Ruger M77 Hawkeye Hunter

The Ruger M77 Hawkeye’s long lineage began back in 1968 with the original M77 made with an aluminum floorplate and trigger guard, two-position safety on the tang and an action that looked like – but wasn’t – a true controlled-round feed. A redesign of the M77 into the Mark II in 1989 turned it into a true controlled-round action with a large extractor that fastened to a cartridge as it was stripped from the magazine and included a blade ejector, a three-position wing safety located near the tang and hammer-forged barrels. A facelift of the Mark II in 2006 resulted in the third generation M77 Hawkeye with a slimmer stock and new LC6 trigger. Today, the Hawkeye remains Ruger’s flagship bolt-action rifle in 10 models from the Compact to the African.

The Hawkeye Hunter is the newest model. The Hunter is available with a short action in 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5 PRC and .308 Winchester. A standard length action is chambered in .30-06 or .300 Winchester Magnum.

The Hunter’s stock is made of straight-grain American walnut with a straight comb and checkering on a slender grip and forearm contrasting with bright stainless steel metal right down to the trigger guard and hinged floorplate.

The Hunter I’ve shot over the last several months was chambered in .30-06. It accurately shot a variety of factory and handloaded cartridges. No matter if its barrel was clean or sat dirty for a week, its first shot of the day landed in the same place as did subsequent bullets.

Usually when testing a rifle for accuracy, I first fire a couple cartridges to season the bore by blowing out remaining cleaning solvent, oil or hardened fouling. Testing the Hunter, I started right in shooting groups. I have always wondered why some rifles place their first shot where it’s aimed while others require a few warmup shots. A fairly-heavy barrel helps. The Hunter’s is 1.15 inches in diameter in front of its receiver and tapers to .66 inch then flares slightly to .71 inch to match the diameter of the thread protector cap on the muzzle. Other factors include a tight lockup of barrel and receiver, and the receiver should be correctly bedded in the stock.

The Hawkeye’s receiver is on the heavy and large size with a flat bottom and 1.40-inch diameter receiver ring to house the external extractor, which requires a deep right raceway, two flat side rails and a closed bridge. The breach end of the barrel is bedded against the bottom of the stock’s barrel channel for about 1.75 inches. The remainder of the barrel is free-floated.

A portion of the bottom of the bolt face rim is milled flush with the bolt face so a cartridge rim slips under the extractor as it’s stripped the last way out of the magazine. This controls the cartridge from the moment its stripped from the magazine and it, or a fired case, is extracted and a blade ejects it. A slow pull on the bolt knocks a case free of the extractor so it remains on top of the follower or falls out of the ejection port. A hard pull throws it well clear of the rifle.

Often, a cartridge would jam when its bullet tip hit the flat face of the barrel breach after the cartridge had been dropped loosely on top of the magazine follower and pushed toward the chamber by the closing bolt. Even when an unsupported cartridge did go into the chamber, a hard downward push on the bolt handle was often required for the extractor to snap over its rim. However, cartridges loaded into the Hunter’s magazine fed and chambered without a hitch when they were stripped from the magazine and held by the extractor all the way through the firing cycle, just like a controlled-round action is intended to operate.

To keep the bolt running smoothly, the left locking lug rides in a raceway inside the receiver and a guide rib on the middle of bolt rides on top of the left cartridge support rail. The bolt cycled somewhat roughly because the raceway and rail were fairly rough as the rifle came from its factory box. Bolt travel was smoothed up considerably after the bolt had been cycled several hundred times.

The Hunter’s barrel is hammer forged with 5R rifling, with lands that have angular sides. This type of lands is supposed to deform bullet jackets less than conventional sharp-edge lands and reduce fouling at the corner of the grooves. After the rifle had been fired 50 times or so, I peered into its bore with a Lyman digital borescope. The bore was black with powder-fouling. A few solvent-soaked patches pushed through the bore fairly-well removed the fouling. Copper fouling remained on the top of the lands, mostly at the start of the rifling and near the muzzle. Several patches wet with Montana Extreme Bore Solvent pushed through the bore, followed by an hour wait and 20 passes with a bronze bore brush, removed most of the copper. The bore looked smooth from end to end, except for one small area with some crosswise tool marks.

A receiver’s ability to absorb recoil depends on the size and position of its recoil lug. The Ruger’s recoil lug is relatively shallow and lies under the receiver ring. The lug transfers recoil energy to an inch-thick block of wood between the recoil lug mortise and the opening for the magazine. The .300 Winchester Magnum is the largest cartridge chambered in the Hawkeye Hunter, and its recoil is handled well by this arrangement. Hawkeye African models chambered in .375 and .416 Ruger, though, are made with crossbolts in their stocks to withstand recoil.

