Ruger will Not hold zero!!!

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LuvShak

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:banghead:

I have a Ruger M77 MKII. Stainless/skeleton stock 30-06.
I bought this gun new, back in the 1997 or so. It has laid in the closet, in the box, until about 2 years ago. The cold bore is never in the same place. Shooting a 5 shot group, shot 1 and 3 may touch. 2 and 5 some times touch, but about 4 inches apart factor in shot #4 and it has shot some 6" groups!!!! Sent it back to Ruger, the replace the bolt, and said it was fine. I have tried many things. I reload, so tried Burger 155 VLD - Hrndy 150 SST - Nosler 150 BT, with countless powder charges of H4350, IMR4064, IMR4350, IMR4831. Have also let it eat some factory amo 150gr to 180gr. Put 3 different scopes on it, Burris Full-field, Pentax Lightseeker, Nikon Buckmaster. I got Houge full length almn bedded stock no help, Basix trigger no help, I re-sighted it in yesterday. shot 3 touching at 100yds. let it cool, then it started shooting 4" high and 3" left about 1 1-2" group. Could it be the Ruger rings? please help if you can. This is about to be my 1st and last Ruger!!!! HELP!!!! :banghead:
Should I give up and put it off on someone?
 
I am going to say your getting slippage in the rings. Not every factory set up is optimal, but yours sounds a bit odd to me. When you first cleaned it did you look for burrs in the barrel? Did you check the crown?
I am gonna wait on Oldfuff to give the definative most likely culprit.
 
I can't feel anything in the bore when I clean it, the crown looks ok. I dint have a bore scope so I'm not sure about the refiling. I am going to try another scope and put some electrical tape in the rings. If that does note work I thought about those bullets that smooth out the bore.

I will admit I have flinched on shots in my time. But I can pull off 1 MOA shots at 200yds with my 7MM mag, and with my AR15 at 100yds like clock work. I thought about the flinch, So I bought a lead sled and a trigger (same results). LOL.... I have spent more trying to get this thing to shoot than I spent on the gun!!! but it has become a challenge at this point. Thanks for the feed back, I will try her out in a day our to and give you an update.

Thanks
doc and rc
 
I'd guess there's a problem with your scope and/or rings. On a side note, a good way to check the bore without a bore light is to take a nice shiny dime, set it on the bolt face, and use a flashlight to reflect the light into the bore. You will be looking at it down the muzzle, so MAKE SURE IT IS UNLOADED.
CApighunter
 
Electrical tape in the rings??? That likely will end up a gooey, slick mess in short order. If anything, very fine emery cloth to lap the insides of the rings, wiped clean with lacquer thinner to remove all traces of grease/oil. Rings should have factory specified torque, applied in alternating ascending order in three steps.
 
electrical tape in the rings
Click to expand...
I did that with my Ruger. The cloth type. Before, the top halves touched the bottom halves. Works great, lasts for years.
You might try flat-base bullets. That helped some in mine. The other thing that helped (some) is neck sizing the cases.
Some Rugers just suck.
 
sounds like the scope is broken internally.Similiar thing happened to me and drove me nuts trying to nail down the cause.Culprit; a small spring that adjusts the cross-hairs broke off.

sorry..dont know.I now see that you already tried 3 other scopes..Sounds like its something with the bore itself heating up and cooling down.
 
Last edited:
Electrical tape in the rings??? That likely will end up a gooey, slick mess in short order. If anything, very fine emery cloth to lap the insides of the rings, wiped clean with lacquer thinner to remove all traces of grease/oil. Rings should have factory specified torque, applied in alternating ascending order in three steps.

this is good advice.

i had a ruger rifle that was very fussy about its bedding. I suggest that you start from the very beginning again.

take the action out of the stock, its a chance to clean it as well, then put it back in the stock and tighten the bedding screws as recomended in the handbook.... thats really important.

Tighten the mounts correctly after cleaning the scope and the rings with a spirit cleaner.

