Opinions on the Ruger #1 RSI .243

I Thank ya kindly there Goose, I'll have to order some from Midway, I already have the IMR4350 powder, can't believe it's raining out here, so I haven't had a chance to get out to my range for an additional sight in with that 3X9 Leopold, did put some flip up lens covers on it, so I'll be able to keep the scope clear of debris in the wind, and be able to get them off in a hurry without making all kinds of commotion.

Legionnaire, congratulations on taking possession of your RSI in .243, I sure do enjoy shooting mine, a couple of my buddies can't believe the accuracy potential it has with just a 20" barrel, so far I've got extremely great accuracy using the 80grn pill, but I'm planning a pronghorn hunt up in Wyoming, and the area I hunt is prone to heavy winds at times, so I'm going to develop a load for 100grn, hoping that the load info Goose just provided me is at least MOA.

I'm sure it is, in fact that is the majority of the factory rounds we were shooting at the 300 yard 10" steel from a bench and hitting it very consistently, just to get some once fired brass for me to reload. BTW this morning I ordered two hundred Speer 100grn. BT/SP from Midway, believe me I'll let ya know how they perform. We'd each shoot 3 rounds and pass the firearm to the next shooter etc.

Legionnaire, that is one nice rifle, what year was it produced? Below is mine, with the scope attached, however, my Leopold with the flip up lens covers do look a bit out of proportion, However, when hunting Pronghorn most of my shots would be from the prone position any ways. Later on I just might look into a shorter scope.

That does look nice on there more proportioned for the rifle, and an excellent choice of scope, you just can't beat a Leopold. BTW I finally got the 100grn
Speer BTHP and loaded up 20 with the IMR 4350, I noted that my Hornady noted that 42.0grns was maximum, so I loaded 10 with 40.0grns and 5 with
41grns and 5 with 41.5grns. Haven't had a chance to get out due to the wind out here which is in gusts up to 35MPH, and steady at 20-25MPH. Will have to
wait until that doggone wind subsides, been like this for about a week now.

Well I finally got out to the range yesterday, and there was virtually no wind with that RSI in .243. I had it loaded with Speer 100grn BT/SP and three different charges of IMR4350. All cartridges had an OAL of 2.650, I used a Remington primer. I started out using 40.0grns of powder, and worked to 41.0grns of powder, and finally 41.5grns. I forgot how hard it was to get an honest grain of powder to come out of a RCBS Uni-flow powder measure, so I ended up using a trickler in order to get approximate charges as indicated. Note I added a few extra rounds so that I could shoot at least 3 rounds per 3 sessions, of each loading.

Now into the accuracy department, naturally I started with the 40.0grns and fired 3 rounds the first two nearly struck each other, but the 3rd round was about 2"below the first two. Just about the same with the second two from the same batch, however the first two were about an 1" apart. The third group was at least 2" also. Not bad but no cigar.

The second group (41.0grns) seemed to tighten up a bit, to about slightly over an inch, and I was impressed, however I may have jerked on the last of 9 rounds, so I ended up with the 1.75"group for the average of the 9 shots. Incidentally after the first three shots in a string I gave the rifle at least 10 minutes to cool off, The weather was right at 60 degrees F so to touch, the barrel wasn't getting that warm.

The final group was actually just amazing, after the first 3 rounds, I noted a perfect clover leaf, the second 3 shot group resulted in 2 over lapping each other and the 3rd round approximately 1/2" from the previously mentioned overlapping, the third group and final string had all three touching. So my thanks goes to Goose Gestapo for establishing a super accurate load. BTW all my shooting was done from a bench, with a couple of rabbit eared rests. I saw no signs of excess pressure on any of the casings, and all primers seemed to be dented normally. I do believe I've found my load for that smoke pole.