Ruger No. 1 accurizing thoughts

[TexasPatriot.308]

I recently took my No. 1 Varminter to gunsmith cause I knew something was wrong, after he took the scope off and started the mounting procedure again and correctly torqued the screws, it now shoots groups of 3 that I can cover with a quarter...Now I have a beautiful classic rifle that shoots like its name says, Varminter, tack driver. I love this rifle, was almost on the verge of selling it.

 

[CoalTrain49]

I'm dealing with a model 77 Ruger right now. It got to the point I couldn't keep a group on a pie plate at 50 yards. Flyers on almost every shot. I tried many different loads, bullets and several different scopes. Put a new 2 lb trigger in it and restocked it to free float the barrel. Nothing good came from that.

Now I'm not going to start ragging on Ruger's here because this is my first one and I truly want to keep this rifle and make it shoot 3 moa, (it's a 357 mag). I finally gave up on the experiments and shipped it back to Ruger on their dime. It's been gone several weeks and I haven't heard anything from them. I'm afraid it's going to be a problem child to fix and because they don't build them anymore I may be looking at replacing it with something else. I don't want to but sometimes things don't work out.

I've read enough about No. 1's to know they can be quirky. I was thinking about buying one but after talking to some people at the range I decided not to.

Ruger will ship on their dime for two years. Send it back to them and let them check it out. They can do a much better job than you can with high end bore micrometers and fixed firing blocks.

Hope you get this worked out.

 

[stoky]

Thanks; I forgot the transfer block.

You're welcome Sir
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and insights.

 

[pert near]

Here are some photo's of my project making a Ruger #3 into a #2. I had it re-barrelled to a 6.8mm SPC & I had the hanger drilled & tapped for a pressure screw.

I picked a minimum load with H322 & the specified OAL per the book for barrel break-in. I fired the first 15 shot with the set screw all the way out, no pressure. Since I was cleaning the barrel after every 5 shots, I fired 1 fouler & shot this group:

Next I removed the forend & tightened the set screw just thumb tight. Fired this group:

I can't wait to develop a good load & experiment more with the "tuner". BTW: the forend is uniformly fitted & not floated.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Relieving the pressure on the forearm hanger and properly bedding and free floating the forearm seems to be the trick that has fixed most of my Ruger #1 accuracy issues.