Such a difference in rifle and scope

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603Country

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For a while now I've neglected all my other rifles to work up loads and shoot the 223 (Ruger Hawkeye). It has a Leupold VX2 4-16 on it and it shoots pretty darn good with the 65 grain Sierra and now with the 40 gr Nosler BT. So, now that I have the two good loads that I wanted, I switched over to the 220 Swift (Ruger 77 tang safety with Douglas barrel and Leupold 6.5-20 scope with 30 mm tube). The 220 was worked over by a high level gunsmith some years ago. I necksized 3 rounds of the 220 (WW cases) to shoot and I was honestly shocked at the clarity of the scope and the perfect trigger. I put the 3 rounds into almost one hole. Effortless. I think I'll have the 223 worked over. Such a difference between straight factory and custom work.
 
Y'know, one time I had a heavy bbl Ruger 77 Varmint setup in .308. I couldn't get that thing to group to save my life. I wish I would have had the same insight as you and spent a little coin to get it right. I sure had a lot of hopes in that one.

And I'm glad to see folks post who still run the old .220 ctg. I don't have one, but that's not to say I wont someday. Thanks.
 
You are absolutely right. The scope is a 6-18 power. It replaces a Nikon Monarch 4-16 that died. I really do like that 6-18, but when I shoot the 220 with the VariX III 6.5-20, I am reminded how nice that VariX III is. And I hear that the newer versions are even better.
 
The first custom work I had done on a gun was I had action jobs done on a couple of Blackhawks. The difference was of course night and day and the guns were much more pleasant to shoot without all the weight and creep of the factory triggers. From that point on I knew I would never own another gun that didn't get worked on almost immediately, either by me or a competent 'smith or sometimes :o both.

As to scopes, I saved my pennies and bought a Nikon Buckmaster 6-18x40 with parallax adjustment recently for a new rifle and it knocked the shine right off of my Prostaff 3-9x40 I had on another rifle. So much so that I had to buy another Buckmaster for the other rifle because I couldn't bear to look through that Prostaff on it for one second longer :D

On the one hand it is nice to have nice stuff but on the other hand you start wanting all of your stuff to be nice. Or at least that's what happens to me.

-cls
 
frumious, I know exactly what you are talking about. My 'tuned up' rifles are really more enjoyable to shoot, and I think I'm going to get at least one more (or two more) of my other rifles tuned.
 
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