Way back when we were making it a point to make our caliber suggestions to Ruger and Lipsey's, the 303 was one of my suggestions. Before I commit to spending the not insignificant amount of coin to get this baby, I need to know if you all think it is worthy from the standpoints of accuracy, on-game performance, and bullet availability. I want to know if these are generally capable of placing a good hunting bullet within two inches of my aim point out to 200 yards, and arrive with enough poop to take deer-sized game cleanly. What do you say? Are they that good?

A 303 and a 30-40 Krag are almost ballistically the same.
There is no shortage of .311 bullets and 200 yards is a piece of cake.
Back in the day I had a Remington (mint) P-14 303 that we used to shoot at 600 yards with iron sight (young eyes) on a 36" gong. Misses were rare w/Dominion 174 gr FMJ spitzer factory ammo.
303 brit #1 is a gimmick for us in the USA, for hunting a 30-06 #1 would be better and a used one a lot cheaper. But if you want one, get one.
Heck I just bought a NOS #3 in 30-40. Someday I may even shoot it.
The only caution I would offer is that buying any new #1 sight unseen is a crap shoot as wood ranges from okay to 2X. The old "red pads" with the beyond 4x wood are gone.
A red pad:

To any logical adult, the above post is pretty strange.

You suggested the .303 as a caliber for the No 1 several years ago and now ask if it is "worthy" of purchase?

Has the .303 cartridge changed in the last few years?

FWIW, the .303, with good 150g Spitzer slugs is a 400 yard deer rifle. If you and the gun are good enough.

200 yards is duck soup.

I totally agree with tupolevtu95, the wood is a crap shoot sight unseen... I've bought several online over the past 6 months for more than what I could have bought locally, just because I could see what I was buying (verses, I'd have to order it locally).

I've got one of the .303's, but have yet to shoot it.

So far I've found on the shelf:

Remington 180 gr.
Winchester 180 gr.
Federal 150 gr.

Cabelas has a few that you can see online prior to purchase, but you'll have to pay the "cabelas premium" to get it (iow, they like their stuff).

1885boomstick

Of course you could be sneaky and find a red pad with great wood and swap stocks. Forends can always be matched up colorwise by any good stockmaker.
As long as you don't pay more than $800 for the red pad you'll get most of it back when you sell the (now) black pad gun.

Why?

Not all Red pad guns had "great wood",As a matter of fact, most of them were pretty plain..

I have seen man many more number 1 rifles with great wood on them made in the last 2-3 years than I saw from the 25 years previous.

I think by and large Ruger, is using a better grade of wood than they did in the 1980s and 1990s. or they are shipping less No 1 rifles and thus have more wood to sort through. At $1,000+ a No 1 rifle should have some figure in the stocks.

Jim, I have to agree with you... My interest in Ruger #1's started in 1978 and really blossomed in the late 80's... Actually I am a bit astounded by the emphasis here on "good wood" I have owned about 60 #1's over the years, and very few with the quality of wood that most here seem to demand!

It's funny that I had a "black pad" #1 long before they were even available... And at the time I preferred the "black" pad. But lately for some odd reason, I have begun to prefer the "Red pads" over the black ones. I guess tastes change over the years.

Another way my tastes have changed, is that I used to prefer the 1-B's but now have gravitated toward the lighter and more handy 1-A's...

I only have two or three #1's that have what folks here consider "decent" wood... And have never had one with "Outstanding" wood... Luck of the draw, I guess... Or my typical luck, as the case may be...

I have made up for it with a couple of bolt guns, tho'...

GH

Grasshopper.

I did not mean to come across as such a curmudgeon ,but damn, folks talk about those earlier no 1 rifles like most of them had wood on them like a Grade V Browning Superposed or something.They are not.

I've been sorting through Ruger no 1s since the mid 1970s and Really, only about 10-20% of ANY vintage seemed like they had would that truly rose to the level of semi fancy, and only about 5% you will ever see are AA fancy or better and MOST of them are poorly laid out in terms of grain flow.

About the time Ruger raised their prices quite a bit about 6-7 years ago was when wood quality jumped a bit. You see far less dog plain ones than you used to. I would say that most of the post 2005 rifles are as nice as those made in the 1970s across the board in terms of wood figure.

