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What's the current value on one of these? The one I'm looking at is a tang safety, wood stocked rifle with rings. The stock has some usage marks and there is a little thinning of the blueing on a part of the barrel. What would be a fair price? What could I expect accuracy wise?
Thanks

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4 to $500 depending on condition

Pics?

Last edited by 338rcm; 03/18/19.
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I agree with the above $4-$500 dollars. In AK, it might fetch $50 more, but that's about it from what I've seen locally. Now the boat paddle stock, different story.

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Thanks, I'm not sure I would want to shoot one with the boat paddle stock.

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Try to get it as cheap as you can as the Mod 77 'tang safety" 338s are a gamble. 50-50 chance it will shoot very well. 70-30 it will shoot "acceptably". Good solid rifles, yes, just "iffy" on accuracy. A good stock and action are worth $400 if it won't shoot and you want to have it rebarreled.

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I had one from 1977 till 2012. Accuracy was never the problem. Had it redone as a 264 W. and went to a Tikka T-3 lite SS in 338. Like the Tikka better. I have also seen them in the 4 to 500 range.

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Originally Posted by limabean
Thanks, I'm not sure I would want to shoot one with the boat paddle stock.


Maybe you should shoot a 77 in 338 like what you’re looking at, first.

If it has the “red pad” FAUX butt pad, it ain’t pleasant to shoot.

I had one, for a short time.

I had a Rem 700 8mm RM which shoots more powder and higher velocity and recoils
‘softer’. I still have it. The 338 OG tanger went down the road shortly.

Even a 700 BDL 375 H H doesn’t hurt like that 338 tanger. B T D T


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If a tang-safety Ruger in 338 is beat up and worn, then chances are it shot well enough for someone to carry it into the woods year after year. If it's crisp and clean, then chances are it didn't.


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If Montana had a standing army, a 270 Win with Federal Blue Box 130's would be the standard issue.
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I had one of the "then newer" MKII in .338WM that was very accurate. Not a bad rifle to shoot either. But, as said, try to find out its history for accuracy. Take into account that few people can shoot a heavy rifle "accurately off the bench", so "pick your expert, ha.

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Looked at the rifle again today and based on what I see by looking up the serial number it was built in 1981. Is that a bad year for possible accuracy issues? The bore looks great. It has 30mm rings and is in pretty good shape. I may try it for 500.00 out the door.

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Recently here I found one on the shelf that was $585. It looked like it had never been shot with no marked on it. It was pristine. Only sat on the shelf a week.


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I have a boat paddle 338 and it's not that bad. I'm not afraid to take it anywhere, shoots fine, virtually indestructible stock and I've taken some pretty big stuff with it in Alaska and Africa. It wouldn't be the first gun I'd sell thats for sure.

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I have a good friend who had a M77 tang safety model in 338 WM. Every year, he used to bring it to me to shoot and check zero because he was just too busy to do it himself. After about three years of that I told him to never bring that hard kicking SOB for me to shoot again. I think he sold it not long after that.


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I have had tang safety Ruger 77s in .264 Win Mag, .300 Win Mag and .338 Win Mag. All had factory wood stocks and were blued, and the dates of manufacture were between 1981 and 1992. All of them shot very well with my handloads once the triggers were adjusted. With the Ruger rings and a 3-9x40 scope, they were a little more than I wanted to carry up and down the mountains in those days. I gave one to a young relative who needed a rifle for an elk hunt, and traded or sold the other two. The .338 had enough heft that the recoil didn't bother me in those days, but you did need to have it firmly against your shoulder when it went off.


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yep, lastround that is XACTLY why I 86d the one I had.
My 8mm RM is pleasant to shoot compared to the OG tanger 338 &
The BDL 375 H H pushed instead of PUNCHING !!

IMO it is the combination of stock fit AND a faux recoil pad that makes it hurt so much.
Even at that I was able to shoot -1” groups w/225 gr bullets and IMR 4350.

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I bought a M77 tang safety in .338 from my buddy in 1989 when he downsized to a 300 browning stainless. Paid him $300. The gun has a very heavy barrel for a sporting contour, and has the integral sights and bases. It weighs 9 lbs 3 oz with a Leupy 2.5 x 8. It consistently shoots less than an inch with any decent factory ammo, and I shot a 1/4 inch group with neck sized reloads using the N225P and 71 gr. of H4350 when the 225 first came out. I have taken at least 6 elk with it over the years, and have never been disappointed in the accuracy or knockdown power. Two at 40 yards, one at 450 yards, and the rest in between. I have several lighter rifles that I have taken elk with, including a 7 mag and 300 mag Win Classic Stainless, and a pre-64 30-06 featherweight that only weighs 7 lbs 12 oz full up with a similar scope. I consider the 338 my "go to" elk rifle. I have never even considered glass bedding it.
Downsides are 1. the weight, 2. the tang safety, which works fine except one year the gun got wet from snow and the safety froze, causing me to lose a shot at a bedded legal bull 200 yards away. 3. Recoil off the bench with 210's or 225's is fine--it is a little heavy with 250's and way heavy with the old 275 gr Speer round noses. Use a shoulder pad and a sled. That said, I havent fired more than 5 rounds a year off the bench with it for 20 years, usually just the first two do it. It holds a zero like a synthetic stocked gun, probably because the barrel is so thick. 4. Both times I have fired it at an elk from the prone position, it has given me a scope smile. No problem from sitting standing or kneeling. I just crawl the stock too much when prone--my fault , but I can live with it, since the meat is on the table after the shot.
I have a sweet spot in my heart for this gun, even with its faults. You could do much worse IMHO.

