Ruger 77/44

[Denver]

Anyone have any experience with the 77/44 shooting cast boolits? I hear they're discontinued and they sure look like they would be a fun little rifle. Can't get any of my 44 Mag lever guns to shoot worth a damn, and I really like the cartridge.

Denver

[Bass Ackward]

Denver,

Yea we had one for about four years. It shot jacketed pretty well. But the problems with cast were basically two fold. The clip length limited the OAL below the generous proportions of the throat and barrel.

The barrel was a generous .431 which by itself was not insurmountable. The problem was that when they swelted on the front sight band, they got the heat so high that it actually shrank the bore diameter and scaled the steel. Then the barrel opened back up after the sight giving you a blunderbus effect. We tried to lap this out by hand but did not want to ruin the barrel. The difference was about .003. Since my wife shoots only scope, we just cut this off and back aways and recrowned. Then things improved dramatically.

2" was the best cast we could get after cutting off the barrel. We get that all the time and even better sometimes from our levers. So the little bolt hit the happy trail. The secret has been to go big in diameter (.434) which probably improves ignition while cutting down on the jump. Then a lot of things worked well.

HTHs

[26Charlie]

Denver - Yes, I picked up a used one with a 4x scope on it. I bought it for my grand-daughter (she was 2 at the time, 8 now- any excuse to buy a rifle, I know). I have settled on the SAECO 441 240 gr. GC with 23.0 gr. H-110, and the Lyman 429215 215 gr. GC with 25.0 gr. WW296.
Both these bullets have a short enough nose forward of the crimp groove so that they will function in hte magazine OK. Accuracy is 3 to 4" groups at 100 yd., which is reasonably good considering that the rifle is really light - lighter than a Win M94 lever action.
I have played around enough with the rifle, so in the next four years I'll give it to my grand-daughter.

[1Shirt]

Denver, I picked one up about 4 years ago, and shot it for awhile with open sights. Recently mounted a red dot on it using a b-square base. Sort of an ugly deal, but shoots respectivly well. I like the 310Lee GC. in mine, and seat it so that it feeds thrugh the magazine. I also use that bullet in my 444. Shoots well in both of them. With the Red Dot I can keep them well under 3" for 5 shots at 50 yds. which for me is adequate. One of these days will try it at 100. Good luck.
1Shirt :coffee: