Ruger M77 failure to feed

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Ruger M77 failure to feed

Post by chrispy88 » 23 Sep 2016, 1:37 pm

Hi All, after some help. A mate has just bought a second hand M77 Hawkeye in .223 Rem. Took it to the range today to try it out with some Buffalo River ballistic tips. I told him to push them to the back of the internal magazine to prevent the tips being damaged. However, when loaded like this the bolt is failing to collect a round from the mag on its way through. It does however just catch one if the rounds are pushed to the front of the mag. It's a hunting rifle so needs to feed reliably.

Any ideas what's going on or does it need to go to a smith?
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Re: Ruger M77 failure to feed

Post by bladeracer » 23 Sep 2016, 2:06 pm

chrispy88 wrote:Hi All, after some help. A mate has just bought a second hand M77 Hawkeye in .223 Rem. Took it to the range today to try it out with some Buffalo River ballistic tips. I told him to push them to the back of the internal magazine to prevent the tips being damaged. However, when loaded like this the bolt is failing to collect a round from the mag on its way through. It does however just catch one if the rounds are pushed to the front of the mag. It's a hunting rifle so needs to feed reliably.

Any ideas what's going on or does it need to go to a smith?


How much room is there in the magwell
I would think you want the rounds loaded forward rather than rearward for reliable feeding.
Should the magwell be blocked in the back (like the Ruger American mags) to suit shorter cartridge lengths?
I would keep loading them to the front of the mag and see if reliability does become an issue. I doubt loading them to the rear will protect the tips, don't they push forward under recoil anyway?
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Re: Ruger M77 failure to feed

Post by Chronos » 23 Sep 2016, 3:09 pm

they jump forward under recoil anyway and the bigger the jump the more you'll damage the tip

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Re: Ruger M77 failure to feed

Post by sarki » 23 Sep 2016, 4:10 pm

chrispy88 wrote:I told him to push them to the back of the internal magazine to prevent the tips being damaged. However, when loaded like this the bolt is failing to collect a round from the mag on its way through.


Failing how? Does the bolt not come back far enough to be behind the round so it can collect it?

Or is the round not sitting high enough when pushed to the back of the mag to be collected by the bolt? Spring issue with the magazine not pushing the rear of the round high enough if it's all the way back?

You can top feed the Ruger M77s, if you open the bolt on an empty mag and just drop a round in the top, does it feed, fire and eject all good?
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Re: Ruger M77 failure to feed

Post by Tripod » 23 Sep 2016, 5:08 pm

Can you measure the internal length of the mag box and put it up here? It may have a 308 size mag box instead of the 223 size one. I have a 223 size one here if it is the problem.
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