Ruger 30-'06 barrels

[Marlin Junky]

Can anyone provide Ruger '06 internal barrel dimensions? According to Ruger's website, their '06 barrels have 6 grooves which is two more than my Pre-64 M70... which can't be bad news for bullet casters. How are Ruger '06 chamber throats? Are they pretty compatible with the popular molds from SAECO, RCBS and Lyman?

Thanks,
MJ

[Ricochet]

My .30-06 M77 is a 1984 model, so may not be indicative of current Rugers' barrels. Beautiful rifle that never has shot very accurately. I think it's due to barrel channel bedding issues. The explanations given online have always been that the barrels were crap.

[76 WARLOCK]

I had a Ruger M-77 270 made in the 70's that would shoot 1/2" gruops at 100 yds. I wish I had it back, I have a pre64 M-70 270 that will only get 1 1/2" groups.

[Shiloh]

My .30-06 M77 is a 1984 model, so may not be indicative of current Rugers' barrels. Beautiful rifle that never has shot very accurately. I think it's due to barrel channel bedding issues. The explanations given online have always been that the barrels were crap.

Ditto This.

Mine is the same vintage. Same Story. The factory trigger does nothing to enhance accuracy either. Haven't fired it in years.

Shiloh

[GrizzLeeBear]

Ricochet, Shiloh, I'm not familiar with the M77, but can't you free float the barrel?

[docone31]

With my Ruger, in 06, I took out the action, cut a circle of rubber inner tube, cut an hole and used it to raise the front of the action, just a tad.
Made an huge difference!
Just that little bit.
I did not need to bed the entire action. I wish I still had that rifle also.

[Bullshop]

In my own experiance with a number of Rugers the older barrels were not so hot. Some would shoot decently but most were crap. As I understand it Ruger used to job out the barrel making and the job went to the lowest bidder. Dont we see the same crap quality today in about everything jobbed out to cheaper foregn manufacture?
Anyway as I understand it Ruger was the first US manufacturer to begin hammer forging barrels. Since that time they have had greatly increased barrel quality. All the newer hammered barrels I have tried have shot very well. I provide a custom loading service so get to shoot many more than my own so have messed with a good number of them.
I tend to now stay away from any tang safty guns but the newer mk11's with the mod70 type three position safty will have the hammered barrels. Same deal for the #1's but I dont know when the serial # started with hammered barrels. I just know if they have the red but pad they are older.
Now before anyone jumps at the chance to prove me wrong I aint stating this as gospel, its just the way I understand it, OK! Most often my understanding exists in a universe totally sepperate from and not subject to the laws of the one yall are acustomed to.
Blessings
BIC/BS

[runfiverun]

i got the same story as bullshop
even after they started making their own bbls there was a period where they were still outsourcing.
their new stuff 77-2's have pretty tight chambers and short throats.
and the hawkeye i have in 358 is chambered more to the middle of spec and it's throat is a bit short.

ain't scared to buy a ruger.
just buy a long action in the older ones so you can re-barell it in 7x57 if it don't shoot.

[Shiloh]

Ricochet, Shiloh, I'm not familiar with the M77, but can't you free float the barrel?

Probably.

Haven't looked at it in a while. It couldn't hurt. The idea of having to rebarrel a rifle that has only about 120 round through it kind of galls me. :-(

Shiloh

[Marlin Junky]

the hawkeye i have in 358 is chambered more to the middle of spec and it's throat is a bit short.

Really?! My .358 Hawkeye seems to have a long throat. Both SAECO 356 and RCBS 35-200 seat out to just barely cover their lube groove with a 2.01" case.

So, back on topic... what about the '06 barrels Ruger uses on their #1. Does the possibility exist these days of buying a new #1 in 30-'06 that'll shoot 1MOA at 2500 fps?

