Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Project Hawkeye 338 Ruger Compact Magnum

Because I think the 375Ruger design and base cartridge is so outstanding, I became interested in the 338RCM. I know little about the 338FED, but I do like the 338-06, and I love the 350RM. The 338RCM appears to fit into this short barrel group well, and when combined with the Hawkeye rifle, the overall package seemed worthy of my purchase. I ordered a brand new rifle which cost me $604, a case of ammo cost me $29 per box, and a set of dies cost me $26. The rifle, ammo, and dies are readily available and delivery time is a matter of days. I think that is an outstanding value in today�s market and I give a thumbs up to the boys at Ruger and Hornady. This is more so an ongoing thread that I�ll add to as I tinker with this particular rifle and cartridge. I'll give it an honest try and see how well it stands up to my 350RM. I suspect that it will be every bit the equal if not a bit better as there are so many great .338 bullets available today which should give the 338RCM an advantage in versatility. The belt less Ruger case certainly has advantages.

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I took the RCM out of the box yesterday and gave it a look over. First impressions are that the fit and finish is every bit the equal of my 375Ruger with the exception that the RCM wood stock does not have quite as much figure in the grain. But the stock is indeed straight grained and appears to be a good piece of wood. As is out of the box, the rifle weighed 6 lbs 14 oz, and the trigger was crisp pulling just under 5 pounds with no creep and with a perfect amount of over travel. Adding a LEU 1.5 - 5X scope with covers and the supplied medium rings brought the weight up exactly 1 pound to 7 lbs 14 oz. I tested the scope with both low ringmounts and the medium ringmounts and much prefer mediums (#4 and #5). The lows clear the scope, but lesson learned from hunting with my 375Ruger, the lows causes the scope to crowd the loading/ejection port and restricts the ability to use the scope as a handle. The mediums gives better clearance while allowing a perfect cheek weld when looking straight down the scope. Rifle balance is excellent with and without scope, it handles well, and points naturally.

The mag box holds 4 down, as is, and will feed with all 4 in the box, but there is not quite enough room to clear a 5th round in the tube. I suspect some modifications might add enough wiggle room in the box to allow 4 + 1 capacity. I didn't measure the box, but first glance gave me the impression there is enough room to use big bullets with the cartridge.

I'll probably epoxy a stock cross pin through the thin web area between the mag box and trigger inlets, and bed the stock. I may even pick up a factory all weather stock and play around with that as well.

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I'm unsure about the synthetic stock RCM, but did anyone notice that the wood stock RCM is CNC inletted to free float the barrel? All of my previous Rugers had a forend pressure point, this one does not. I can slide a dollar bill the length of the barrel channel to the contact pad that extends 2 inches beyond the receiver. I checked the factory torque on my action screws and they were 70in-lbs front, 40in-lbs middle, and 30in-lbs rear. Odd combination which probably accounts for the binding mag box. I picked up some sleeve pillars to install and I'll bed the action along with adding a second cross pin. I think she's going to work out well!

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First step was to install pillar sleeves. The stock action screw holes were opened up with a 9/16� end mill. Set-up for the holding fixture was pretty straight forward.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gary2va/3568032272/

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Holes were cut against a .005" stop to prevent any chipping of the wood stock.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gary2va/3567221199/

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In addition, a cross pin hole was drilled through the thin webbing between the trigger and mag box openings. This will reinforce the webbing area to prevent splitting.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gary2va/3568034048/

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Do you think bedding the lug and the tang would had achieved the same results?

Thanks for the write up/pics. Looking forward to the follow ups.

Everything lined up and ready to install the pillar sleeves. Note the grooves cut into the sleeves to hold the epoxy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gary2va/3567223185/

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This shows the location for the cross pin through the webbing.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gary2va/3567225507/

Made up a set of socket head action screws to replace the stock slot screws.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gary2va/3567226295/

Pillar sleeves fitted and epoxied into place with Marine-tex gray. Everything aligns with perfect mag box clearance.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gary2va/3568039268/

I am going to bed the lug and tang. The reason for the pillar sleeves are two fold:

1. The bedding epoxy is stronger than the wood itself. This is a light weight wood stock and when you hog out material around the action screws for the bedding compound you reduce the thickness of the remaining wood. The bedding compound will not crush, but the thinned out area of wood will crush and deform over time. You eliminate this by either making pillars from the epoxy itself while bedding, or you install pillar sleeves and then bed.