Whilst its all in bits you might aswell give the barrell a proper clean as well.

bedding screws are really important.
 
Had a M77 and it would never do better than 4" group at 100 yards. Mini 14 was twice as bad in that it would group 4" at 50 yards. I'm done with Ruger rifles.
 
Oh, goodie! Is there were we all get to drop random and unhelpful commentary relative to the OP about how Ruger is teh suk? Cool!

:rolleyes:
 
Well, if your description is accurate, it sounds like the ONLY variable left IS the rings?

FWIW- my '06s and .308s really seem to prefer to shoot closer to 150 gr. bullets, for reliable accuracy.

I'd skip the electrical tape altogether and just get some quality rings. You've come toooo far on this rifle to just sell it off, IMHO...
 
Sounds like new rings are needed.

Get new rings, maybe you can call Ruger and they will send you some for free :).

Sounds like you have covered all the bases and the rings are the last obstacle.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr
 
You can put a thousand dollar scope on a Ruger or a Tasco and they usually won't shoot. Of course Some Ruger rifles are the rare exception. I do think they have some nice revolvers though. My advice is to sell the rifle and look for an older Remington.
 
I shoot screwey because it's a Ruger. I have owned about 5 over the years hoping that the lastest would be a good shooter. Finally got rid of all of them. If I were Ruger I'd roll stamp someone elses name on each piece.
 
I had a Ruger 77 in .243 Win. Blued and walnut. Beautiful rifle but it wouldn't shoot. I had it bedded,
Timney trigger, 2 different Nikon scopes, Conetrol rings, shot every factory load and every hand load I could find, had the muzzle recrowned, etc. It still shot shotgun patterns. Finally gave up and got rid of it. I've heard that Ruger outsourced its barrels so quality was hit or miss. Now that they've gone to in house production, that problem has been mostly cleared up. Some rifles are just dogs. They will cost you more to solve their problems than they are worth.
 
Kind of says it all. Looking back 33 years ago when I could buy my first rifle, if I had to do it over I would have saved a few more dollars and purchased a Pre 64 Winnie and you would really never have to look back. sadley I had no one to give me good advice and I purchased a Mini-14. Took me 9 years to figure out she would never shoot
 
Had a 77/22 that could never do better than .5" at 50 yds. (had some button chatter). Bought a 10/22 for Father's Day decades ago and the old man couldn't do any better than that till he swapped everything (trigger, bolt, barrel, stock, etc.). Yep, them Rugers is horrible...I do know a fellow who shot a world record with a stock #1 but sure 'nuff 12 years later someone broke that record.

I'd start with new steel rings and while you're spending the money, have a smith do the install. Have you marked the tube to verify whether it's slipping? I use a cleaning patch and flashlight to look down the bore and my smith bore scopes anything suspect. My guess is you're close but have overlooked something.
 
I have a few Ruger centerfire rifles, including a #1V in .223, a stainless synthetic M77 Mark 2 in .338 win mag, and a stainless laminated M77 Mark 2 in .270 win.

All three are very accurate, although the #1V took a fair amount of work, including free floating the fore end. It only shoots sub moa with neck sized brass. Period. The hotter the barrel gets, the tighter the groups get. It prints sub moa groups with 52 gr. Sierra HPBT and H335 (5 shots).

The .338 shoots Federal loads with the 250 gr. Partition into about 1.25" for 3 shots out of a cold barrel. The .270 is about the same with my favorite hand load, featuring a 130 gr. ballistic tip over a max charge of H4350.

If I were going to buy another big game rifle, I would definitely take a look at Ruger.
 
A buddy of mine has a Ruger 22-250 that wont group. I put 3 shots into a dime at 200yrds with it one time out, next time there all over the paper. I think his scope is junk, but he has not changed it out yet. I still say its your broken thumb:neener:
 
Check the rings and mount. If it isn't the scope, then you could try bedding it. If that doesn't do it, then I would say the barrel is the problem,and you should get rid of it.
 
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