Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ruger M_77 Tanger

How many have you owned, any favorites?

41

A few. 30/06 ultralite shot the best. Enjoyed the 250 Savage the most but could never get it to shoot worth a darn.

I have had several. My favorites are my fathers Bent Bolt 220 Swift and a lightweight .257 Roberts I traded off for my first Tikka.

77V 220 Swift, 77R 7x57, 77RS 35 Whelen all shoot fine...mb

four

I own 5 and have never sold one.
Two in 257 Bob, one 308, one 270 and one 284 Win

I've had two. Wish I'd kept a 25/06 that was a fine shooter. I still have a 338 WinMag that shoots so so. The 338 was my go to rifle for many years.

I have two, a walnut 338 from a pawnshop and a 7mmRM that wears a Lilja tube and a McMillan copy of the old R-model stock. Both will barely clear a 1” tube 40mm Leupold scope with low rings. The fit is very natural for me.

Have three only thing original on all three is the bolt, action and floorplate/trigger guard. All in McMillan stocks two have the long discontinued ultralight stock.

A grand total of 1. It's a 1984-85 model 7x57. The little gun shop that we frequented at that time had 3 of them all in 7x57 gathering dust on an upper rack. Being a kid who grew up reading Jack O'Conner articles, I had to have one. I looked at all 3 and picked the one with the prettiest wood. Probably one of the last rifles I'll ever part with.

Ron

Even though I've owned 5 model 77's I've never owned a Tanger. I've hunted with my late FIL's 7 RM tanger though

I've had many. Most have shot well. I'm down to four: 77Vs in .220 Swift, .25-06, and .308. All three are very accurate. Wore out the barrel on the Swift and had it rebarreled. A 77 Ultralight in .250 Savage was a mediocre shooter. I had it rebarreled with a Douglas and it shoots very well now.

I've owned a couple dozen, still have a baker's dozen in 22-250, 243, 6mm, 250(x3), 257, 257AI, 25 Souper, 260, 7x57, 308, and 358. I particularly like the RSI style, but wish that they had made the barrels longer than 18.5" so that they would balance more like a Husqvarna with a Mannlicher-style stock than a butt-heavy Remington 7.

I lived about 30 miles from Pinetree Casting from 1986 thru 1990 and spent more than a few friday evenings at Rody's Gun Shop shooting the breeze with the Rody brothers, Bill and Henry, and with the gun guys who worked for Ruger. It was always interesting to hear about the latest project that WBR, Sr. had them working on.

270
270 flat bolt
308
6mm rem
7x57 (3)
358
7mm Rm
30/06 (3)
Still have 270,30/06,6mm
All have shot decent, 7x57 required the most work. The 270 is very accurate. .75 groups at 200 with both factory and reloads. IMR 4831 and a older Hornady 130 gr. Flat base bullet. This was made at the end of the mk1 run.
I like them, especially early and late runs both had thinner forends.

4

Back in the day, heavy varmint 220 Swift, extremely accurate with iirc 55gr Sierras and RL-15, 400 yard plastic pop bottle buster it was, only shot one animal with it, some kind of burrowing fat varmint down on the Arkansas river levee, damn thing must have weighed 35lbs, flattened it from the truck window at 200 yards LOL!

The most accurate 338 WM i've ever owned sold to Proud Dad right here on this site.

458 WM, also much more accurate than it needed to be, current owner told me he'll die owning that rifle ; ]

Just last year bought Wife an unfired [except for factory test] 7x57, what a sweet piece, it fires the old style 175gr Hornady round nose bullets at 2376 fps into around an inch and a half, not bad for a load not worked up for that rifle, all stock except adding an Ernie the Gunsmith spring to lighten the trigger a bit, i loaded those things more than 25 years ago, it wears an old gloss 2-7 leupold and isn't going anywhere.

I have a 1976 “liberty” model 77 in .257 Roberts that shoots cloverleaf groups. It’s not going anywhere except deer hunting.

1 308 lightweight, still have and use it.

I have my little brothers 270. A nice rifle thats retained it's zero for over 40 years. It doesn't appeal to me as theres to much wood along the barrel but it was his gun so I haven't messed with it. I took it deer hunting on opening day.

Off the top of my head can recall two .220 Swift sporter-weights, a 6mm Remington sporter, a .250 Savage UL, a 7x57, a 7mm Remington Magnum, and a .30-06.

The .30-06 was my only big game rifle for several years when young and relatively poor, though kept it for a while after I could afford more rifles, fitted with a light synthetic stock. It was pretty accurate, and I used two different loads, one with 165 cup-and-cores for deer-sized game, and one with 200-grain Partitions for bigger game--both of which shot to the same point of impact.

Both Swifts shot accurately, but I grew weary of the 1-14 twists.

The 6mm Remington shot well, but I wanted it less than something else it got traded it for.

Could not get the .250 UL to shoot consistently below about 1.5 inches at 100 yards for 3-shot groups, no matter what I tried in handloads and bedding, so it went down the road pretty quickly.

The 7x57 had one of the rare terrible barrels, and would generally group 2-3 at 100. This was because the "tight" spots in the barrel measured .287". Had it rebarreled to .358 Winchester, and it shot OK, but went down the road too.

Bought the 7mm RM in very used condition for the action, with the barrel already toast, because I really like the tang safety. Had it turned into a very accurate .300 Winchester Magnum by Charlie Sisk, and used it for several years, among other animals taking big mule deer and elk.

My most recent started out as an UL in some unknown chambering. Somebody had it fitted with a 22" No. 1 contour Douglas barrel in 7mm-08, which with the UL stock made it noticeably lighter than the standard 77 sporter. It shot very well, and I hunted with it some before recently having it rechambered to .284 Winchester, partly because Ruger offered the .284 briefly in the 1970s, and I'd wanted one then but couldn't find one. It still shoots very well, and will probably go hunting soon.

There are probably a few others I've forgotten.

I've had 3, mid-70's 77V's in .25-06 and .220 Swift and a mid-80's 77 in 7mmRM. Sadly, the .25-06 went down the road. It was a fine shooter and with hot loads of 3031 or 4064 would put 75 grain Sierra HP's in tight little 3/4" clusters. It was the complete and utter destruction of a number of woodchucks. The Swift I still have and, after a hiatus of a number of years, I have broken it out to play with some more. It wears a fixed 16X Leupold and I am hoping to get it to show the same accuracy it used to. I won't say how well it shot back in the day, with 55 grain Nosler Solid Base bullets for fear of being thought a liar. The 7mmRM, wearing its original 2 1/2 - 8 VariX III is still in the family, my having given it to one of my sons during one of my "Here, I need to get rid of some of these things, why don't you take this" exercises. It always shot well enough for what it was, hanging around an inch for five with appropriate Sierra and Nosler bullets. I could never get it to shoot the original X bullets well, but has killed several deer with them. It has killed more deer, I'm sure, than any other rifle I own.