Last edited by Limapapa; 03/26/19.
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Originally Posted by jwall
yep, lastround that is XACTLY why I 86d the one I had.
My 8mm RM is pleasant to shoot compared to the OG tanger 338 &
The BDL 375 H H pushed instead of PUNCHING !!

IMO it is the combination of stock fit AND a faux recoil pad that makes it hurt so much.
Even at that I was able to shoot -1” groups w/225 gr bullets and IMR 4350.

Jerry




My buddy’s 338 shot really well too, that is until the flinch kicked in. I’m sure a lot of shooters love their 338 WMs. I just never got to the point that I could handle heavy recoil. That’s why I mainly shoot a 7mm-08 now. It’ll do all I need it to do.


If we live long enough, we all have regrets. But the ones that nag at us the most are the ones in which we know we had a choice.

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Originally Posted by lastround

My buddy’s 338 shot really well too, that is until the flinch kicked in. I’m sure a lot of shooters love their 338 WMs. I just never got to the point that I could handle heavy recoil. That’s why I mainly shoot a 7mm-08 now. It’ll do all I need it to do.


Since I have no problem with the BDL 8 RM, Win 70, 300 WM, and can easily hunt a BDL 375 H H, I think any rifle with a good fitting stock and a REAL recoil pad in 338 WM would NOT punish you like the O G tanger 77.

As I said earlier, my 8mm RM shoots more powder with 220 grs bullets and at HIGHER velocity than a 338 WM using 225 gr bullets.
The 8 should kick harder than A 338. That tanger is just brutal, AFAIC.

Jerry


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My last Tanger was a lemon for accuracy, but I had put a Limbsaver Pad on it and it was no worse than a lighter weight 30-06. It just had one of those jack handle barrels. Better as a jack handle than spinning a bullet! smile

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I should weigh mine - it's heavy. Probably over 9 lbs. And a pussy-cat to shoot with less felt recoil than most .30-06 of 7 to 8 lbs. When I bought it 2nd hand maybe 20 years ago for $350, the going rate at the time for just the gun, it came with about 100 rounds of various handloads, a couple hundred bullets, several boxes of fired brass, dies, and IIRC, an old Redding press. It did not shoot well - 2-3 inch groups with his handloads or factory loads.

Now I've a Decelerator pad on it, and it is Mag-Na-Ported. I glass-bedded/free floated it, worked the factory trigger down to about 3.5 lbs- tho that's a bit heavier than I like, but as low as I dared take that one (my '06 Tanger is 3.0 lbs) A stick-on cheek-piece makes it fit my long neck a bit better, especially for off-hand shooting. I've taken maybe 8-10 moose with it, only one off a rest, all but one inside 100 yards, standing, offhand. Works good! And a couple caribou, sitting position, 200-300 yards.

It wears a 3.5 - 10X Tasco World Class Plus scope, and back-up iron sights. Not the Ruger ones, tho- too high and bulky. It was bare from the factory. I silver soldered on a .260 front base topped with a .260 blade (Williams, I think, slightly modified into a larger, rounder, less-snagging brass bead ) - the lowest I could get, and V-filed a notch in the higher integral base for the rear sight. With 250 gr. handloads, it's dead on at 100 yards 6 o'clock hold.

I headspace on the shoulder, basically neck sizing with a teeny bump-back. One handload hovers right around an inch, plus or minus, 3 rounds at 200 yards. Junk-loads that I just threw together to get rid of the bullets, with no work up. 250 grain Sierra Game Kings.

I wrote that one down..... smile

Same thing happened with some Hornady 250 RN I was going to get rid of - MOA for those. Ugly suckers, but too good not to hunt with. Also written down, tho I think both loadings are the same.... I'd have to check. Haven't shot the "moose rifle" in over 10 years tho, having used .260 and '06 for other species, as well as for the 2 moose taken in that time.

When my hunting partner's 7mm Mag quit shooting (stored in damp shed over winter), I hung a .338 WM factory takeoff on it. It is almost as accurate as mine, using his handloads with my data, or factory loads. Dunno what it would do with a worked up load. My chamber is just slightly larger than his, so my handloads won't quite fit his chamber. I haven't shot any of his loads in my rifle, either, tho I should...

Factory or fully resized rounds fit in either, but result in somewhat larger groups - still workable at any distance we would be shooting at.

Of the couple dozen wood-stocked tangers of various calibers that I have worked on, the only ones that were too inaccurate to hunt with out to 300 yards ( 2 inch or less groups is my standard) , were previously accurate ones that had the barrel go hinky due to moisture and/or poor storage.

Some were initially inaccurate, but glass bedding the entire receiver area and floorplate, plus a couple inches of barrel, free-floating the rest, working the factory trigger down to 3-3.5 lbs, or replacing it and putting a decent recoil pad on turned them all into adequate hunting rifles, with 1.5MOA or less for 3 shot groups at 100 yards. Most did better than that - usually 1 to 1.25 MOA.

I have never experienced an inherently bad Ruger factory barrel (meaning insufficient accuracy at 300 yards (i.e. over 2MOA) - tho I keep hearing about them. On the other hand, RU77 (Tang and later) accuracy usually shows significant improvement with the above steps taken. My .338 was poorly bedded with a lot - a LOT - of fore-end pressure. At 100 yards it was vertically stringing the 110 grains to 275 grs. bullet weights handloads that came with it about 16 inches. After bedding the receiver flat and free-floating most of the barrel, this was reduced to under 2 inches vertical difference between the 110 Partitians, and the 275 speer Grand Slam loads. It also roughly halved the 3-shot group sizes of the rounds that came with it.

It's a bit beat up now, but you won't buy it. Certainly not for $500. Actually, not at all.

Last edited by las; 03/28/19.

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