Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Extended safety for a Ruger Hawkeye?

I just picked up a Ruger Alaskan in 375 Ruger and was wondering if anyone makes a custom extended safety for the Hawkeye? The safety seems a little rough and when it is locked fully to the rear it sits pretty flush with the bolt. It is a little difficult to move to fire in one motion and I imagine it would not be any easier if it was wet and I was wearing gloves. When trying to work it in a hurry, my thumb tends to slip off of it half the time before it is fully forward. It seems if it extended 1/8-1/4" the issue would be solved.

I did a google search and looked on midway and brownells and did not see anything. I figured if someone made one yall would know.

That safety, IMHO, is THE weak link or most greivious mistake in the design of an otherwise excellent rifle.

A decent gunsmith/metalsmith would be able to slick up the operation and change the shape of that safety to something not so well hidden when engaged, with relative ease, I would think.

If I owned a Ruger MK ll or Hawkeye, that is the first thing I would have done, along with a basic trigger job and overall smoothing up. Especially one in 375 Ruger which may see duty on dangerous game hunts.

Stretching my memory here a bit, I am pretty sure that I have seen an extension welded onto that safety here in this forum. I hope whoever had that done will chime in here for you.

Ed LaPour might have an aftermarket safety for this, he has model 70 style safeties for many firearms. He did the Safety and many other upgrades on my CZ in 416Rigby.

Thanks for the suggestion on Ed LaPour. On his site he only lists safeties for the tang safty rugers but I sent him an email to see if he could make one for the newer rugers.

I was hoping someone would make a drop in part but I guess that would be too easy.

One way to do it:

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbth..._How_would_you_improve_the_R#Post5726077

Bruce

Thanks for the thread, I just realized mine has a safety...

Thanks for posting that Bruce, I have talked with Ruger about making a minor change along those lines and also had a discussion with Morris Melani at Alaska Arms about making some but the safety is not a simple, easy to install piece.
Last time I talked with Ruger they did listen and said that a change for them would not be too difficult. So hopefully they will get around to it.
After all, it took Winchester three tries to get it right on the M-70.

Phil,

I am very glad that someone of your experience and knowledge has the ear of a few folks at Ruger! Let us hope they fix that soon.

Good point about the Winchester Safties. My Mauser action rifles all get Model 70 clone safeties on them. Next one up is an FN Mauser with 28 inch heavy contour super match PacNor bbl in 257WBY.
My CZ/Brno custom 416 Rigby has model 70 type safety AND trigger mechanism/trigger pad.

I wish they would just bring the tang back. The original wasn't broken.

I heard back from Ed, he quoted me $400 for parts and labor. I'm sure his work is worth every penny... but hard to justify for this rifle. I think I'll give the Devcon a shot.

Steel cookie dough...

I am here to tell you that it very much is. He will (or used to anyway) sell you just the safety kit and you could have another gunsmith install it.

It is a SA weet setup.