Timb0 wrote:Since my partner has been getting into shooting I have been looking at buying a new .223 bolt action. I thought a T3 hunter might fit the bill but the other day I looked at a Ruger M77 Hawkeye standard ( blued with wooden stock) and what a beautiful rifle it was!
I have/had a Hawkeye .308 standard in timber blue and a .243 in Laminate.
Agreed that the walnut is beaut little rifle. The laminate is good too, functional, for looks/feelgood factor though it's a bit behind the walnut though. The sythnetic is awful (as most are).
Both mine were game rifles so only needed "hunting accuracy" which they delivered. Both shot an inch or just under with the right ammo. I'll admit though finding the right ammo for my .308 was a quite a process... There was a lot which it really did not like. At longer distances though the groups did start to increase more than you'd like, in my case though as a strictly hunting rifle it didn't matter so much.
This has been said 1,000 times before but the Ruger is a great workhorse of a rifle. I'm a big fan of the Mauser action and between the 2 rifles I never had a failure to feed or extract. Love that you can top load the internal box mag also. And they're $250 cheaper than a T3 so you can't complain with that.
My only complaints would be they're a little heavier compared to some of the alternatives, and you're not going to get hair-splitting accuracy out of one - Not a critical requirement but it would be nice, right?
Having said that... I've had a T3 for a while now and have definitely come to like it more than my Rugers.
It's a bit lighter, I have the Forest stock with the palm swell and roll-over cheek piece which is a perfect fit for me (bit off topic but if it's your thing...) and it's much more accurate than my Rugers.
I'm still mostly into hunting, my T3 shoots under 0.4 MOA which has made the occasional target shoot much more rewarding. With light loads it sort of doubles as my mid-range varmint rifle as well. Not that I'm usually shooting at these ranges but I've been giving the 500m steel goat target a workout at my local range recently too which I couldn't have done with the Ruger .308. Not consistently anyway.
I like Hawkeyes but have to say, if/when I buy a new rifle which will probably be a .223 I'm going to get another Tikka.
Helpful? Soz?
Not sure which one