Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots No.1 Accuracy Gamble !!!

I bought a #1 varmint model years ago....6mm Rem....absolutely beautiful rifle.

Best groups I could get was slightly under 3" at 100 yards.....So I packed up and shipped it back to Ruger.

Weeks later it came back to me and again it shot about 2 1/2" groups at the best.....Off again to Ruger and weeks later it again came back.....still shooting over 2" at best.....mind you, this was sold as a varmint rifle with heavy varmint barrel.

I was pissed but contained my self and got on the phone with Ruger....contained but insistant on information.....What ammo or loads was being shot to test the accuracy.....no one could tell me.... Well then what is their standard of accuracy that they repair to.....I stood firm on this and was eventually told that the gun was considered adequate if it shot 1 1/2" groups at 50 yards!

I'd had trouble with two M-77 rifles prior to this.....anyone wonder why there are no Ruger long guns in this house.....?

Well the gamble paid off. This 3 shot group is Federal Power-Shok 150 gr. in .300 Win Mag. I picked up a Stainless No.1 the other day. The second target is a Browning BLR in .308 Win shooting Federal Power-Shok 150 gr.


With some load development this might get even better!!!

Ruger No.1


Browning BLR

Big Woop is right on the money! I have too many #1's and some shoot bug holes and others take alot of work and effort to get them to shoot at all. But that said, once you get one that does shoot you are in big trouble cause the #1's have a way high cool factor.

Guys, cannot tell you how pleased I was when my OUT THE BOX 1A 243 shot a 3/8" group in the first few groups I shot after zeroing a 2.5-8 Leupy....

AND to top that off, do you know I immediately sent it to Chris at Pac-Nor to put on a 6BR bbl! Crazy, but, I HAD to have a BR and Chris did not disappoint, 3 groove Poly SM and boy did it shoot!

Yes, I realize and cringe when I hear of stories like Vapodog, just no excuse, nor explanation. Somewhere perhaps on another forum it was said when you do a custom re-bbl for a #1, odds are it may perhaps turn out to be a very good shooter, if that action had proven itself before. May or may not be truth in that I don't know, but I do have confidence in Ruger mfg. bbls that are now done in-house. Bedding and hanger tension issues perhaps come to play when those atypical problematic #1s show up. I also read there can be tension in the scope rib in some guns. I am not educated/experienced enough to say, but perhaps it is so. Agree that a good shooting #1 is sweet indeed.

Great start for the Ruger #1 ...how are your new Marlins shooting?

Doc

I have 10 or so Marlins most new and a few old. The worst is 1 1/4" 3 shot group at 100 yards. I am quite pleased!!!

I have owned around 60 #1's in the last 30 some odd years, Some were kept a while and some ended up being trade bait. One of the few that I'm actually sorry that I sold was the very 1st one... A 1-V in 7mm Mag.

Out of all the ones I've owned, I can documet all but two with the serial #'s.

The very worst one accuracy wise, was what I thought was a 1-AB in .270 Win. But actually turned out to be a 1-B with the bbl cut to 22". Best it would do was ~ 2" @ the proveribial 100 yd range. I hunted it one year (1992, IIRC) and it went down the road.

The one thing I have found is that there is no law about accuracy. Like any other rifle, you get what you get. If you want better, you have to work for it. Sometimes I'm willing and sometimes not. If the rifle in question is a favorite, (weight or handling...), I'm a lot more willing to work with it. If I'm ambivilent about it, it's lots more likely to take a hike at the 1st opportunity. Nowadays, I'm a lot more ambivilent about the 1-B models. For my tastes; they are too long and too heavy. I think I am down to 4 1-B's at the moment. and only two of them retain their 26" bbls...

The 218 Bee, and the "Bob" have been abbreviated to 23 5/8".

After I work with the 6.5x64 Brenneke a bit more, If I learn to like it, it will likely get the same treatment. (I don't even want to know what 1-B thinks of me after this treatment...)

I don't know how I'm going to manage it, but the elusive K-1A in .250 Sav seems to becoming a reality this year. I MUST have one! And the 1-A in .303 seems promising... Gotta have one of those as well...

And being a dyed-in-the-wool 6.5 looney... I NEED a .264 Win mag... I don't know how I'm going to facilitate the purchase of 3 new #1's in the next few months, but I'll figure something out.

But I don't think that the #1 is any more of a gamble accuracy wise that any other rifle. You just need to be willing to work for it!

Edw

It Tikka made a single shot, then you would have a rifle that was not a gamble. Too bad, but that is "the rest of the story".

Where'd you hear that? Any word on the timing of the release?

Three point bedding system on the forearm
trigger job
remove the ejector spring

Get a recent #1 in Stainless

Older guns that have tight and loose spots in the barrel are very hard to get to agg under 1 1/2".

Find a gunsmith that specializes in #1's.

