Trigger & Accuracy of the Ruger M77 and M77 Mark II

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My experience with the LC6 triggers is the majority are pretty bad... but QC is spotty enough that a decent one makes it through once in a while.

And I don't know who has been fitting safetys at Ruger lately but I have handled several new Hawkeyes that required a rediculous amount force to move the safety lever, two of which were so stiff as to be virtually inoperable while maintaining a shooting grip.

I have fired some recent models in 308 and 7mm Rem Mag that would do about 1.5 - 2 MOA for 5 at 200. I have a 375 Ruger Alaskan that is close to 1 MOA for 5 shots... it might be a MOA gun but the trigger is so horrible that I can't shoot it well enough to know.
 
My M77 mkII long range target rifle is sooo accurate.
Picture180-1.jpg
.223, cold hammer forged Ruger made heavy barrel (after Ruger obtained the equipment to make therir own, they stopped outsourcing for barrels).
 
My m77 has a factory trigger and there is an adjustment at the base of the trigger. Look up past the trigger guard to the base of the trigger, there should be one there.

Mine is a .270 and is a tack driver. I will never get rid of it.
 
Tang M77 Mk1, just had a thread about it. It shot "ok" with no work and factory ammo. Mine showed a HUGE improvement with handloads, trigger can be polished in a matter of minutes if you know what you're doing, and We'll find out today if the glass bedding I did on it this week tightened her up.
 
Ah, necrothreadia!

Okay, so I picked up a 77 Mk II light sporter in .223, blue/wood, about ten years back. Yucky trigger, but still an easy half-MOA shooter from the bench.

I put in a Timney. The groups weren't tighter; just easier. It's not as good a trigger as others, but it's nice enough for varmninting. Good for prairie dogs.
 
jmr40 said:
The $325 was probably a fair price 6 years ago when this thread was started.
Click to expand...
I paid $175 for my bicentenial M77 7mm Rem Mag in 1976 NIB. Looked in 6 boxes of them to pick out the wood I liked the best. Not a true 'tack' driver but a reliable 1 1/2" at 100yds. Trigger adjusted to 2 3/4#. It's taken 20 elk and probably 40 deer.
 
M77

Guys...I have owed 5 in the M77 class. I currently still have 3. One in .243 one in 22-250 and 22lr. They are all tack drivers with factory ammo. I do like the silver tips as my choice, but shoot the cheaper with playing. The 22lr will put 10 round inside of a nickle at 50 yards. The .243 will shoot 5 shot groups around a quarter size all day at 150 yards,
. Now the 22-250 is just all around mean. 100 yards for fun with factory loads you can touch all hole together. At 300 you can still flip ground hogs like they were at 50 yards.....I love the M77 and have never owed a bad one.
 
The More You Have, the Better You Feel

I'm another long-time hunter and shooter who has little bad to say about the Ruger M77 series rifles. My first was an "impulse buy" - I walked into a gun shop 25 years ago looking for a set of reloading dies, and the guy had a Ruger M77 Mk I on the rack. I noticed that the tag on the gun had ".257 Roberts" written on it, and asked about it. The owner had taken a $50 deposit on the gun almost a year earlier, and the guy never came back. We started talking, and a little later I walked out with the new Ruger, a Leupold 3-9X Gold Ring scope, a sling, and a set of dies for $550.

Initially the gun wouldn't shoot worth squat; the first was right on, and the successive shots were all ove the paper. I eventually discovered thet the forend wood had taken a "set," and was bearing on the barrel about 2/3 of the way to the tip, in the 8 o'clock position. I relieved the contact area, and the gun got truly sweet. With handloads, it will consistently shoot 1/4 moa.

I went on to buy a Mk II in .270, and then a 77/22 in .22 Hornet. Both good guns, both a solid 1/2 moa. with factory ammo. I recently married, and my wife asked for a deer rifle for her birthday. I obliged with an M77 Mk II ultralight (now "Hawkeye") in .243, and she loves the gun. It also does an easy 1/2 moa. with factory loads.

