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Strike 3 for Ruger...

Tried calling their customer service 7 different times over the course of 2 days and not once was I able to speak to a person. Kept navigating their menu and being told to please wait and the next available blah blah blah. Actually waited over a half hour one time before I lost my patience and hung up.

An interesting side note...

I've had my eye on this rifle for well over a year. I spent some time reading reviews and checking up on pricing and availability from multiple sources before I bought this rifle. One of those sources was Davidson's. In 300 Win Mag, the rifle was out of stock more than it was in stock with most of the suppliers, so when I saw they had 6 in stock I figured it was time to move on it. The interesting part of this story, for me anyway, is that a quick lookup through the Ruger website revealed that this rifle shipped from their factory in 2018.

How and why does a rifle that is more often than not "out of stock" with suppliers float around unnoticed in the system for the better part of two or more years?

I have my suspicions, but would like to hear what others think.

Thanks for reading :)
Man, that sucks to hear, first time I have ever heard anything neg. with them!

As far as sitting around or floating in the system, not likely, What likely happened was it got packaged up at Ruger and then sat in Rugers warehouse for that time, very unlikely if it went to Davidson's it would get lost or held back, they move a ton through there and there isn't room for things to sit around gathering dust! Only way things end up sitting around at their end is if there is a big recall, or a series of very bad reviews hit and vendors stop or return orders, and that's pretty rare!
 
Damn man it sounds like you have had the worst luck, a shame too as I have had good luck with Ruger customer service in the past.

here's to hoping things start looking up for you as $1000 for a rifle is no small chunk of change.
 
Finally got a real person on the phone from Ruger. Initially, they maintained that their only responsiblity was to cover shipping for the initial purchaser. After explaining that I bought the rifle new, they seemed a bit confused as to why I didn't register it with them until now. I explained again that I had just purchased the rifle new from my local dealer. Long story short, they sent me a pre-paid shipping label and scheduled a pick up for this coming Monday.
 
Well, once again curiosity got the better of me a month or so ago. I'd seen a number of very positive reviews on the Ruger Hawkeye Long Range Target (LRT) and figured I'd give one a spin just to see if it was everything the shills made it out to be. So, I plopped down the cash at my LGS and told them to order me one in 300 Win Mag. Finally got around to picking it up today and gave it the once over. For anyone looking for a range report, you won't find it here, so move along folks, nothing here to see...

Anyone left? I'll pretend there is and keep typing away on this ridiculously tiny keyboard on my phone.

After the unboxing and requisite inspecting, fondling, cycling and dry firing I was left, oddly enough, both a little bit happy and a little bit sad at the same time.

The Happy:
It's got a Goldilocks recoil pad. Not too hard, not too soft but just right.
It comes with two stock extensions to adjust length of pull.
The stippling on the stock was another Goldilocks win. Not too smooth, not too rough but just right.
All of the parts that are supposed to be metal are in fact metal...no plastic where it doesn't belong.
All of the metal parts have a nice, uniform flat black/charcoal grey finish.
It has a nice section of M-Lock rail inletted into the bottom of the forend.
And so ends The Happy...

The Sad:
It comes equipped with an adjustable riser that is a mechanical mess. Looks simple enough, and in truth it is. It uses the friction generated by a cam/lever setup which isn't inherently a bad thing. Not great, but not bad either. Unfortunately, the way it's designed makes it reliant on the stock being of uniform thickness through the length of its travel. It's not. To adjust fore and aft requires opening the lever and then turning the cam lever in or out as much as 3/4 of a turn.
View attachment 712445
View attachment 712446
The action runs about as smoothly as my Ruger American Predator, but without the annoying "zzzzzzzzzzt" noise caused by sloppy machine work. I fully expect it will smooth out with repeated use.
The trigger is just as much a mechanical mess as the stock riser. It's supposedly a two stage target trigger. The first stage is flawless, easy take up to a nice solid wall. From there, it's all downhill. The second stage has some very noticeable creep and the break, which instead of being a nice crisp "Snap" is more of a mushy drawn out "thhhuuunk". All of the above is followed by an unadvertised third stage known as over travel. And in an amount that can only be described as excessive...very very excessive.
The plastic magazine... either it's slightly too wide or the magazine well is slightly too narrow. In either case, according to a very accurate load cell, it takes an average of 15.3 pounds of force to seat the magazine. They had to know this since the rifle shipped with the magazine inserted.
The inletting for the QD mounts and the bottom rail are sloppy, with fairly extensive gaps between metal and wood. Screws even come with some factory installed schmutz...
View attachment 712447
Like mounting a dime in a penny sized hole. I haven't worked up the guts to dismount the action to check on what's going on with the inletting inside the stock... yet.
Speaking of gaps, the wood laminate is visible along one side of those gaps on both sides of the stock. Looks like the base finish was sprayed on from only one direction.
View attachment 712448
The barrel channel. Hmmmm... everything I've read indicates that the barrel is free floating. And NOPE!. Approximately the first 2 inches from the receiver is free, then there is about 3/4 of an inch that has solid contact between the barrel and the barrel channel. There is no contact from that point on out to the end of the barrel channel.
View attachment 712449

