Colorado Redneck
New member
Went to the gun shop and picked up a new Ruger Hawkeye Predator in .204 Ruger that came in on Friday. Took it home, fondled it for a while, then disassembled and cleaned and oiled, reassembled, and mounted a Leupold 6.5-20. Went to the range on Saturday. It was a really nice day, 40 degrees or so around noon but warmed up nicely. I had located and purchased a box of Hornady 45 gr. ammo to use for sighting in, so started with that. One round, cleaned the bore, another round-cleaned. Did that for the first five rounds, then started working up hand loads and cleaned after five rounds a couple of times, and then put the rest of my hand loads through it, kinda slow and easy. It was crowded at the range, and that is fine for breaking in a new rifle.
The first round (marked with a black marker) was at 25 yards---adjusted scope and moved target to a hundred. The second round is above the bullseye. Adjusted the scope. The next 3 rounds are circled. (Picture 002) Needless to say, I was grinning great big. I had struggled for a few years with another rifle in .204 that was like a rowdy spoiled kid---I liked it but I hated it. This one looks to be much different, thankfully.
I had worked up 3 different loads to try, and all 3 of them were very satisfactory. The best was probably 32 Vmax over Benchmark (Picture 001). All in all a great day at the range. Groups of 5 that measure 5/8 inch occurred several times. This should be a really fun varmint rifle. Put about 80 rounds thru it and grinned all the way home.
The stock is an attractive laminate, which on my specimen is predominately green (Picture 008). The fit and finish is very nice. The rifle feels very well balanced and the checkering will make it easy to carry around when shooting on government land. The matt stainless goes with the stock nicely. Ruger has a great web page, with videos available to help with disassembly, reassembly, cleaning, etc. That was a big help, because without the video I would never have disassembled the trigger mechanism. The front screw on the action is to be tightened to 95 inch pounds of torque to properly set the barrel/action on the stock. The video explained how an ordinary torque wrench can be used. The screws (trigger guard and front screw) are all allen screws--which is beyond great!
The match trigger is nice. Take up the slack, then the trigger breaks nice and crisp. I don't have a trigger scale, but it is nice and light. It reminds me of the accutrigger on my Savage. Didn't fool with adjusting it.
Ruger says you can shoot this rifle in single shot fashion without pushing the round into the magazine. I was shooting it that way, and the range master who was wandering around chatting with shooters, stopped by. He advised me to push the round into the magazine so the bolt could pick it up, and I told him that wasn't necessary. Evidently on older models that was necessary to do that to keep from snapping the extractor claws.
"To single-load: (Safety should be in “Load-Unload” position.) Place a cartridge directly into the chamber and close the bolt. If there are cartridges in the magazine and it is desired to single-load a cartridge directly into the chamber, depress the top cartridge and push the bolt forward until the bolt face is well ahead of the rim of the top cartridge in the magazine. Then, close the bolt." From the Owners Manual.
The only downers I found:
1. The barrel channel has some wood debris in it--looks like they didn't sand the channel well. The web page and the book warn NOT to fiddle with the barrel channel so I left the darn stuff.
2. The floor-plate latch on the magazine is very difficult to release. No chance of ever accidently emptying the mag on this one!
3. The bolt doesn't slide very smoothly like on my older M77 Mark II. That isn't a biggie, but is kind of distracting from an otherwise nicely done firearm.
I posted this so if anybody is looking for a personal experience with the Hawkeye Predator they might find it. I researched a lot on the internet before buying, and found very little substantive information. There were several reviews hacking on Ruger about various things, but only one professional review of this particular model and a few incidental posts on forums of personal experience.
Hope this helpful to somebody!
The first round (marked with a black marker) was at 25 yards---adjusted scope and moved target to a hundred. The second round is above the bullseye. Adjusted the scope. The next 3 rounds are circled. (Picture 002) Needless to say, I was grinning great big. I had struggled for a few years with another rifle in .204 that was like a rowdy spoiled kid---I liked it but I hated it. This one looks to be much different, thankfully.
I had worked up 3 different loads to try, and all 3 of them were very satisfactory. The best was probably 32 Vmax over Benchmark (Picture 001). All in all a great day at the range. Groups of 5 that measure 5/8 inch occurred several times. This should be a really fun varmint rifle. Put about 80 rounds thru it and grinned all the way home.
The stock is an attractive laminate, which on my specimen is predominately green (Picture 008). The fit and finish is very nice. The rifle feels very well balanced and the checkering will make it easy to carry around when shooting on government land. The matt stainless goes with the stock nicely. Ruger has a great web page, with videos available to help with disassembly, reassembly, cleaning, etc. That was a big help, because without the video I would never have disassembled the trigger mechanism. The front screw on the action is to be tightened to 95 inch pounds of torque to properly set the barrel/action on the stock. The video explained how an ordinary torque wrench can be used. The screws (trigger guard and front screw) are all allen screws--which is beyond great!
The match trigger is nice. Take up the slack, then the trigger breaks nice and crisp. I don't have a trigger scale, but it is nice and light. It reminds me of the accutrigger on my Savage. Didn't fool with adjusting it.
Ruger says you can shoot this rifle in single shot fashion without pushing the round into the magazine. I was shooting it that way, and the range master who was wandering around chatting with shooters, stopped by. He advised me to push the round into the magazine so the bolt could pick it up, and I told him that wasn't necessary. Evidently on older models that was necessary to do that to keep from snapping the extractor claws.
"To single-load: (Safety should be in “Load-Unload” position.) Place a cartridge directly into the chamber and close the bolt. If there are cartridges in the magazine and it is desired to single-load a cartridge directly into the chamber, depress the top cartridge and push the bolt forward until the bolt face is well ahead of the rim of the top cartridge in the magazine. Then, close the bolt." From the Owners Manual.
The only downers I found:
1. The barrel channel has some wood debris in it--looks like they didn't sand the channel well. The web page and the book warn NOT to fiddle with the barrel channel so I left the darn stuff.
2. The floor-plate latch on the magazine is very difficult to release. No chance of ever accidently emptying the mag on this one!
3. The bolt doesn't slide very smoothly like on my older M77 Mark II. That isn't a biggie, but is kind of distracting from an otherwise nicely done firearm.
I posted this so if anybody is looking for a personal experience with the Hawkeye Predator they might find it. I researched a lot on the internet before buying, and found very little substantive information. There were several reviews hacking on Ruger about various things, but only one professional review of this particular model and a few incidental posts on forums of personal experience.
Hope this helpful to somebody!
