Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles I found a very interesting rifle today

You guys made me pull my 300wm out. It is a laminate wood stock, with some red in it. Probably a Boyds, not factory Ruger..

For the longest time, I used a Ruger m77 mk2 blued wood 338wm when I hunted elk. That rifle was so damn accurate. Why did I ever get rid of it?? ha ha.. I've had many Ruger 77's, stainless laminates (3 338wm's with the pepper laminates back in the late 90's), those were exceptionally accurate rifles. Shot way above their price point. Many 30-06's, a few 270's. Great utilitarian rifles.

Agreed. Workhorse rifles.

That looks excellent.

Thanks buddy. Hoping it shoots well too.

Own a few Hawkeyes and one MKII. Some are stainless and some blued. To me they're a staple because they're lefties and the ones I have are no longer available and not the easiest to aquire. Two of them get get a lot of use.

Yeah I’d bet it’ll be good.

When’s the range day?

At one time back in the 90's, I sold every rifle I owned and just kept a left handed 300wm. I used that rifle for everything. I could never get used to the left hand action though and built my collection back up.. Old Craig Boddington's writings convinced me I only needed a left handed rifle. Boy was he wrong!!!

Not sure. It's hotter than hell here today and yesterday. That bedding hardened pretty quick. 104 degrees and 16% humidity. Same for the finish on the stock. She's ready to be shot right now. Later on tonight I may mess around with some loads. Got OAL measurements on about 10 different bullet types earlier. about half of them I can run .020" off the lands, then the other half I have to load to mag box length, which is about .050" off the lands.. Kind of sucks, but "it is what it is". The rings are also too high for that scope, but I'm hoping they will be perfect for the new Zeiss V4 4-16x44. I was pulling my hair out trying to decide which rifle I was going to be trying that scope on. Now I know.. Should be about the perfect match for this cartridge and rifle. Oops, I'm going to need 30mm rings. ha ha..

That’s great. I don’t sweat seating depth myself most of the time. If they’re straight I don’t see much issue.

Yeah, for the most part I like to know where the bullet is in relation to the lands, so as to develop a reliable load. I'll generally run most bullets .020" off the lands and call it good. Always able to find a sweet spot with OCW..

Same here. I like being able to get square with them for cup and cores but if I can’t I won’t totally go nuts.

Yeah, sometimes you can't for sure. The dang 165 TTSX I checked was .100" off the lands at 2.890" OAL. Those Barnes like quite a bit of jump most times anyway. Not always, but most times. I'm curious as to how those perform. Not exactly sure what I'm going to be loading up first for load development. Wanting to fireform some brass to my chamber, but the brass I got from teeder fits nice after sizing. Checked and the fired brass from his rifle chambered in mine as well, so I used that brass for checking bullet to lands dimensions.. Worked great that way.

I’d load them as they sit. Might surprise you.

Pretty hard to make a Barnes shoot like crap.

I believe that and have seen the same thing. My buddies 300WSM I was talking about in a different thread that is hard on brass really likes 165gr TSX. When I worked up a load on that rifle, most everything shot into 1/2". It was weird. He later said he didn't know how good the TSX is and said the TTSX should shoot better. I just laughed..

I can go right handed if needed but it feels unnatural still and not dominant eye. I'm used to left hand actions because I dry fire and practice speed and bolt manipulation without ammo. It becomes extremely ingrained into muscle memory.

I wonder about safety issues and keeping my face and eyes as shielded as possible from the port of the receiver and I like the idea of a proper sided action. Could it be an safety issue? Maybe? I'm not 100% sure but I thunk about it. Then again I have leveraction and they're not anywhere near as safe and strong as any sided bolt action.

Yeah, that is definitely a consideration. Just growing up with right handed bolt actions engrained that into my muscle memory. There's no right hander that is faster off the bench, but that only makes sense. Think about it.... Of course shooting offhand the righty is faster in bolt manipulation. However, Since most of my shooting is off the bench or prone or supported, shooting a right handed bolt works out better. The funny thing is it's never really been an issue while hunting either. Grew up shooting running jackrabbits with my m1917 sporter 30-06, so I've probably had more practice than most running a right handed bolt gun..

Alright, some nitty gritty. Range day time. Ran into an issue with some slightly bad brass. TIR's were high. In the .009-012" range. Way more than what is acceptable by my standards. Not a huge issue, I'll work around that. Here's a pic of the rifle when I took it to the range the other day. Still had the infamous Zeiss Conquest 3-9x40 on top:

Pretty big fn gap on that objective huh? Don't worry, that got fixed!!! This scope is almost useless to me, with the bassackwards turret dial and no hash marks in the reticle. It may get sold on ebay. Just sayin.. You guys that use these and love them, my hat goes off to you. I like a simpler approach though: Here's what it is now:


Groups shot that day were less than stellar. Using "once fired" brass from a different rifle. Kept them in the 1.5" ish range, with Hornady 180gr BTSP interlocks. Generally those shoot better in all of my rifles..:




Knowing the rifle should shoot much better, I had to check some things. Found the ammo was not real straight. Brass has uneven neck thickness. Good enough for "hunting" ammo though. Now today I was better prepared. I shot some brass that was fireformed in this rifle. It chambered better, it had a .002-.003 shoulder bump and was ready to go. The only thing was the TIR was high on some of it: IE: up to .012"!!! I shot that at 100 yards and then said "f it, I'm shooting the straighter ammo at 400!!!" Well, here is one group shot at 100:

Rifle likes that book max, but I'm going to bring the chrono out next time and bump the charge up 1/2 grain. Don't tell Barnes!. I want better than 1" basically..

Well, here are some of the 400 yard results:


This was the first 400 yard group. I had loaded some ammo with an arbitrary load of 59gr Big Game, but this ammo had much better TIR numbers^^^> I figured I'd use it to check the dial at 400. Worked pretty good, and oddly enough, no adjustment on the dial:

It's not perfect, but it's pretty close, for what it is..^ I'll paint over the ".556" info on top of the dial..

I was pretty happy with that for starters, but had to shoot some of the #5 charge weight (book max that did good at 100):


Oh, before I go any further I have to tell you that I switched scopes. Went with one of my favorite scopes that are inexpensive and track very well. I just bought this one on ebay for $122. It's a $350 AR scope that has been discontinued. This is a SFP scope, so those of you that think you need a FFP scope, move on, this is not the thread for you. This is the first outing at 400 yards, so stay tuned for better.. :

I have to say, I really like this rifle. Yes, it is totally "utilitarian", but it will get the job done. Its reliable and it will shoot better guaranteed. As it is, it would be an elk slaying sob with this load, but I'm hoping after I get the brass sorted out and all sub .003" TIR, it will be much better. Check this out. Before I leave the range I always have to shoot at the 400 yard yote. Pretty easy target really. This was a quick shot with the Ruger. You can tell which one is the Barnes. Its copper colored:


One shot in the neck is where I generally aim on my less precise rifles:

I figure this Barnes would work^^^ Copper Barnes mark of death... Those other guys shooting 7" groups on that yote suck balls. ha ha..

Thanks for watching and good shooting!! Now the shop owner is wanting me to by the Ruger #1 6.5-284 Norma he has in the shop. It's a HB, but I don't have a real good feeling about it. $1,000.00 for a rifle that was only made one year according to him??????

Careful, there’s a tool that runs around constantly talking sh it about 3 shot groups and hitting the orange dot.

“Just saying”.