And so ends The Sad.

Granted, a grand isn't a lot of money these days, it's a sample size of one, this may very well have been a Friday at 4:55 PM rifle, and YMMV...

With any luck it'll perform well enough to offset my initial disappointment.
The Ruger Precision Rifle has the same riser 'mechanics'. Obviously Ruger has not learned, or heard, that this system sucks. Requires you to lift your head so you can adjust the cam lever to fit your face. Then test it and lift your head to fine adjust it. Nice looking rifle though.
 
Just had an interesting conversation with a tech from Ruger...

Per their tech:
1. The barrel channel is correct and not interfering with the barrel at all. The contact I'm feeling in front of the face of the receiver is the "chamber support". More on this below.
2. He's going to "go ahead and replace those screws, even though the rifle is over 2 years old".
3. The finish on the stock is "fine". He can send it out and have it refinished, but the new finish is probably going to get dinged up when they put the screws back in it.
4. The riser is "fine" and that's the way it's supposed to be.
5. The trigger is fine. He tested it and didn't feel any creep or overtravel. Then tried to tell me how a two stage trigger works and why my finger, brain and trigger pull gauge are all lying to me.

On the barrel channel: To my mind, a "free floated" barrel shouldn't make contact with the stock at any point. The only reason I can think of to have a "chamber support" in the barrel channel is if the barrel profile makes it too heavy for the receiver to provide adequate support on it's own. Not one of the "heavy barrel" long range rifles I own uses one. Makes me wonder if Ruger has some doubt about the strength of the M-77 action...

Any who, I told the tech to box it up and send it back and that I'll take care of it from there.

I'd consider the whole experience a waste of time, but I did learn that Ruger's customer service isn't remotely impressive by my standards.
 
Just had an interesting conversation with a tech from Ruger...

Per their tech:
1. The barrel channel is correct and not interfering with the barrel at all. The contact I'm feeling in front of the face of the receiver is the "chamber support". More on this below.
2. He's going to "go ahead and replace those screws, even though the rifle is over 2 years old".
3. The finish on the stock is "fine". He can send it out and have it refinished, but the new finish is probably going to get dinged up when they put the screws back in it.
4. The riser is "fine" and that's the way it's supposed to be.
5. The trigger is fine. He tested it and didn't feel any creep or overtravel. Then tried to tell me how a two stage trigger works and why my finger, brain and trigger pull gauge are all lying to me.

On the barrel channel: To my mind, a "free floated" barrel shouldn't make contact with the stock at any point. The only reason I can think of to have a "chamber support" in the barrel channel is if the barrel profile makes it too heavy for the receiver to provide adequate support on it's own. Not one of the "heavy barrel" long range rifles I own uses one. Makes me wonder if Ruger has some doubt about the strength of the M-77 action...

Any who, I told the tech to box it up and send it back and that I'll take care of it from there.

I'd consider the whole experience a waste of time, but I did learn that Ruger's customer service isn't remotely impressive by my standards.

this pisses me off and it's not even my rifle.

free floated means exactly that...no excuses.

if the tech can't figure out over travel and creep on a target rifle they need to look for a job elsewhere

They shouldn't be dinging a damn stock up to install effing screws!!!!! What are they using a damn mallet?!?!
 
this pisses me off and it's not even my rifle.

free floated means exactly that...no excuses.

if the tech can't figure out over travel and creep on a target rifle they need to look for a job elsewhere

They shouldn't be dinging a damn stock up to install effing screws!!!!! What are they using a damn mallet?!?!

Thankfully, it's nothing I can't fix myself, but with the recent uptick in business on the ranch it's going to have to wait until I can get one or two more hands hired and trained.
 