Actually, given what they cost now -about a grand brand new, I would send any new No 1 with plain wood BACK to Ruger and tell them what I thought of the firewood they put on my new rifle!

As to fancy wood on factory No 1s, about 20 years ago, I got a no 1 test rifle directly from Bill Ruger's office in Prescott. It was a no 1V in .220 Swift and was a 1990 or so made rifle. Anyway right out of the box is had nice feather crotch walnut on both sides. Not Exhibition grade, but certainly solid AAA Fancy crotch, even on both sides.

Anyway, I was happy as a pig in slop for about 2 months when the rifle developed a crack right behind the tang. Even though the blank was quarter sawn and perfectly laid out through the grip- it still cracked. I sent the gun back to get it replaced.Sure enough the new stock, while nice, was but a mere shadow of the first one.

Anyway that rifle illustrates "Jim's rule of pretty factory guns". That is ANY factory gun with above average wood figure WILL have either a mechanical or workmanship flaw in it. It also will likely not shoot worth a damn.

Conversely, rifles with butt ugly wood usually work like Swiss watches and shoot like benchrest guns.

It's the Gun Gods' way of telling us "don't be greedy gents, you can't have it all and you cannot get something for nothing.. At least that has been my experience.

I didn't think that you sounded like a curmudgeon, in fact you actually reflected my own thoughts...




And a big AMEN on that statement, as well...

The Ruger 1A in .303 is a great rifle to hunt with and shoot with. Last fall, my 1A in .303 shot a nice moose at 150 yards and a 151 5/8 whitetail at 320 yards. The 150 grain factory load at almost 2700 is a pretty good load.

I can handle that you think my post is strange. Mostly, I was concerned about accuracy potential and limited bullet selection.

I did a bit of checking online. I looked at websites of Hornady, Speer, Sierra, and Nosler. The only 0.312" diameter bullets I found are two made by Hornady: a 150 grain spire point, and a 174 grain round nose. Neither of these Hornady offerings look ideal to me (I would prefer the 174 grainer be a spire point). So it appears the bullet options in this caliber are quite limited.

You sent back an AAA crotch stock because of a crack in the tang on a pooper 220 Swift ? I am crying ! Next time you get one, PM me as they can be fixed like it never happened and be stronger in the bargain.
I have a 77 35W that had incredible fiddleback but had a flaw in the wood called a "shake". It split end to end, really looked bad. It takes a really good stockmaker but it is now fixed and you could never tell (epoxy is stronger than wood). I did have him add a recoil cross bolt from Brownells as it "looks right" on a big bore.
The #1 stock is somewhat like a 99 and splits can be fixed the same way.
My favorite fix is to "spread the cheeks" (with great care), carve out a recess for a biscuit (http://woodworking.about.com/od/joinery/p/BiscuitJoinery.htm), epoxy it in, clamp it with proper wood clamps, fully supported on the cheeks and the crack will vanish.

Let's see...
1 - Hornady 150 gr. SP
2 - Sierra Pro-hunter 150 gr. SP
3 - Sierra Matchking 174 gr. HPBT (shoots really well but not applicable to some)
4 - Hornady 123 gr. SP
5 - Hornady 123 gr. FMJ (good for furbearers where legal)
6 - Sierra 180 gr. SP (my personal favorite in the .303 Brit)
7 - Hornady 174 gr. RN
8 - Speer Hot-cor 123 gr. SP
9 - Speer Hot-cor 150 gr. SP
10 - Sierra 125 gr. SP
11 - Hornady 174 gr. FMJ
12 - Speer 180 gr. RN
13 - Woodleigh 215 gr. RN (an outstanding bullet)
14 - Remington 180 gr. RN
15 - Barnes Triple-X 150 gr. Spire Point
16 - Woodleigh 174 gr. PP

So, that's 16 different bullets of .311" or .312" available from one retailer. Nope, no bullet choice there.

And I'm another that wonders at somebody that encourages production of an item of which they question the practicality.