The Hawkeye’s flat bottom receiver beds to the stock along nearly two square inches beneath the receiver ring. Tightening the front guard screw pulls the recoil lug down and to the rear into the stock mortise, where it fits flat against the stock. The instruction manual for the Hawkeye states this screw should be tightened to 95 inch-pounds. Vertical guard screws at the tang and behind the magazine well should be tightened to 45 to 60 inch-pounds. Old Ruger M77 rifles shot more accurately with the middle guard screw only gently tightened because fastening the screw too tightly bowed the receiver and caused groups to widen.

To determine if the tightness of the Hawkeye’s middle action screw altered accuracy, I fired two, three-shot groups with it tight and two more groups with it only snug. With the screw firmly screwed in, two groups averaged 1.09 inches shooting SIG Sauer Elite Performance 175-grain OTM bullets. Two groups averaged 1.60 inches with the screw only snug. With the screw torqued back to 60 inch-pounds, a final group measured .71 inch.

These days much of a rifle’s accuracy is attributed to complex bedding of the receiver to synthetic stocks manufactured of materials as rigid as railroad rail. There are also aluminum frames to cradle the whole receiver, or at a minimum, pillars to hold receiver screws in inflexible contact with a receiver, glass bedding of a stock’s entire inletting or at least around the recoil lug. The Hunter’s receiver-to-stock bedding, though, is only steel against plain wood.

The Hunter comes with a 20 minute of angle Picatinny rail fastened to the top of the receiver with four 8-40 screws. Rails are all the fashion because nearly any clamp on mount attaches to them. But the rail covers the slots machined into the top of the receiver to mount Ruger’s traditional integral scope mounts, one of the best features of Ruger M77 rifles for 50 years. The rail sits up fairly high on the receiver and I used low clamp on scope rings to mount a Meopta Meopro 3.5-10x 44mm scope. Even with the low rings, the Meopta’s objective bell sat high above the barrel. The addition of the scope and mounts brought the 7-pound, 8-ounce basic weight of the Hunter up to an even 9 pounds.

The Hawkeye Hunter’s accuracy was excellent for a pure hunting rifle. The average group size was 1.07 inches at 100 yards for two, three-shot groups with five factory loads. Adding the two handloads, average group size shrank to .913 inch.

That average might have been a touch tighter, except for the rifle’s LC6 trigger. The trigger had no creep or overtravel. However, its 4-pound, 10-ounce pull weight was distracting when trying to hold the scope’s reticle steady on a target. There is no mention of adjustment for the trigger in the instruction manual.

The Hunter’s straight-grain American walnut is old-school classic with a straight comb, somewhat slender grip and 10.5-inch long forearm. Point-pattern checkering panels on the sides of the grip, wrap-around checkering on the forearm and flutes on the nose of the comb contribute to the stock’s good looks. A half-inch thick red recoil pad, hard as a tractor tire, caps the butt.

The comb could be somewhat higher and still allow for removing the bolt. That would have been nice, as the Meopta scope sat high enough on the rifle that I had to nearly put my jaw on top of the comb to align my eye behind the scope. The addition of a sandbag alongside the comb helped support my cheek on the comb while shooting off a bench with the rifle supported on front and rear rests.

From that support, I shot Berger 150-grain FB Target bullets handloaded with Shooters World Precision Rifle and Match Rifle powders. The only extra preparation for the handloads was seating the bullets .004 inch short of contacting the rifling in the Hunter’s barrel.

The Precision Rifle handload grouped three of the Berger bullets in .69 inch and three more in .87 inch at 100 yards. Shifting to a target at 300 yards, three bullets formed a 1.31-inch group, and three more bullets produced a 1.43-inch group. In minutes of angle, those 300-yard groups were tighter than the 100-yard groups. It’s been quite some time since I’ve shot tighter groups at 300 yards with any hunting rifle.

The Match Rifle powder and Berger bullet handload provided three-shot groups measuring 1.02 inches and .76 inch at 100 yards. I clamped a Harris bipod to the Hunter’s front swivel stud and wiggled into a comfortable prone position behind the rifle to shoot that handload at 300 yards. The scope’s reticle wandered some then settled on a target. The first three bullets landed in a 3.71-inch circle and the following three in 3.04 inches.

All the credit for that accuracy goes to Ruger for refining its M77 hunting rifle for 52 years, with the Hawkeye Hunter the epitome of that evolution. Its barrel never wavered, providing great accuracy from a cold first shot through constant shooting. The controlled-round feed action never bobbled a cartridge or fired case and its three-position wing safety provided the utmost in safety. The Hunter’s slender walnut stock gathers it all into a good-looking hunting rifle.