I have 3 #1's and a #3. Not benchrest accuracy, but to be fair, I have not "tuned" them, either the loads, the triggers, or the bedding. I expect them to do a lot better when I do. I have pictures of groups shot with the 25-06 and 270's and can post them later. Both groups are first attempts. The 270 1-KB? SS was the first time out of the box recently purchased new. The 25-06 1-B BW I purchased in the mid 80's used. The #3 is a used Hornet, also of unknown history. The Hornet is a shooter, not great but good enough, again I have not tried to tune loads for it. I have not yet taken the 3rd #1 SS .243 out to the range so it is an unknown quantity. FWIW, IME I find the #1's accuracy to be on par with other manufacturers I have tried, and better than a few individual rifles from other manufacturers.

IMHO that depends on how stringent your accuracy demands are.

My first couple didn't do very well. One was a blued .375 H&H, probably early 1980s manufacture since I'd seen it on the gunshop shelf for a couple years and I bought it in 1987.

The next was a .300 Win Mag #1 V I bought used. The scope base block had been shimmed and it had a trigger shoe on it ... probably should have taken a clue and not bought it. Point of aim shifted roughly 8 MOA ... or maybe that was 12 MOA, but certainly not less than 8 MOA ... as the barrel heated. At any particular temperature, it shot very well indeed, it just moved a lot. If you shot 10 consecutive 10 shot groups starting with a cold barrel and shooting in the same cadence, all of the first shots made one nice group, all of the second shots made another nice group about 2 inches higher, all the third shots made a nice group 1.5 inches higher yet ... and so on. It was a little booger. I finally sold it. There weren't very many #1Vs in .300 win mag made, hopefully whoever bought it wanted it as a collector item and not a shooter.

I think my next one was a #1B in .25-'06. It didn't shoot very well. With varmint bullets it shot softball sized groups, would have been adequate for deer if those had been hunting bullets. With game bullets it was truly aweful, groups went a foot or more. I fought it for about a year.

Then I took a break from #1s.

The next after I came back was a #1V in .220 Swift. With a little load work, a tension screw between the forend and barrel, and messing with bedding, I got it down around MOA. One day after I'd had it a year or so and shot it quite a bit, I noticed a "jump" as I pushed a patch down the barrel. Repeated. Yep, a loose spot in the rifling. That was just the best it would do. Now I wish I'd rebarrelled it, but I didn't.

Then I got a stainless .375 #1 H. That was a good shooter. It started out stringing vertically but shooting a narrow group so I had my gunsmith install a forend hanger screw and after that it dropped down so it'd reliably shoot .75" or better for 3 shots hot, cold, or mixed. That was good.

So ... that last one was my success.

I only got rid of it 'cause one day at the range the toe of the stock got down in the crack by the base of my collar bone and when the shot went off, something crunched. I was DOWN, on the ground, crawling on all fours trying not to puke within a half second. Crushed a tendon I think. I couldn't shoulder any rifle, not even a .22, for a couple months. I sold it. Kinda wish I'd kept it and just upgraded the recoil pad, but done is done is gone is sold.

That was about 2 years after stainless appeared in the catalog. I haven't had one since. I like them but given my experiences I can't rationalize spending that much when I've had 4-5 bad ones and only 1 good one.

Tom

After reading this post I went and dragged my 1B in 22.250 out of the gun safe where it had sat for the past five years for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons was that when I got it I was using 55gn Win factory ammunition and it was giving 3" groups at 100m and at that time I didn't have the time or spare cash to find out what was wrong with it.
Anyway armed with a selection of various factory loads I headed up to the range last Sunday. Win factory loads still shot 3" groups, Highland ammunition shot 1.5" groups but Fed factory loads shot 1" groups. Happy days.
Next step will be working up handloads for it and I expect there will be highs and lows working out a good powder/projectile combination. It is good to know that if stuck I can grab a couple of boxes of Fed ammo to get me out of trouble if I get stuck.
I intend to use it as my spotlighting rig and will take it away with me next month and give it a good workout in the field.
I am glad that I hung onto the rifle and didn't sell it off a couple of years ago when I had the chance.
And when the barrel is shot out I can re-barrel it to a 9.3x62 and have a real classic calibre.

Wantok..

Well ,it looks like your rifle is just ammo sensitive..And perhaps you've got a crappy box of Win factory loads as well..LOL Good to hear it shoots well after giving it another chance.

If you want to investigate it's potential a bit further.
do this realativley easy experiment. Temporarily free float the barrel.

Take the forend off the gun and note the contact areas - three points along the forend hanger. Take a peice of plastic shim stock- (an old plastic credit/ bank card works well) and cut a few small shims to put on those spots. If you are carefull inserting the forend they should stay in place without any adhesive, but it they don't, either rubber contact cemment or tape will help.

Putt the forend back on and you should see the fooend is lifted a bit downward away for the barrel now. It should be pretty much free floated.

Go shoot some groups then to see if your gun likes that better.. It may not shoot marketly tighter groups, but most likely there will be less verticle string after the first few shots.

If it does, I would go back, bed the contact points on the forend with a little epoxy and once that is done carfeully sand out the bedding pad at the tip and add a little clearance all along the barrel.

Who knows? You might have a 1/2" rifle before when it's all over!

One thing is for sure, groups shooting aside, in any wood stocked rifle with a floated barrel is going to maintain it's POI more consistent over time all other things being equal...