wall thickness remains at the muzzle.

Ruger M-77 rear sight base screws are sometimes drilled deeper than spec which might not leave enough wall thickness for the rebore. I had that happen recently when I sent a Hawkeye Alaskan to JES to rebore to 0.458” so rifle was returned without rebore.

It won’t be an issue f your M-77 has no iron sights.

NECG sells both a band FS which can be installed on the M-77 and an aperture adjustable rear sight which installs on the Ruger integral receiver ring mount. The Leupold 1-4x and 1.5-5x work well on the LA M-77.

Thanks for the info guys. NECG has some odd stuff. Good to know. The piece I have my eye on is a 77R, so no sights. Haven't bought it yet.

As far as bedding is concerned Brownells have a pillar bedding kit to suit the angled front screw of the Ruger. I would also add 2 cross bolts. On big bangers the area between the trigger cut out and the back of the mag box is a weak point and prone to splitting. Be careful where you place the rear cross bolt as there isn’t a lot of room to fit one properly. Some people don’t fit them properly and actually weaken the stock.

The M77R barrel contour is pretty thin for most of their standard calibers so they're not the best option for a rebore. The 25/06 is an exception since it uses the larger "magnum contour" and is what I used for my .400 Whelen rebore.

.1" is all that is needed

Yes, and put a banded front sight base on it with solder or J-B Weld, no screw,
unless you go 0.125" wall thickness in the grooves, and then only as a location indexer, shallow as possible.

Please post more often, Sir John.

More good info. Thanks.

The seller said the muzzle was .560". A bit thin & the rifle sold to someone else while I thought about it. Oh well... maybe a good thing.

Wondering if any of you all have experience or thoughts about a long action Howa? Barreled actions at Brownell's for under $500. Will have to get barrel specs. Or how about a BACO Model 70? A pushfeed would be fine for my use, but for some damned reason they're bringing almost as much as the newer CRF M70s.

I think you'll love the cartridge:

here's a couple loads mine liked:

375 WAI, M98, 235 grain SPEER, 61 grains H335 0.729" (iron sights at 54 yards)
375 WAI, M98, 270 grain SPEER SPBT, 57 grain H4895, 0.64 MOA (average for 3 ea. 5 shot groups)

I bought a suppressor and had the barrel threaded and cut back to 20.75". I have a M8 4x scope on it now. I have an assortment of bullets for it and when the weather gets nice, I'll be shooting this at paper quite a bit.

I find that Ruger 77 stocks don't fit me well. I replaced the factory stock on a 7mm RM Ruger 77 and it made all the difference in the world as far as felt recoil - from pain to mild.

Thanks Bugger. Why did you build an Ackley? I dont imagine there's much more performance to squeeze out of the necked up 06 case.

I picked up a newer M70 in 06 for the donor. The rubberized stock is an abomination in every way, so will likely get another mo' better stock before doing much else. Maybe a laminate. Not a big fan of ultra lightweight rifles & the extra weight cant hurt. Yes, I'm shooting the donor while getting all the other stuff together. The time to get dies seems to be the biggest hurdle. No real hurry for this one. Too many other unfinished projects.

I bought a barrel blank from Shaw. So I needed to chamber it. Chambering reamers in the AI version were immediately available. Reloading dies were also immediately available. What I didn’t know until I built it was the AI version required altering the magazine and the feed ramp, I got that done with a lot of trial and error. My experience before that was with push feed actions and AI cartridges fed fine without alteration required.
If you can find 375 Whelen dies and you’re going to use a control feed action, my recommendation is to not go AI. As you wrote, there isn’t enough difference in case capacity.
Having written that, I’m very pleased with the 375 Whelen AI.

I measured velocity with the barrel cut back to 20.75". I had these two loads left over from testing earlier. I'm not saying these loads are maximum.


M98, 235 grain SPEER, 60 grains IMR4895, 2,611 FPS




M98, 270 grain SPEER SPBT, 60 grains IMR4320, 2,529 FPS



The trajectory was almost identical to 400 yards. (I don't consider this to be a 400 yard rifle for game). The wind speed at 90 degrees, if I remember right was 10 MPH. Notice that the 270 grain bullet isn't deflected as much as the 235 grain bullet. Also note the difference in energy.

I just noticed the small error in the 270 grain chart. Should have been 2,529 FPS rather than 2,511.