Ruger 77 tang safety feeding issue

[Alibiiv]

As the heading reads, I have a Ruger 77 tang safety that I could use some input on. My son said that he'd like either a 300 WinMag or .338 WinMag so I started looking around and found a donor to have one built on. I gave it to him two Christmas ago, just got to shooting it a couple of weeks ago. The Ruger started out life as a 7mm RemMag that I had rebarreled into a .300 Winchester magnum. The Ruger barrel was removed, a 26 inch Lilja barrel in 300 Winchester magnum was fitted up to the action. I did not think that changing the barrel and rechambering from a 7mm RemMag to a 300 WinMag would cause feeding problems, however.........I've got a feeding problem. If I put two rounds into the magazine and then hold the next round down just enough to hold the top round in the magazine down and feed the round into the chamber that works well. Eject that first round and "sometimes" the second round will get picked up by the bolt and sometimes not. If I jack the bolt back a couple of times the round may come either set up and feed or....jump the feed rails and the extactor. The COAL is 3.340 and that's out of the Hornady #10 manual and also the same for a couple of manuals. From these cases I loaded up some three more cases with a COAL of 3.330 figuring the cases were too long, again the same issue. I'm thinking the feed rails may need some adjusting, however 7mm RemMag to 300 WinMag the cases are the same except the WinMags are longer. The gunsmith told me to send the rifle back, just hate to do that if I don't have to. This gunsmith has built four or five rifles for me, and all have functioned and shot very well. Any help or feedback would be helpful. Sometimes other's experiences with something like this can be helpful.

 

[Benhunting]

I have a tang safety m77 .270 win that has the same problem. I sent it to Ruger and they were useless. So it just sits in the back of the safe. I will never buy anything from Ruger again.

 

[Bret GRAVELINE Graveline]

did you ever cycle rounds thru it as a 7 mag, The ruger is a very simplistic design it may very well be a follower and spring problem, or maybe the magazine box, first thing I'd try is another follower and spring if you are able, a win M70 or 98 mauser will work and a few others sako howa 1500 to name a few, if you don't have something available that may work, I'd remove to firing pin and cycle some 7 mag rounds thru it see what happens, another thing I'd check is the mag box look to see if it could have gotten bent a little tweaking may fix the problem,

 

[Alibiiv]

did you ever cycle rounds thru it as a 7 mag, The ruger is a very simplistic design it may very well be a follower and spring problem, or maybe the magazine box, first thing I'd try is another follower and spring if you are able, a win M70 or 98 mauser will work and a few others sako howa 1500 to name a few, if you don't have something available that may work, I'd remove to firing pin and cycle some 7 mag rounds thru it see what happens, another thing I'd check is the mag box look to see if it could have gotten bent a little tweaking may fix the problem,

Never thought about cycling 7 mags through it, I've got some factory Federals in the basement, and I've got a bunch of Rugers I can swap parts from. I have tried swapping out the magazine boxes and followers from a couple of rifles with no luck there!! Cycling the 7mm RemMags is a great idea, the donor rifle in 7mm RemMag could have started out life as a 30-06 and the bolt face was opened and a used Ruger barrel fitted up to the action. I bought this rifle used and do not know it's history at all.

 

[Alibiiv]

Got a chance to try the 7mm RemMag factory ammunition and got the same results. I have a feeling that someone messed with the feed rails. Anyway I am done messing with this rifle, it's going back to the gunsmith and hoping he can do something with it. He's a very talented, experienced and knowledgeable gunsmith, hopefully he can make something out of this mess. Otherwise I'll have a really nice 26 inch, 1:10 Lilja barrel barrel chambered in 300 WinMag, a very nicely finished, glass/pillar bedded stock and a receiver for parts. Lesson learned is to try a donor rifle before putting a lot of money into a build. I hope others can benefit from this mess. Thank everyone for their input.

 

[ShtrRdy]

If I understand correctly it sounds like there may be two problems.

#1 the next round doesn't come up high enough so that the bolt can push it forward.

#2 sometimes the next round will pop out of the feed lips without actually being fed.

Does that sound like what you're seeing?

 

[Bret GRAVELINE Graveline]

well bummer sorry to hear that, I've been retired for over 10 years but I'd kinda like to take a crack at this one, Do you have the ability to accurately measure the opening of the width of the feed rails, front and back, that would tell us if someone's messed with the thing, I'm a big fan of the tang safety 77, if asked for my opinion on a custom build and depending on the desired finished project the Ruger was almost always my first choice, I built countless numbers of rifles in non factory offerings, not Wildcats but factory chamberings, 375 H&H, 416 Rem, 458 Lott, all the ultra mag, the bigger Weatherbys plus the 338 lapua and Wildcats built upon that case, getting the ruger to feed took a little work but was never a major issue, hope your guy can help I'm sure you action can be saved.