Ruger 77/44 mold

[glockky]

Anyone found a good 270+grain mold for the ruger 77/44. I just picked up the rifle and read an article about someone having a LBT LFN mold that shot really good.

[Ben]

I wish you much better luck than I had with my 77/44.

I bought it new 2 yrs. ago, had zero luck with it with cast bullets and finally sold it.

I had hoped that it would make a nice woods rifle for my grandson as he grows up, but 4" dia. groups at 100 yds. didn't get it with me. I was offered within $100 of what I paid for it, I sold it and have no regrets.

I have a nice light weight Ruger 7 X 57 that will shoot inside an inch square at 100 yds., I guess if my grandson likes it, he can have it.

Ben

[Blammer]

270+ grains?

I have a 300+gr bullet that you have to single load that shoots well.

I do have a nice 265gr Ranch Dog mould that shoots well in my m77/44. These you can feed from the magazine.

[lead chucker]

I have had good luck with the lee 310 gr with 14.5 gr 2400, shot a few deer with it. My 77/44 first cold barrel shot is always on the money. After that it starts to wander off a bit. I can hit a two inch circle at 50 yards three out of five times It never has been real consistent. I size .430. It feeds good.

[glockky]

I have heard the lee 310 shoots good

[glockky]

It's starting to sound like these rifles don't shoot good. I have read fire lapping helps them alot

[dkf]

Maybe the 429640 solid?

For what Ruger charges for the 77/44 it should shoot good.

[glockky]

Yeah I agree with that. Seems like every article I have read about them has been different. Some get great accuracy usually with a heavier bullet and some claim they cant shoot under a 3" group. Well if nothing else it will be a fun project to try and get to shoot.

[Nazgul]

I have had good luck with the lee 310 gr with 14.5 gr 2400, shot a few deer with it. My 77/44 first cold barrel shot is always on the money. After that it starts to wander off a bit. I can hit a two inch circle at 50 yards three out of five times It never has been real consistent. I size .430. It feeds good.

My experience exactly. The 310 gr slug feeds from the mag, and is accurate to 50-75 yards. Not a benchrest gun but very good to carry in the woods. I like mine.

Don

[altheating]

I use a LBT 432 280 LFN, 2400 powder (not max load) and wolf primers in my 77/44. 2/1 wheel weight to pure. The barrel was lapped using LBT lapping compound. At 50 yards it will consistently shoot cloverleafs. 6" gongs at 100, 8" gongs at 150 yards and 12" gongs at 200 yards with holdover. I took a buck with the above load at 152 yards. The autopsy showed the bullet took out the left shoulder, exited behind the opposite shoulder. Both lungs showed a 2" wound channel and lots of "purple" color around the wound channel. I tried several other Boolits before the LBT mold was purchased. None of them were as good as the LBT design.

[glockky]

Well its good to hear something positive about the 77/44.

Those of you who said it would not shoot good did you try any jacketed bullets?

[dubber123]

I got one for my nephew. The Speer 270 gr. GD, which I believe is now the "Deep Curl" shot inside 3/4" at 50 yds with a 3X scope. I am sorry to say I never did much cast boolit work with it. Judging by the performance of the 270 Speer bullets, I can heartily recommend those..

[Blammer]

Last year, my brother head shot a deer at 200yds, with my Ruger M77/44 and 250gr RF boolit.

Yep, shot the right side horn off right at the brain area.

[glockky]

Was that what he was aiming at or was it a flyer lol

[Blammer]

The world will never know, because he doesn't know what he did. :)

[glockky]

Well today I loaded up the new 77/44 for the first trip to the range. I topped it with a 3X9X40 nikon pro staff and had 6 different loads of jacketed and cast bullets.

Well my experience with this rifle was no different than many of the others I have read about. The accuracy flat out sucked. Best groups I was able to get was with 240gr XTP's and 2400. This group was still around 3" at 50yds.

I never did even try to shoot 100yds today. My plan was to find a load that looked promising and move on from there. The barrel on my rifle slugged a little over .430. I used cast bullets sized to .431 cast out of 50/50 pure lead/WW air cooled. The cast bullet groups were horrible 5-6" at 50 yds. I was using the accurate 43-255R bullet which shoots fair in my marlin 44 and good in my ruger super blackhawk bisley.

I think part of the problem with this rifle is the stock being slammed tight with the barrel. Some loads seemed to group better after shooting 2-3 shots and the barrel warming up. I am determined to get this thing to shoot because I love the feel of the rifle but it looks like it could be a job.

I plan to try the lee 310gr bullets next time at the range. If that bullet does not work out I guess I will order a boys stock and lapping kit from lbt.

[Ben]

Ummm, sounds very familiar, that's the reason that I sold mine !

[glockky]

Yeah but i like a challenge Ben. This one may break me though. I just cant see what could cause it to be that inaccurate.

[Ben]

At 1st I thought mine was just a freak situation. Then I began reading more.

The more I read, the more I felt like I needed to move mine on.

I wish you the best, I hope you can make a " nail driver " out of it.

Ben

[Four-Sixty]

Shucks, I was hoping to see this take a more positive turn. This could be a fun woods rifle that could be cheap to shoot.

[dkf]

Any plans to bed the action and free float the barrel to see if accuracy increases?

[glockky]

Made my third trip to the range today with it after free floating the barrel.
I put it up for sale today to and might just trade it off for a loss. There is no reason any rifle should shoot this bad. My best group today shooting jacketed bullets was 4 1/2" at 65 yards.
When i tried to shoot 100yds i couldnt keep them on the paper. I shot a total of 170rds through this rifle which were all weighed charges consisting of 3 different jacketed bullets and 3 different cast bullets and 3 different kinds of powder. None of them showed any promise.

[dkf]

Don't blame you for unloading it.