Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Bidding on a Ruger M77 tang

Those 77 tangers have gotten really pricey.. Cabelas has a bunch all over !000!

77RS 358s are really high!

I remember paying $275 on sale at Texas Gunman's, Beaumont, 1977 for a .280. It was on sale cause it sat there a few months, no one but me wanted it in 280! ha

1975 Ruger dealer & retail prices, plus models & caliber listing.

Received a whole bunch of stuff from the auction and the Ruger was in the box.
Rifle looks really good, looking down bore it looks fine, still want to run a borescope through it.
But it’s in great shape, some marks on floor plate, but nothing much else, nice trigger, smooth action, will try some of my old factory ammo and old reloads in it, but will also do some fresh reloads for it.
Just have to look to see which of my scopes to try on it.

I would like to have a 7x57 tanger. But not sure I’d pay todays ridiculous prices. I have a 1976 M77 .257 Roberts that shoots well. Not sure if it has a Douglas or Ruger barrel.

I had a tang safety M-77 in 7x57 25 or so years ago, someone had glass bedded and free floated it. With a load out of Ken Waters "Pet Loads", with Win. 760 powder and 140 grain Sierra flat base spitzer's it was damned accurate. If memory serves the velocity was around 2,880 F.P.S.. I really liked the rifle but it would not feed reliably from the magazine. I managed to get it to work most of the time, by swapping the magazine spring and follower out of two other tang safety M-77's I still have. However every once in a while during practice, working the bolt briskly, it would fail to chamber a round. I took it to a gunsmith and he had seen that same problem with that model rifle and caliber before, full length magazine, [ala .30-06] and slightly shorter cartridge. We could have made a block, or perhaps fashioned a shorter magazine for it, but it seemed more trouble then it was worth at the time. I didn't trust it to go "bang" every time, so it went down the road.

In January of 1975 I was 19 years old and at the Yankton gunshow. Local gunsmith who displayed at shows had a new 77R in 7x57 in the box that he carried around for several years. 7x57's were low demand chamberings. Federal made the 139 gr factory load as well as the 175 rn, both RP and WW were 175 gr rn's at 2490 fps. In 72 Ruger had made a limited run of 77R's for J&G Rifle Ranch in 7x57, 257 R and 250-3000. Yes the pad is red.and the rec plum and it does have a long throat cut for 175 gr roundnose. I had rcbs dies and ww & rp cases allready because I started on my rifle journey with a m93 in 7x57. $160 was his bottom dollar I paid cash10's and 20's nobody had stacks of 100's those days. I put a 6x Weaver Classic on it with the rangefinder crosshairs. Imr 4350 139 Hornady sp bullets 1 1/4 to 1 3/8"@ 100 was the best I could do when I finally subbed in the 140 gr npt the load still worked.. I am 68 years old now, do I wish I would have kept it? Nope because I wasn't stupid enough to sell it or the m93 7x57 I bought at 14 or the 700 adl 7 mm rem mag I bought at 15. When all the guys I went to school with were playing ball I was working and buying the things in my life that have served me well. Magnum Bob

I have a early Ruger M77RS Hollowbolt in 7x57 Mauser from 1971. It has a very accurate Douglas barrel with a long throat for the 175gr RN bullets. The follow on Wilson barrel contract is where barrel QC was a occasional issue, especially in the 7x57 chambering.

The Ruger tang safety barrel issue is and was blown way out of proportion. A few out of spec barrels in certain chamberings ruined the tang safety reputation for the vast majority of M77’s that were fine, accurate rifles. The barrel QC was an issue and the accuracy perception is “what it is”!