B.R.,

I checked Grafs.com, and they show 20 different bullets available in .303 cal. Albeit all not .312 in dia, some like the Remington is listed at .310... and others at .311. But until you slug the barrel you don't really know what the groove diameter of a particular rifle is. Knowing Ruger, it could be as small as .308". o:

BTW, listed is a Hornady 174 gr., HPBT, a 150 SST, and a Sierra 180 gr. Spitzer. Not mentioned are Norma offerings, which will, of course, be a bit pricey and hard to find... but available none-the-less...

GH

Barnes make a 150 TSX FB that will take any game you would tackle with a 303.
Woodleigh has a 174 spitzerSP & 215 RNSP.
Finally a 180-200 gr cast bullet can be pushed at +-2000 fps and will kill any game easily within your 200 yard window. (also at 22RF price shooting).
Probably 95% of my 30 cal and up shooting is with cast bullets dropped from the wonderful NEI molds. I shoot the 308-210 GC with the DD centering band on the front. It can be ordered oversize to fit your 303. Starting at 1950 fps from an 06 M-70 or 30-40 custom High Wall, it will hold 1.5 MOA 5 shot groups to 300 yards.
http://www.neihandtools.com/catalog/index.html

The Ruger No 1 in .303b is my first Ruger No1 and to say I'm pleased with it is an understatement . I have developed two loads for it the first being for a 125g Sierra Pro Hunter projie and the second a 150g Game king . The 125 shoots MOA at 100 yards and the 150's group is a little bigger at 100 yards . I'm going to try a different powder shortly for the 150's as the Winchester 748 doesn't seem to be cutting the mustard.
I'm taking it out to do a bit of goat and pig busting over the easter break so hopefully I can give you all a bit of a run down on how the projectiles perform.
Regards,
Ps both are .311 diameter.

I build stocks and bought fine wood for over 30 years..I also am also fully aware of the benefits of epoxy, dowels, biscuits etc. etc.

I don't keep cracked stocks. Especially on brand new guns. That is the factory's responsibility to fix. Maybe if they waste enough expensive wood, they will figure out how to fit stocks so they don't crack.

Well, I'll admit I'm a wood freak and would be perfectly happy with a 4X stock on a 220 Swift #1 that was properly repaired vs a "new" stock with far less beauty and no guarantee that it might not fail also.
Somewhere in my back issues of Wooden Boat, I have a WEST epoxy system ad that shows a stress test where two pieces of straight grain white oak (a much harder wood to glue than walnut) are glued together with WEST system epoxy. They are then pulled apart and the wood failed before the glue joint.
I would venture that your sock did not fail because of factory fitting. It might have had a shake, it might have been dropped on the butt or it might have been twisted in a way that put the cheeks in stress. (A common problem with 99s in saddle scabbards)
If it were a 458 Lott going to Africa I would feel differently and buy the ugly LAM stock to start with.

The 35 Whelen I had fixed, would hardly sent it back to Ruger to be replaced with a railroad tie!

I'm happy with mine. Mine wears a 4x Leupold. The first two shots go close together but the third tends to go higher as the barrel heats up. The trigger is very good right out of the box. Took it hunting last week and christened it with a fox and then took a nice fallow buck with it two days later.

It's also a great rifle to play with at the range, so far I have 2 loads for the Sierra 180gr sp at 2500 and 2600 fps, both are shooting 1 moa. Starting a ladder for the 215 woodleigh next.

Buddy has one and it is very nice and a neat caliber, My favorite #1 is the 1S and it would have been a better configuration for the 303 imho.

bangeye,

By saying "1S" do you mean like the 45-70 with a 22" barrel? Or do you mean 1S with the 26" barrel like the older 218 Bee and 338 Win mag?

I always wanted a 1S in 338 until I handled one. Too dang heavy!

Bangeye,

In what way would it have been better? A 1-A weighs in at over 7 lbs, naked. With a scope will go around 8 lbs.

A 1-S weighs near 8 lbs naked. With a scope, near 9 lbs! I can't imagine carrying that much weight in the field! But then perhaps I'm a wuss.

GH

I got to say mine carries well, shoots well, and just plain pleases me to walk with. The police are getting used to me shopping with it, but the boss won't let me carry it in the ambulance.

Randy

A Ruger #1 in one hand, and a CZ550 in the other. Even with a strong conservative government here, that would likely raise a few eyebrows.