MJ

[NHlever]

In my own experiance with a number of Rugers the older barrels were not so hot. Some would shoot decently but most were crap. As I understand it Ruger used to job out the barrel making and the job went to the lowest bidder. Dont we see the same crap quality today in about everything jobbed out to cheaper foregn manufacture?
Anyway as I understand it Ruger was the first US manufacturer to begin hammer forging barrels. Since that time they have had greatly increased barrel quality. All the newer hammered barrels I have tried have shot very well. I provide a custom loading service so get to shoot many more than my own so have messed with a good number of them.
I tend to now stay away from any tang safty guns but the newer mk11's with the mod70 type three position safty will have the hammered barrels. Same deal for the #1's but I dont know when the serial # started with hammered barrels. I just know if they have the red but pad they are older.
Now before anyone jumps at the chance to prove me wrong I aint stating this as gospel, its just the way I understand it, OK! Most often my understanding exists in a universe totally sepperate from and not subject to the laws of the one yall are acustomed to.
Blessings
BIC/BS

Just to clarify the barrel issue: When I went to work for Ruger in 1971 all M77, and No. 1 barrels came from Douglas, and were excellent quality. The early M77's with the "flat bolt" had these barrels. As production ramped up, demand became more than Douglas could supply, and so a change was made to Wilson barrels on the M77's, but the No.1's continued to use Douglas barrels for a number of years. Wilson was the only supplier that I am aware of, and their quality was good at times, but inconsistant. Some barrels were pretty rough, and would foul easily. Ruger has a quantity of hammer forging machines now, and the guy that has been with that project from the beginning is meticulous, and very quality concious. He produces an excellent barrel. The last I knew ( I retired nearly two years ago now) there were still some aftermarket barrels (Green Mountain) being used on the 10-22, and perhaps the Mini-14 when production demands outstriped the capacity of the Hammer forging area. Super Redhawk, and Single action barrels are hammer forged too, though because of their shape, Redhawk, SP-101, and GP-100 barrels are not. Those barrels are bored, reamed, and broach rifled (cut) in house. They do take the extra step of broaching the bore after it is drilled, and before the rifling broach is pulled through so all the tool marks go in the direction of bullet travel. As you can tell by looking at them, all 10-22 target barrels are hammer forged.

As a side note, hammer forged barrels get smaller on the muzzle end when you turn a taper on them, so that is programmed into the hammer forging operation. Then when the barrels are turned they come out the same dimension from end to end. If you further reduce the muzzle diameter though, you may end up with a "choked" barrel. We were doing some prototype work on a .22 project once, and found that although the gun we were working on shot very well, it was a little heavier than expected. We turned a more "sporting" taper on the barrel, and were surprised when the gun shot even tighter groups. When we air gaged the barrel out of curiousity, we found that the muzzle end was two, or three "tenths" smaller than it was before. Button rifled barrels, on the other hand get bigger when they are turned since the internal stresses in the steel are put in from the inside. In my mind, that explains why Marlin barrels are often somewhat oversized, and can be slightly larger at the muzzle.
OK, enough rambling.....

Edit: I'm not trying to prove anyone wrong here, but there are a lot of rumors floating around about Ruger barrels. I just wanted to clear up the misconceptions.

[NHlever]

Probably.

Haven't looked at it in a while. It couldn't hurt. The idea of having to rebarrel a rifle that has only about 120 round through it kind of galls me. :-(

Shiloh

(2) areas to look at in the bedding on an M77 are just behind the forend tip, and just ahead of the front action screw. Sometimes the inletting process left a little "bump" in the middle of the barrel channel behind the forend tip. My fairly new M77MKII had one. The barrel tends to move from one side of the bump to the other in firing, and the groups reflect that. If you hear a "squeak" when you move the barrel side to side by hand, you probably have that issue. A couple of file strokes, or a quick touch with a Dremel will cure that in a hurry. (groups in my gun went from over 1 1/2" to 3/4") When the older M77's were inletted, the action area, and barrel channel were done in different operations. To allow for any mismatch, some guns had the area just ahead of the front take down screw relieved a bit. Since that front screw is at 45 degrees, that can put a strain on the barrel / action junction. Putting some support in there, or in some cases, just tightening the rear action screw fully first will make a difference in how the gun shoots. I have sometimes cut shims from a soda can, or old credit card just to see if that was the problem. Good luck with your gun!