2. I'm of the opinion that the aluminum pillar sleeves are a better option with the M77 angle screw action. In addition, I have a trick up my sleeve by taking advantage of the extra length in the sleeves. I used the sleeves to slightly increase the distance between the bottom metal and action to properly clear the mag box so there is no binding. This combined with removing a small amount of material from the four feet on the follower should give me enough clearance to hold 4 rounds in the mag box with one in the chamber. 4+1 (5 rounds total) with perfect feeding:)

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I had a few minutes to tinker with the rifle so I decided to start on the work to prepare the stock for bedding. What I did tonight was to floating the barrel channel to allow enough room for a stiffening/sealing layer of bedding epoxy underneath the floated barrel. Later I'll hog out wood for a pad at the barrel boss, lug area, tang, etc.

I decided to share with you a quick and simple trick I use to open the barrel channel while perfectly matching the barrel contour. Often I'll see persons use all sorts of odd tools, blocks, and such to open the barrel channel in a stock already inletted for the barrel. What I do is use the barrel itself as the tool and guide to open the channel. I use even layers of panters tape (.005" each layer), and 3M 60Course sandpaper(.025" thick) cut into 1" strips. That's all you need to float the barrel and end up with a channel that perfectly matches the barrel contour.

The barreled action sits in the stock by its own weight and the back of the sandpaper strip is run against the painters tape on the barrel. In the beginning you'll need to use one layer of tape and you'll need to shim the end of the barrel slightly to give you room to work. I use two or three pieces of the sandpaper itself to shim the barrel. As you progress, you remove a shim until you work the barrel fully into the channel. You can add as many layers of tape as you desire to reach your desired clearance. This is my first cut with one layer of tape and a couple of shims:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gary2va/3572010222/

It took very little time to work the barrel down into the channel and to open it up with a couple of layers of tape. At this point I have a perfect .035" clearance the length of the barrel. A dollar bill is .005", so I now have enough room to float the barrel and leave a solid stiffening/sealing coat of bedding epoxy along the length of the channel.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gary2va/3571204625/

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Man Gary that is smart! I will do that when it comes time to bed my 300RCM.

Thanks very much. You post is one on the most educational on the subject of pillar bedding & epoxy beddding.

regards,
JohnT

GaryVA,

After you posted that your 338RCM wood stocked was free floated I checked my 300RCM, tight inletting. Looks like full contact all the way along barrel channel.

Shot it again yesterday & starting to get useful velocities but consistent horizontal stringing. I'm using W760, Fed 215 & 168gr T-TSX's. Any suggestions re:reducing the horizontal?



regards,
JohnT

Have you tried any Hunter?

Update:) I had a bit more time to work on the Ruger. As previously noted, I want the barrel free floating which can be difficult to execute correctly when using a light weight wood stock such as the RCM. The stock has enough flex that it becomes difficult to maintain a stiff forend even with a skim layer of bedding epoxy. It would defeat my purpose to add a ton of weight to the stock in an effort to stiffen the forend, so I devised a simple solution which I thought was very clever.

I inletted the forend to accept an aluminum forend stiffener that I custom made from aluminum stock. It may look and sound difficult, but it was fairly easy. This is the rough inlet that I ran from the front sling swivel all the way back to the barrel boss:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gary2va/3578961618/

This shows the basic fit of my custom aluminum stiffener. I designed this unit to fit flush into the forend inlet and to tie into the sling swivel at the front and tie into the bedding pad under the barrel boss at the rear. I need a tiny bit more hand fitting before I epoxy the unit into place. This should completely stabilize the forend while adding a marked amount of both vertical and lateral stiffness. I will have a full floated barrel with no barrel contact when position shooting while maintaining light weight. I am very pleased with how the stock is turning out to this point.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gary2va/3578960972/

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