Are the triggers different? Yes, they are. The average pull weight from factory came in at the following weights: 6lb-3oz, 7lb-6oz, 6lb-4oz, and 6lb-10oz. The 7 lb. pull is on the .243, but it only has about 50 rounds through it. It may "lighten up" with a little more use. None of the triggers shows "creep," all break cleanly, and only the .270 shows overtravel after it breaks.

What else do I like about the Rugers? -I like that they're made in the USA!

Everyone's entitled to his/her own opinion, but I really like the Rugers. Lately my wife has been lusting after my .270, so I offered it to her. That way, I get to replace it! -Hmmm...
 
I found my Ruger hunting rifle trigger quite easy tune with some careful jewel filing, dremel buffing with flitz and a felt pad, and many, many assembly/teardown cycles to get it where I liked it.

Also, I'll throw this out there and say that I take nearly all my guns, used or not, and perform a barrel cleaning and then a jag and double patch coated with something like flitz or bore scrubber. I've noticed it really reduces the copper fouling rate dramatically. However, you gotta call it good enough hen doing this, it will always produce a dirty rag if you scrub enough, it simply won't produce clean rags if you keep scrubbing it with grit and removing metal.

One of my Ruger's is the same as SHvar's, and a great shooter. This is one of the guns I did this scrub on, what a dream to clean...when I get around to it. I just sent a hundred-ish rounds down the tube sage rat hunting in Crane, Oregon recently and she picked off the close one and long ones every time.

jeepmor
 
I've got four of them (two earlier, tang safety models and two of the later MKII models) and all are plenty accurate-though none are regular sub-moa. Also, none have triggers to brag about but that short-coming is not unique to Ruger and can be rectified with judicious tuning or installing an after-market trigger. The Ruger 77 is my favorite bolt-action rifle.
 
I've only owned one MKII: it was a MKII all weather in .223.

It shot about MOA: a little better or worse depending on ammo: about 1.1" with Wolf polyformance, about 1" with Winchester White Box, and about .9" with top shelf stuff. Good performance for a factory rifle IMO.

I got rid of it, because it only had a 1-12 twist, and I wanted to be able to shoot heavier bullets. I see that Ruger now makes the 223 versions with 1-9 twists. If that had been the case back then, I never would have sold it.
 
Since this has been resurrected (again and after a much briefer hiatus) :)

I got my M77 7x57 out to the range and back several times since I last posted. I got lucky. The rifle shoots like a jewel, consistently holding MOA or a little tighter.

The trigger is satisfactory, but I like my 721/722 triggers better. I've been tinkering with the idea of putting in an aftermarket trigger since this has become my default field gun.

I have a nice selection of other rifles, several of which I've had and been shooting for years, but the 7x57 is such a pleasant cartridge in the M77, fast, lethal, and positively pleasant to shoot.

I'll post some pics this weekend.

KR
 
More on M77 Trigers

SInce my last post, I have been playing with triggers. I decided to install a Timney adjustable on my Mk II .270, and it is sweet! Since I use the rifle primarily for hunting, I decided to go with a 3 lb. 4 oz. pull - up here in the North Country, gloves are often in order by late in the deer season. I am sticking with my favorite handloads, 150 gr. Nosler Partition pushed with 53.0 gr. of IMR 4350. With a cool barrel, both my wife and I often have 3 overlapping holes on a 5-shot group at 100 yds. She absolutely loved the trigger, so for her birthday in June, I put another Timney in her Mk II .243 lightweight. I loaded some 100gr. Hornady Interlocks for her, and the first group she printed was sub-1" at 100 yds. She also loves the trigger - almost NO take-up, breaks like glass, and no overtravel!

I then decided to try the Timney for my tang safety M77 in .257 Roberts - my favorite for deer, and also has done an antelope and a muley in MT. That has been another story - the fitting is nasty, and a fair amount of wood had to be taken out of the stock in order to fit the Timney parts. I'm still trying to get the bolt stop for the safety to function correctly. If I had it to do over again, I probably would stick with the Ruger action parts and just do a cleanup. I mainly didn't like the (long) overtravel on the factory trigger, and the adjustment didn't seem to yield a repeatable pull weight - up to 6 oz. variation from shot-to-shot when set where I like it. I plan to keep on working the Timney solution, as the gun is 1/4 moa with 115 gr. Nosler Partitions...
 
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