Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Who has a Ruger Hawkeye African 9.3x62?

Reviews, thoughts, photos?

This rifle intrigues..considering tracking one down.

I have a 9.3X74R in a Ruger #1 and it's freakishly accurate. I would assume the barrels blanks are the same for the M77 actions, so if the Hawkeyes shoot as well as my #1 you'll be delighted.

I have seen a huge interest in the 9.3X62 in Wyoming and some of it in Montana and Idaho too in the last 2 years. I have either made customer 9.3X62s or done re-barrel jobs to turn other rifles into 9.3X62 17 times in the last 2 years. For me, that's some kind of record concerning popularity. Add to those 17 jobs 4 in 9.3X57. Seems like the 9.3s are being "discovered" around the northern Rockys. Good reason too. The shells are very good killers, quite accurate and don't have a real hard kick as compared to some of the belted magnums.

I have a friend who has one that he bought at Guns America iirc. They pop up occasionally if you can't find a local vendor who can get you a new one. He likes the cartridge and the rifle.

I like the Ruger African and I have a couple of rifles in the older Model 77 tang safety model: One in 375 H&H and another one in 458 Win Mag. At the other extreme, I have a newer Hawkeye Model 77 African in 223 Rem that Ruger sold maybe 10 years ago. It goes bang and nothing else happens as the weight keeps recoil to bb gun levels. Its not a very useful NA hunting rifle but it is unique. I've used it a few times for shooting marauding jack rabbits.... I haven't needed a back up rifle any of the times as it kills them dead before they can charge.

Keep looking. One will pop up.

I had one for a few years, and it was one of my favorite rifles to carry for elk. It was a very accurate rifle with 250-grain AccuBonds and the Barnes 185 TTSX and 225-grain MRX. I sold it here on the forum (to a member from New York if I recall correctly). I had decided to cut my elk hunting back to one hunt per year in Colorado (except for the unlikely event that I might draw another bull permit for the Gila here in New Mexico.)

I have one, really nice, a bit heavy but the weight helps. Flattop_Johnny on this site loaded me up some 250 grain Nosler Accubonds using one of John Barness's RL-15 loads and the rifle shoots 3/4" all day long at 2650 fps. I haven't killed anything with it yet but I hope for that to change when I go to Tholo in 2021!

I have one. I cut the barrel back to 21". it's very handy in these bear infested woods. RJ

I had one a brief moment a few years back. It was a nice looking/handling rifle. I had it set up and then tried some factory Vortex 286 TSX ammo. I had 6 misfires out of 20. I also had a few misfires from some PPU ammo. Since I had a good 35 Whelan AI ready to go ( boar hunt in UP) I sold it. It appeared to have a headspace issue ( maybe it was just those two brands?) I wasn't going to fireform for it since I had a bunch of already fireformed 35 Whelan AI. Wish I would have kept it though....beautiful rifle.

I have one of the Hawkeye Africans in 9.3x62 and also had some misfire issues out of the box. Stripping the bolt and cleaning all the gooey crap out of it solved the problem and it's been flawless ever since. More recently, my Hawkeye African 275 Rigby had the same misfire issues out of the box. I'd read that other folks were having similar issues and replacing the the firing pin spring with a 24 or 28 lb spring solved it, so went that route with the 275. I think a combination of leaving goo inside the bolt and a weaker than ideal spring is part of Ruger's assembly process

I just picked up a .275 and had a m misfire ...hmmmmm...

Thanks for the info gents.

I hadn't heard of the misfire issues until this thread.

It's a good idea to strip the bolt and clean it whenever you buy a rifle,new or used.

Have a second look if the misfires are occuring with PPU brass. I tried some in my custom 9.3X62 and had lots of misfires. Turns out the shoulders were all over the place causing headspace, and contrary to popular opinion the external extractor (pre-64 M70) had enough of a gap beyond rim thickness, maybe 20 thou, that it didn't consistently hold the case head against the bolt face for first firing.

And the European type throat of the 9.3X62 precluded seating the bullet into the lands for fireforming. .

I threw that schit in the trash, went to Lapua, and the problem disappeared.

I have a Liseys 9.3x62 Ruger African Hawkey in a circassian wood stock.

High gloss blue and extremely accurate.

I had misfires with a 35 Whelen years ago. An extra-power mainspring fixed it.


Okie John

I've shot quite a bit of Prvi factory loads and reloaded the cases and never had a misfire with my 9.3x62 African. I cannot say enough good about this cartridge and rifle. RJ

Interesting on the PPU brass (I shoot a lot of it) - that is what I was shooting in the African 9.3 and having misfires, however the misfires in the African 275 Rigby were with Hornady brass. Regardless, bolt cleaning and/or heavier springs resolved the issues. Here is my 9.3 - interesting wood on this one, and it shoots very well:

That's how mine shoots, but mine does not have wood like that. Very nice JGray. I have not heard of an accuracy problem with an African 9.3x62. RJ

Nice shooting and nice rifles. This thread has again sparked my interest in a 9.3 - drat.

I already had a CZ 550 Lux 9.3x62 prior to Ruger offering the African and told my self I wouldn't get the Ruger. Then this one showed up and I couldn't resist the wood so told myself I had to sell the CZ (which I still have years later ).

That is a hideous looking rifle.