I have three, all in .308 Win.
Don't ask why, it's a long story. Seriously tough,years ago I had a nice Mannlicher- Schoenaur in the famous .5x54 that some low life stole out of my truck back in the mid 70's. For yars I looked for a replacement but either the sellers thought they were made of gold with diamond encrustment or the cores were corroded beyond saving. Then, Ruger came out with the RSI and I liked the look. At the time, the price was well out of my range so no go. One day, while looking through the guns for sale section of my loacal new rag (They don't allow those ads anymore, damned liberal barstards!)I saw one are a price I could proably swing and figured I could probably talk him down some anyway. I called him and the rifle as in really nice shape with no beauty marks. It had a decent scope, one of he better Redfields of the day so I looked at a light switch on the far wall, closed my eyes and snapped the rifle to my shoulder. When I opened my eyes, the crosshairs were dead center on the little toggle of the switch. I didn't even try to talk the price down. The gun also came with loaded factorry ammo, dies to load the several boxes of fired brass, bullets and a can of powder, all for the $300 asking price. Well, I pays my money and I ask him, why so cheap? He said it was the most inaccurate gun he's ever owned. Oh oh, did I screw up? I asked him what he's tried so I could see if I could work alng a different line of attack to the problem and he said nothing he tried worked worth a damn.
Well, in one sence he was right. Nothing in 150 gr. would do betetr than a pattern and 80 gr., be they spitzer or round nose were no better. Doint things in the conventional sense didn't work so I decided to go unconventional. I had some 165 gr. Speer Hot-cores that hadn't worked on my 30-06 for some reason so whar=t the hell. I tried them along with W-760, a powder technically a bit too slsow for the .308, at least with 165 gr. bullets and bingo! The first decent groups then gun ever gave for me. Granted, 1.50" ain't braggin' stuff but compared to the 4 to 6" groups I was getting, a good breakthrough. That load has been a one shot killer on deer from about 35 feet to 250 yards. Velocity at 2550 FPS is nothing spectacular but what th hell. It works. FWIW, that load does 2610 FPS and 1.0" from a 22" barreled Wichester M70.
I picked up the other two RSI's rather cheaply for the same reason, their owners said they were not accurate with anything. My load for rifle #1 worked just fine in the other two. One day, I took a gamble and took the muzzle cap off the first rifle and removed just enough metal that it no longer touched the barrel. Groups now run at the 1.25" average. just remove enough that no contact is made. It doesn't have to be much. I then did it on the other two rifles with improved accuracy.
I have many rifles, ost of which are more accurate than that RSI, but most of them would go long before I parted with that Ruger RSI. Now if Ruger would only make on in .358. That would make my day.
Paul B.