Who says the Ruger M77 MKII is inaccurate because the trigger sucks?

L

Longdayjake

New member
I thought about putting this in the Gunsmithing section, but it has some general rifle issues that I think may be useful to those that just can't get their rifles to work.

Well, about 7 months ago I bought a Ruger M77 MKII in .30-06 for $300 from a guy. He was asking me how to put iron sights on it because he just couldn't get it to group with his scope. I instantly offered him $300 bucks for it and he accepted. Turns out that he was frustrated with the trigger, and the poor groups he was getting. Well, the first thing I noticed when he dropped it off was that the scope was a cheap bushnell. Nothing against you Bushnell believers, but 99% of the time a gun won't hold a zero I find a Bushnell on top of it. The second thing I noticed when I went to change the scope was that the screws were so tight I had a REALLY hard time getting them loose. Upon removing the scope I found that he had crushed the tube a little. Hopefully you can see this in the picture.


IMG_1886.jpg


Anyway, I own a new m77 hawkey with the LC6 trigger which is pretty good though not perfect but I noticed that the trigger on this .30-06 was horrid. So, after a little web research, I did a little trigger job of my own. I cut the trigger spring down little by little and polished the sear and the trigger to a bright shine. Then I shaved just a little off the trigger to lessen the angle just a tad and all of the sudden I had a 2 1/2 lb trigger instead of the heavy 6-7 lb. There is still the slightest amount of creep but I am not confident enough of my ability to try and get rid of it. Some time later I will drill and tap a screw through the trigger guard to get rid of over travel but all in all I am very pleased with the result. Total work took about 30 minutes. In about 5 minutes I'm going to take it out and see how it groups.

Oh and I took the skeleton stock off of it and replaced it with a discontinued BOYD's thumbhole. Oh and I replaced the Bushnell with a VXIII 2.5x8 Leupold.

Picture.jpg
 
Be sure to do a full safety check after that trigger work.

Ruger designed the M77 Mk II trigger to be non-adjustable and tamper-proof. It is extremely difficult to change the amount of engagement, or the angle of engagement without making the rifle slam fire. You can polish all you want, but changing dimensions often has unwanted (or unsafe) side effects.

I ended up with a Timney and the adjustable sear. Mucho Bueno.


From the looks of that scope... the rings might need to be lapped.
 
Ruger designed the M77 Mk II trigger to be non-adjustable and tamper-proof. It is extremely difficult to change the amount of engagement, or the angle of engagement without making the rifle slam fire. You can polish all you want, but changing dimensions often has unwanted (or unsafe) side effects.
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I used this as a guide. http://www.centerfirecentral.com/77trigger.html

http://www.centerfirecentral.com/images/trigger.gif

I did some pretty extensive slam testing and couldn't get the trigger to go off on its own. Is that something that you heard or something that you have experience with? Apparently its not as hard as they make it out to be because I have no experience at all and I did it.

Do you use anything in particular to polish the sear and trigger?
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I used a fine metal file to do the filing and for polishing I take some steel wool and wrap it around a drill bit. It polishes very very well.
 
Call Scott at S&S Sporting. He does a fantactic Ruger trigger. You won't be sorry.
He is one of few true Master Rifle Smiths left. 208-313-1570, call him if you have questions

Best Regards, John K
 
Is that something that you heard or something that you have experience with? Apparently its not as hard as they make it out to be because I have no experience at all and I did it.
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Both.

I've played with a couple of the triggers, talked to fellow shooters (that I trust, and know have experience), and talked to the most trustworthy gunsmiths I know. Like I said - I still ended up letting some one else do the engineering. Having a part designed to be a certain way usually works much better than a part modified from its original design.


And... You may want to try an after market spring with that trigger. Depending upon how you cut it, it might give you problems down the road.
 
so,how did it shoot?
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Got hit by a downpour and didn't feel like getting wet. Today is clear though so range report still to come. I don't have any custom handloads for it yet so groups will probably reflect the quality of ammo I will be shooting.
 
I had a 77/22 that would not group past 50 yards and it had one of the best triggers I've ever shot.
Good glass, too.
I dumped it just before the advent of 17HMR barrel for 22mag rifles.
Would like to have seen what that would do.
Oh well.
 
Well, I took it out today and shot up a bunch of greek HXP made in 1980. It was only OK on paper at 100 yards but I was really banging away at a 1'x1' steel plate at 400 yards. I did notice it was stringing vertically as the barrel warmed up. I'm thinking a good bedding would help that.

Oh I guess I had better mention that the trigger did just fine. Oh and the stock really improved the felt recoil quite a bit.
 
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