Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Ruger Hawkeye FTW

Check the stock for cracks. My FTW in 260Rem arrived with splits in the laminations under the action between the front action screw and mag well. Sent the stock back to Ruger and they sent me a replacement. I still have it it the shipping wrapper and instead ordered a Hogue with full bedding block (I know, it's not a McMillan, but for a cold/wet weather coyote rifle, it's perfect). It took a little fiddling with loads, but I'm now getting sub moa with Lehigh Defense 126gr Controlled Chaos bullets seated just off the lands over some H4350. Going to try some of the other bullets I tested earlier again by seating them a little closer to the lands instead of SAAMI OAL.This particular rifle seems to prefer it.

Exactly what I was thinking. I have 3 Rugers including a 6.5 CM in a M77 Hawkeye varmint/target. I have never used more than 15 or 20 rounds to break in a barrel and usually clean after 4 or 5 rounds during the break-in process. I have several older rifles that I never broke-in and they shoot just as accurately as those that I did. Personally, not even sure if break-in is necessary especially for a hunting rifle. I typically don't clean my rifle barrels until accuracy starts to drop off, unless I'm working up a new load.

have owned 3 of these ftw's, 7mm mag, 308, and a 260 i still have. The 7mm mag was just over an inch with reloads from another gun, sure i could have gotten better but was good enough for me. The 308 was a .75 shooter with 4 shot groups, shot so well my nephew had to have it, so i sold it to my bil for christmas for him. And the 260 is just over an inch as well, but once again i did not try to work up a load, just used ammo i had loaded for another rifle. Anyone who says ruger and accuracy does not go hand in hand has not owned many rugers. I have only ever found one that didnt shoot for [bleep], and I have owned at least 50 of them.

3" groups for a900 dollar rifle is way unacceptable. If that is their standard of excellence I will never consider a Ruger centerfire. I did sight in a Mini14 for someone one time. I bought 3 different kinds of ammo for it before I could get a 3" group at 50 yards. It was pitiful. Never considered one of those either.

All I have to say is everybody's making big money off these Crudmoors and 6.5s when 90% of us will never realize the benefits of a 6.5 if there are any because we never shoot over 300 yards and most don't shoot over 100.

Yeah, ok HIGH BC bullets. But this has absolutely nothing to do with 6.5 and everything to do with marketing and bullet and barrel making, there's nothing magical about the number 6.5. The powers that be saw that the old military 6.5s had tight twist barrels that would stabilize long Spitzer bullets and made bullets accordingly, then barrel makers followed suit for sporting rifles. But now you can get high BC bullets in about any chambering. Even the old .270 has people making tighter twist barrels and bullet makers that make 165-170 grain bullets. 7mms have been here for awhile. I think the attraction to the 6.5s is more due to lighter recoil and just having something different.

As far as the Ruger's accuracy goes, I've had two Ruger 77s, both the older version tang safety style. They both shot better than I could shoot them. The first one was a .308 Varminter that I had bedded and would shoot .6"-.7" 5 shot groups with one pet load of a 168 grain SMK bullet over I think 44 or 45 grains of IMR 4350. It's been awhile.

The other was a .30-06 sporter barrel that would shoot 1 inch 3 shot groups. That was unbedded. I had that rifle re-barreled to 9.3x62 and it shoots even better, I'm sure because of the Shilen Match barrel. That's what my Gun Smith uses. Rugers can be just as accurate as any other factory rifle.

Yeah, a cartridge sitting at the intersection of plenty of juice for the deer hunting most people do, modest recoil, engineered for precision and widely available, reasonably priced ammunition wouldn't have any benefits or appeal to the 300 yard, and mostly under 100 yard hunter.

My LH Ruger FTW in 6.5 CM had a chamber issue and that is what I asked Ruger to look at. It came back with a new bolt and barrel, it came back very accurate before not. Best to avoid accuracy expectations and have company say it meets there specs.
and you have not corrected the issues.

Nope, you can achieve 1 MOA with any $300 Savage rifle.

3 MOA is ridiculous !

Certainly not!

I have all the hunting rifles an old fat man would ever need, and a couple of spares, but if the earth opened up and swallowed all my stuff, the you-know-what would be pretty high on the list of candidates to replace them, right under its 6mm little brother, which is really all I need here and seems to be catching on, though not enough to panic the .243 crowd.

I'm anxious to see what they find out with your gun. I'm in the camp of "quit cleaning so much" and choose better ammo to shoot.

Was one of your trial loads the factory Horny 143 g ELDX in their Precision Hunter line? It's cheap and it's good. Like you, I would use factory loads for initial testing. That rifle is/was shooting badly.

Yep, while some cheap loads will hint at a rifle's accuracy potential, it's never a good idea to stop with just one cheap load and make a determination. Granted, that's some pretty abysmal accuracy that the OP is reporting. Ruger has a reputation for good customer service, so I'm hoping they do right by wrong-handed Dave.

Did you crank down the middle action screw? Doing so will torque the action and will cause the rifle to throw fliers.

Ruger makes excellent barrels btw. I m thinking something else is going on.

I’m in agreement your cleaning regiment. Put the cleaning rod away and put a proven scope on it. Try some different loads.

Some rifles will take 10 rounds to settle down after a cleaning. I had a 7mm rm that looked like the bore was copper lined. If you cleaned it. It would take 30 rounds to settle down and accuracy to come back.