I would surely shoot it first before messing with the channel support or what ever he called it.

I did the same thing to a stock rifle one removing the contact before the chamber. It shot like crap, it was a Savage 308. I never shot it in it's original state so I could not say how it shot before. They called me the tech was really nice in telling me how much of a bone head I was. He didn't really but that's how I felt. They actually put a new stock on knowing I had sanded on the old. With nothing changed my 200 yard groups went from 5inch groups down to .7 to 1.2in groups depending on how I did that day.

From that point on I adopted a practice of shooting first before doing anything. Not taking up for Ruger but they spend a lot of money on R&D engineering, sometimes they get it right sometimes they do not.

Please let us know how it comes out.
 
I would surely shoot it first before messing with the channel support or what ever he called it.

I did the same thing to a stock rifle one removing the contact before the chamber. It shot like crap, it was a Savage 308. I never shot it in it's original state so I could not say how it shot before. They called me the tech was really nice in telling me how much of a bone head I was. He didn't really but that's how I felt. They actually put a new stock on knowing I had sanded on the old. With nothing changed my 200 yard groups went from 5inch groups down to .7 to 1.2in groups depending on how I did that day.

From that point on I adopted a practice of shooting first before doing anything. Not taking up for Ruger but they spend a lot of money on R&D engineering, sometimes they get it right sometimes they do not.

Please let us know how it comes out.

My process for all new rifles includes 25 rounds at 100 yards after initial inspection, disassembly, cleaning and reassembly. I use a mechanical rest during part of that process so I have no contact with the rifle during firing. The first 5 rounds are fired down range just to get the rifle and scope on paper, test functionality, and to get things "seated". Then the rifle is cleaned and allowed to sit overnight, which is the normalization process i use throughout this initial testing. The next 5 rounds are from the mechanical rest. These are fired at 90 second intervals, also at 100 yards and at high magnification. The rifle is cleaned and normalized overnight, then the previous days firing sequence is repeated without the mechanical rest from a bipod with me at the controls. The rifle is cleaned and normalized overnight. The next 5 rounds are again from the mechanical rest. They are also fired at 100 yards and at high magnification, but are fired at 10 second intervals. Again, the rifle is cleaned and normalized overnight. As before, the next 5 rounds are a repeat of the previous days firing sequence without the mechanical rest, from a bipod and with me at the controls.

The results of the above testing give me a good indication of which areas need attention and which areas the factory got right.
 
AWESOME love to see the groups it shot in this process then the after your work is done. I just have a tech mind like that, it would be so cool to see.

I'll post up what it does.

Fair warning: Business on the ranch has been rapidly ticking up since all the covid-19 nonsense set in. I'm running full tilt and then some from before sunup until after sundown hiring and training extra hands to try to keep up with it. So, it's probably going to be a good while before I have a chance to do anything with it.
 
Got it back from Ruger today. They replaced the stock, cheek riser (they included the original riser in the box), backbottom metal, magazine and trigger.

There are no bare spots on the stock, the magazine is a lot easier to insert and remove and the trigger is better than the one that they replaced. Not great, but better.

They availed themselves of the opportunity to test fire it while they had it. They fired 5 rounds of 180Gr Federal Fusion and got a 7/8" group. They included a photocopy of the target. When I pulled out the copy I figured that wasn't bad considering Fusion isn't "top shelf" factory load. I unfolded the copy all the way. That group was at 50 yards. :confused:
 
Finally got a chance to put some rounds through it yesterday and today. As I suspected from looking at the target the factory shot, it's stringing shots to the left, but the group is much tighter than I expected given the 7/8 of an inch group at 50 yards the factory got out of it.

Top group in the photo below was from the mechanical rest. Bottom group is from a BOG DeathGrip. Impacts are numbered in the order fired. Disregard the 1 verticle and 2 horizontal lines intersecting the groups... that was my granddaughter playing with Pop Pop's straight edge. Distance was a measured 100 yards. Test ammo was Federal Premium Terminal Ascent 200gr ballistic tip (P300WTA1) which seems to be a very consistent performer in all of my 300 Win Mag rifles.

After the second group was fired I pulled the stock and found that the "chamber support" is actually only touching the barrel from bottom center to not quite full center on the left. 20200821_131316.jpg That kinda makes up my mind regarding removing it.
 
Nice group. If you hate the trigger consider aftermarket Timney. On the stock, I would replace it with a chassis, but that's just me. Not everyone likes the cold aluminum.
 

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