Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ruger #1 troubles need suggestions

I have a ruger #1A in 35 whelen,,, It is grouping two seperate groups first shot is dead on next two are always 2-3 inches higher,,, I have tried different loads same problem... so far i have tried putting a spacer under fore end screw to float the barrel,, removed tip hump and tip bedded the fore end,,, then tried tightning and loosing the foreend screw .. Loosing patience,,, have also removed a little wood at end of fore end so it didn't contact the receiver... so far no solution... Asking for any suggestions.. MB i know you have worked with these Please advise.. HELP!!! Oh and by the way this gun has alreaky wrecked one scope after 20 shots... replaced it with trusted scope no help....

How have you placed it on the sandbags or front rest? Number ones can be awfully finicky about how the forearm is placed. Sometimes resting the forearm on your hand makes a difference. I had a #1A in .270 Win. that did what yours does. I cut a piece of credit card material under the barrel just at the tip of the forearm and that fixed it well enough that most groups run around 1.25" which is good enough for hunting. Another thing you might look at is the rib on top of the barrel. If it makes contact with the receiver, as the barrel warms up it will affect accuracy. Another point is the two anchor pins for the rib. When you remove the rib to remove a but of metal, if the pins make a ping, slightly enlarge the holes so they are no longer under stress. I can probably think of a few more things but these should keep you busy for a while. FWIW, I've heard Ruger's accuracy standard was 2" at 50 yards. Yours should be a black pad gun with a Ruger made barrel so should be good. The earlier red pad guns were just a bit of a gamble. Funny thing, three of the #1s I have are in .300 Win. Mag. and all have been sub-MOA red pad guns. I have one more .300 Mag. but haven't scoped or shot it yet. One is a "B" and three are the "H", two being 200th year liberty guns. I have #1s ranging from .22 Hornet to the .416 Rigby, 22 so far in my collection. My .35 Whelen is on a mauser action and it's killed one scope so far. I've got to get out and check the one that's on it now as I'm taking it for my next elk hunt.
Paul B.

Pretty much the things I have done and worked for me.
I have not put a shim under the fore end screw,
but I do put a plastic shim wedged snug between the hangar and the barrel.

I assume you are not always starting a group with a clean bore.
Maybe it is not dirty enough yet.

Hopefully someone will have the right next good idea.

the first thing i would do : is glass bed the back of the forearm 3 -4 inches and float the rest of the barrel,then i would make sure all rifle screws on forerarm and stock are tight,then i would mount a straight 6x 42 leupold scope on it . did you use torgue wrench "lbs. per inch " the scope ring screws ? are you on a good solid bench
" cement type " do you have decent rests front and back ?a 35 Whelen is not that bad on recoil I don`t feel .

Need more info.

1) What happens if you continue to shoot? Say shots 6-10 .. where do they land?

2) What happens if you clean the gun between shots 5 and 6 ... does that change where 6-10 land?

3) What happens if you repeat your testing swabbing with a dry patch after every shot? Do the results change?

4) Do you have an opportunity to leave the gun where you are shooting and come back a 2nd day without transporting it .. say if you have a range at home?

5) What happens if you fire the first 5 shots, wait a day and, without cleaning in between, fire 5 more? Where do the second day's shots land relative to the first day's shots?

6) How long are you waiting between shots ... how warm is the barrel getting?

Bit of a story here ... I bought a used #1 varminter in .300 win mag. Guess not many were made. I stuck a leupold 4-12x vari x II on it and went to shooting. As the barrel heated, the point of impact rose. It was real repeatable. The first shots out of a cold barrel made a nice group. Second shots. Third shots. Get it hot and keep it hot and it'd shoot well under half inch but it was a foot above where it shot with a cold barrel. I never could get it to work right and eventually I sold it even more used than it was when I bought it. It looked like many of the normal fixes had been done so my guess is the barrel was actually warping as it heated ... unrelieved stresses.

So one of the things you might consider, kind of down the list of things to try, is to have the barreled action cryo-treated in case yours has that same problem.

Tom

Relieved and glass bedded the forearm where it mates to the action, floated the barrel, added a Hicks accurizer and glass bedded under it. Cured the ills of my 22.250 Varminter.
https://eabco.com/HicksAccurizer1.html