Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only .416 Ruger Alaskan opinions

How good is the Alaskan .416 Ruger? How is the feeding and accuracy of it. I contemplating buying a used one about $680 + tax.

Can`t speak for the 416 Ruger Alaskan cartridge, but do have a 375 Ruger Alaskan which I bought new about three years ago.

Haven`t done one thing to my Alaskan except reload for it, shoot it and clean it. It is very accurate from the box with no feeding issues, a smooth action, and it is very durable and reliable rifle.

The Alaskan is an excellent rough it, great handling and go anywhere rifle. It isn`t pretty, but it is not supposed to be. The Hogue swells at the pistol grip and fore-end is designed more for larger hands which I happen to have. The Hogue also absorbs more recoil, and there will be no need to worry about stock dings, dents, scratching, or wood warping from foul weather. On hunts, no need to ever baby this rifle, worry what you set it on, worry about what you lean it up against nor worry about any harsher terrain you happen to be in.

For a DG rifle, the Ruger Alaskans are probably the best deals going for the money, and they don`t break.

Good to hear Bigsqueeze!
I just might have to pick that Alaskan up tommorrow! The challenge will be finding ammo and brass for it, probably have to mailorder some. I noticed there are currently more sources for .375 Ruger than the .416 Ruger.

I have both rifles. I've shot the 375 and it is very accurate and reliable. These rifles fit me like a dream. I have yet to fire the 416 but I will very soon. I ordered a couple boxes of factory rounds and a bunch of brass. I will be starting load development soon. I'll keep you posted.

I got the .416 Alaskan today! Of course the store had no ammo for it. They did have .375 Ruger ammo though, lol! I will have to mail order ammo, dies, and brass. Gunchamp, I will let you shoot your .416 first and if you survive, I will shoot mine. Just kidding, I look forward to hearing your load results.

..................I don`t doubt that you will have the best of luck with your Ruger Alaskan. Since the 416 Ruger is the more recent addition, ammo for now won`t be available for it as much as the 375 Ruger ammo.

Have fun!

I've had 3 416 rugers, all needed to have the magazine box swapped out and have the 7mag/300win/338 win mag box installed to feed properly. the 416 mag box appears to be to wide and jams the 1st round into the side of the chamber. Once the mag box has been swapped out, it feeds well.

What was going on that caused you to have to swap them out? I have cycled rounds through my 416 to check and make sure there wasnt any issues. Only thing I noticed so far is alot of scratches on the brass.

All of my 416 rugers, would scratch the brass badley and force the 1st round into the side of the chamber and jam..and sometimes wouldn't pick up the second round at all.Ruger is aware that a lot of the 416's have feeding issues

All of my 416 rugers, would scratch the brass badley and force the 1st round into the side of the chamber and jam..and sometimes wouldn't pick up the second round at all.Ruger is aware that a lot of the 416's have feeding issues

Ruger is aware of the feeding issues (usually the early guns that don't have the barrel bad sling mount) and have apparently made corrections to the current 416's with the barrel bands. I returned mine (pre barrel band) because of the feeeding and ejection issues and they decided it needed to be destroyed and replaced with a NEW production model. It is at ROBAR right now having the stainless "blackened" and the trigger group coated in NP3 PLUS.

When it comes home, I'll rush right out to the range and run a full box of factory Hornady ammo through it and let everyone know how it runs!

As for the recoil...everyone who shot my first one expected the recoil to much worse than it was. I find it much more pleasant to shoot than my Marlin 1895 is when shooting Leverevolution loads.

YMMV

I look forward to taking mine to the Northern Territory someday to thump a BIG Asiatic Water Buffalo!!!

The newest batch should be hitting the distributor's shelves pretty soon as ROBAR just got mine a few days ago and Ruger was going to build my replacement rifle along with the newest batch of 416's. If ya want one, keep an eye out or contact your dealer quick as I think they sell out pretty fast!!!

Hope this helps,

Stump

I have the new one with the barrel band. It feeds fine but like I said, scratches the heck out of the brass. Maybe it needs some TLC from a good smith.

Mines got the barrel band too, so maybe I will get lucky. Don't have ammo yet to try though

I have one and it seems to feed great. I have only shot 9 handloads out of it so far. The Hogue stock is easy to hang on to ans the recoil was not hard to control. I was shooting magtips at 2600fps through the chrony. It shot well with open sights at close range.

Ruger makes the laminated grey stock for the stainless#1 416ruger,wonder why they dont offer it in the bolt gun also instead of only the cheap rubber stock?

My guess is that they have tested the laminated stocks, and that they are breaking. That little bitty recoil lug was not designed with the .416 Ruger in mind.

I think the problem is the factory-issued geometry of the feed rails (my 404 Ruger's main problem was the right rail) not releasing the cartridge early enough to engage the extractor and allowing the bolt to feed it directly into the chamber straight - CRF. A lot of patience, some judicious file work and polishing the rails seems to have fixed the problem. It didn't become obvious when my African was a 375 Ruger feeding pointy TSXs, but when it became a 404 Ruger and I switched to FP 0.423" bullets - Barnes Banded Solids and Hornady DGXs - the feeding issues and timing problems started to surface.

Patience, re-shaping of the feed rail(s), polishing the follower or a trip to a good GS seems to be the solution IMHO.

Now that .416-Ruger needs a 2nd recoil LUG under the rear sight area. This would tame recoil and the stocks would have a better chance at not splitting or cracking.

I took and used 2 of the Hogue stocks with full aluminum bedding block in my .458-Lott and the .375-Wby rifle.

IIRC, Shoemaker took the wood stock from his son's African 375Ruger and bedded the angle recoil lug, he may have also added a cross pin through the thin web between the trigger and mag box inlets. He then tested the stock with his Alaskan 416Ruger and it held up to the recoil without damage. I know that I can run a bedded 416Remington using full house loads without a second(forward) recoil lug, don't see why the same cannot be done with the mkII/Hawkeye if reinforced and bedded. Don't think Ruger would epoxy bed the rifle from the factory, but I could see them engineering a recoil plate that ties the angle lug to the forend similar to the RSM. It wouldn't be too bad if they retain the Hawkeye angle lug, but if they use a tiny tit like with the RSM, it would be POS.

Best

All i can find are the early rifles without the barrel band,when did they change to the new ones and did the price stay the same?Do they also make a matteblued stainless verision in 416 now?Click link below and checkout the video's

http://www.ruger.com/products/m77HawkeyeAlaskan/models.html