Hmmm Brian, I was hoping Ruger would've focused on making their M77's a little more accurate these days. I've only had one report on the Hawkeye and it wasn't good either--too bad, because the satin blueing was gorgeous, and fit and finish was nice on the rifle.
In all my years, I've had 3-4 rifles in Remington, Ruger, Winchester that would only go about 2 inches despite my best tuning and handloads--even my old M720's and Pre64 M70's will do 1 1/2 inch groups or better.
The newest rifle I have is a 2003 vintage M700 in 243W. Factory Core-Lokts and Federal Premium Partitions would do about 1 3/4 inch groups, but as soon as I cobbled together some handloads it would turn 1 inch five shot groups. A little tweaking with some 95 grain BT's would get me 3/4 inch five shot groups.
Man, I'm surprised/dissapointed to hear your Ti wouldn't do better than that!
When I was back in school 5-6 years ago, a fellow adult wildlife student fresh out of the military wanted a new elk hunting rifle. Tried to talk him into a M700, but he went for a M70 30-06 in the plain jain wrapper.
We went out to the range, I set him up with bags and a rest, and with factory Silvertips he promptly turned
several groups easily under an inch! And here I am am with tuned factory rigs and custom barreled rigs--with carefully concocted handloads....and am thrilled to keep hunting loads at an inch or less
Just to "prove" those groups, we went out a couple of weeks later and my college buddy did it again!......
I always try Ballistic Tips in a rifle--it seems to be a good bullet to find out if the rifle is accurate or just plain picky--or won't cut the mustard.
Casey