[dbldblu]

I have a Ruger #1 of late 90's vintage in 30-06. I thought it would be a good cast boolit gun and it is after a fashion. If your boolits are the least bit oversize and you have only your thumb to chamber the rounds, you will not have a fun day at the range. I wound up making several tools to facilitate chambering cast boolit rounds into the rifle. One was a seating device which cammed the round into the chamber. Another was a nose die for my Lyman boolit sizer which squeezed the noses to exactly .300". The rifle is a good boolit shooter; my best ever group was 10 rounds in 15/16" at 100 yards.

[45-70marlin]

I have had a few ruger 77's, the only one that would not shoot good was a old model that was in 7x57. I could not keep it min. of paper plate no matter what I used in it. all the other 77's were mk2. I beded the actions and went about 1" or so in front of the lug area, then would hand lap barrel. those rifles would shoot 1/2" to 3/4" groups. all were 30-06.A side note about Ruger, I had a new 77mk2 ss that I lost in a house fire 3 years ago. didnt has insurance or a gun safe.[I know,I was stupid not to have a safe and in S.C. you cant get fire insurance on a older mobile home] any way I called Ruger and they told me to send in remains of rifle and they would see what they could do. well, they said they would replace the rifle at cost. I told them my daughter bought me a new rifle in 06 so I asked if I could get a no1 in 45-70? It took a few days for a decision and they said yes and sent to my ffl guy a new no.1 45-70 for $475.00!! I have bought many Ruger products before the fire and will continue because they were so good to me during a rough time in my life. You cant beat that for service! By the way, I lost 8 rifles in the fire, and 2 leupold scopes. Leupold also did the same as Ruger did! these are just great companys to work with.

[docone31]

I had a Ruger #1 in 375 H&H that on the first shot, the wrist exploded!
I sent it to them with the factory rounds I had that day.
They repaired it without charge.
I agree, Ruger has done me straight.
My M77MKII in 25-06 needed bedding work. I did the inner tube trick I do, and it was the dead on repair.
Now, the rings.....
I had to grind one side, and shim the other with business card stock to get to where I could adjust the scope at all.
I never tried contacting them on that.
Maybe I should.
I never noticed it untill I got to the range. The scope was so far off windage I had to be blind to not see it.
Simple things.....

[kir_kenix]

I had a 2002 or '03 vintage 77 30-06 (at least thats when i bought it, lord knows how long it was at the shops). The barrel was pretty rough, and the throat was very short. It was a decent shooter with jacketed ammo, but god awful terrible with cast. I'm sure I could have smoothed out the throat and barrel, and played with the bedding/scope mount, but I traded it before i got too serious with it.

My younger brother has it as a truck gun now (traded it back from the friend I traded it to). I'll ask him sometime how it shoots, and if a few hundred more rounds have smoothed that bore up for cast or not.

I would deff check out a Ruger before I bought it as a cast gun (barrel, throat, bases). It was probably a 2" legit gun with jacketed ammo, but I never unlocked the secrets of accurate cast loads in it. I hope that my gun was not representative of all Rugers, but my 77 was nothing to write home about. I would like a 458 lott or .375 ruger tho...

[Doughty]

It has been my experience that while the barrels themselves are not necessarily so bad, that they are chambered so oversize that it is difficult to fit cast bullets to them. Of course this is a problem with many factory chambered firearms.

[akraven]

This thread came up with perfect timing. NHLever thank you for the information about the early Rugers. Would you suspect a '75 era one to have the Douglas or Wilson barrel ? Thank you akraven

[Marlin Junky]

Well, I guess the $64 question is:

If a fellow wanted a nice '06 to shoot nuthin but cast in, what should he buy? I'll continue to fiddle with my Pre-64 M70 but its 4-groove barrel doesn't do HV.

MJ