Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles New model Ruger Hawkeye Hunter

This ^

Pass me a 308 please.

It looks like the rails mount to the standard Ruger cut-outs so I'm sure all you'd have to do is fire off an e-mail to Ruger and ask them to trade you a set of rings in return for sending the rail back to them. They do it already for new unused rings, so I wouldn't be surprised if they'd do it for the rail as well.

The rail is D&T'ed on.......

It appears to be.
I was hoping it clamped into the ring slots.

https://www.ammoland.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Ruger-Hawkeye-Hunter-Rifle-Right.jpg

That doesn't get it done for me at all. How many people are using their barrel threads on a hunting rifle? If surveyed, how many hunters would opt for stainless walnut over stainless synthetic in a hunting gun? We had a proliferation of synthetic for a reason right?

It seems to me that Ruger would have been better served offering the rifle in a normal barrel synthetic with the low polish stainless from their model 77 days.

Overall, I like it, and I think Ruger is headed in the right direction. Suppressing hunting rifles is getting more and more common, and flaring the end of the barrel is the right way to go about setting up a reasonably light hunting rifle. You get the benefits of the lighter weight profile while still getting a standard thread size at the end (usually 5/8x24), and a large shoulder for the can to lock up against. A lot of companies are trying to get by with smaller non-standard threads, and crappy small diameter shoulders that cause cans to constantly work their way loose. It's nice to see Ruger join Barrett in doing it right.

A few things I think they missed the mark on:

1) Hardwood on a stainless utility rifle.... why? Just go with a lighter weight, stiff polymer stock as found on the Tikkas and Kimber Hunters and be done with it.

2) The barrels are too long. The only reason to have those nice big threads on the end is for a can... Most folks don't want or need their suppressed hunting rifles to have 22"-24" barrels. The barrel lengths should have been 20" tops for 6.5, .30-06 and .300 WM, 18" tops for the .308 (6.5 would probably be best at this length as well).

3) Weight, these rifles are fairly chunky (like the vast majority of M77s), they'll be even chunkier with 2 lbs of can, rings and scope mounted. ~1 lb lighter should have been the goal.

I really wish Tikka would bring out a T3x, or Kimber would bring out a Hunter with the same barrel profile (although shorter lengths). Unfortunately, Tikka is asleep at the wheel in terms of tracking consumer trends lately, and Kimber doesn't seem to be interested in expanding their Hunter line beyond token stock and paint color changes.

The only thing Ruger would need to keep my happy is to offer the african in some other non magnum calibers. Would keeping the 7x57 kill them?

huntsman22,

How is that 6.5 PRC shooting for you?

He took it to 1250 last week...

Do the regular Hawkeye 77's need the bottom of the receiver milled to use AICS mags?
Can I drop that 20" .308 barreled action into Rugers synthetic Scout stock and the have the magazine work?
A 20" barrel suits me better than 16.5" and flash hider.

22 inch barrel ?


chrono results ?

There is a work-around to milling the action, if you don't mind notching your mags..... Dremel out the rear 'ears' on the back of aics mags and everything works great.