The Found Ruger M77 MkII

Have you ever found a gun before? I don’t mean you walked into a gun shop and saw a gun for sale that you had been looking for. I mean actually found a gun, like you were walking through the woods and find a gun leaning against a tree, or find a gun tossed into a dumpster in a back alley, or dig one up from excavating a construction site, or find one while treasure hunting with a metal detector or diving an old ship wreck. What did you do with it after finding it? Turn it into the police, or find the previous owner, or donate it to a museum, or keep it as a relic? How about fix it, then use it on your next hunt? This is the story of the time I found a gun.

The lighting was very poor in the loft, so I didn’t know exactly what I had yet. The first thing I noticed in the poor light was that the rifle was a bolt action, and then I noticed the scope, from the shape of the eyepiece, that it was an old Redfield Widefield scope. I also saw a full length Mauser style extractor on it, so at first I thought it might be an old sporterized Mauser. As I ran outside with it for better lighting, I could hardly wait to find out what it was! I was stunned to see that it was a Ruger M77 MkII, since that model was introduced in the early 1990s, but the scope on it that I already identified, was from the 1970s. The rifle was chambered for the 280 Remington cartridge. One mans trash, is another mans treasure! I wonder if I could fix it and use it to kill a deer.

After removing what was left of the stock, I started disassembling and cleaning the rifle. Having been in a fire, it raises concerns about how hot the steel got, especially the parts that hold pressure. If it got hot enough to anneal it, the steel would be much softer, and would compromise its integrity. The temperatures, however, would need to get up to around 1500 F degrees in order to anneal it. If the house fire caused the rifle to get all the way to those temperatures, we would see evidence of it, such as discoloration of the metal. I also don’t think there would be anything left of the wood, but it still has its finish on the right side! By the ease with which this rifle cleaned up and the condition of its original finish, it’s very clear that it never got anywhere hot enough to change the structure or integrity of the steel parts. Except for the springs, but more about that later.

The Ruger needed nothing more than a little Kroil, rags, fine steel wool, wire brushes, and some elbow grease to clean up. I was even able to find a factory replacement stock for it! The scope, however, was toast. It was damaged beyond repair. I was able to reuse the original rings and mounted a Leupold M8 3X, that I had laying around, on it. Another classic scope from the 1970s! Now all I needed was some ammunition.

The 280 Remington was not a cartridge I used at the time, and I was unable to locate any ammunition or cartridge cases anywhere. I was able to get a box of 50 Speer 145 grain hot-cor .284” bullets, and a set of used RCBS 280 Remington reloading dies from EBAY. I had a lot of 270 Winchester brass on hand, so I decided to reform about 20 of them to 280 Remington. This is not as simple as running the 270 cases through the 280 dies, because the 280 Remington has its shoulder set about .050” farther forward to prevent someone from chambering a 280 cartridge into a 270 rifle. I needed to form the case in a manner to get it to headspace properly in the rifle to fire-form the case to the chamber. To do this, I first sized the neck of the 270 case up to 30 caliber and then sized it back down to 280. This creates a kind of a small false shoulder to seat against the shoulder of the chamber and be fired with a light charge to allow the pressure to form the case to the chamber. The problem with this plan was that it didn’t work, although a couple cases formed properly, the others either failed to fire or separated at the case head. I abandoned the false shoulder technique, and instead seated the bullets out far enough that they would press into the rifling when I chambered the cartridge. This worked perfectly, I was able to fire form all the cases I needed and then proceed to further load development. I didn’t waste much time or resources with developing a load, I just worked up a decent enough load to accomplish my goals. The groups were not great, they averaged three inches at one hundred yards.

While hunting slowly down a snow covered trail, with the Found Ruger 35 Whelen in hand, I heard a large animal moving through the timber ahead. It was late in the season with only a couple of days left, I had already missed out on most of that years hunting. I had developed three different loads for the 35 Whelen, but the one I chose for this hunt was loaded with a long discontinued bullet, the Hornady 250 grain round nose. This bullet had a very good reputation for its effectiveness when used for either deer or elk. With its soft blunt nose it opens up easily and quickly yet has enough mass in its shank to drive deep into animals as big as elk or moose. It wasn’t a very flat shooting bullet, but it’s difficult to find any opportunity for a shot farther than 100 yards in these woods. Peering through the brush and in between lodgepole pines, I could see the animal was a buck! It was lawful to kill any whitetail deer, but since I still had a couple of days left, I had not settled for a doe yet, but I had determined that morning that I would kill any buck, given the opportunity. This buck had not noticed me, it was headed from my right to left and about to cross the trail I was on. I quickly dropped into a kneeling position with my rifle at low ready. When the buck stepped onto the trail in view, I raised my rifle. The movement stopped him in his tracks, he turned and stared at me, trying to figure out what I was. He was fifty yards from me, but it only felt like twenty five, I took aim at his shoulder, and squeezed the trigger, “click!”. I couldn’t believe it, a dud! I quickly cycled the bolt, which threw the offending cartridge ten feet from me into the snow. The movement startled the buck, and he jumped forward a few feet, but stopped and kept staring at me, unsure of himself. Now his vitals were obscured behind some brush, I fired anyway, this time the rifle discharged! The buck jumped from being struck by the big bullet, then took off on a run into the timber. I sat down on a stump to give him time to expire knowing he was hit well. After only six or seven minutes, I heard a step behind me. I turned to look, and only about fifteen yards away, there was another buck! A very nice ten point, he was walking right up to me, and he was much bigger than the one I just shot! Upon seeing me, he turned and ran off! After a few more minutes, I got up and walked over to where the first buck was standing when I shot him. The snow covered ground had a lot of blood and hair sprayed onto it. I followed a very clear blood trail for sixty yards to a very dead 8 point buck.

I now needed to figure out why that cartridge didn’t fire. I should mention that this was the second time this happened with this rifle. It had a light strike on the primer, but fired just fine when tried a second time. The first thing I thought of was headspace, but I quickly ruled that out as the bolt came nowhere close to closing on a no-go gage. The cases had already been fired once in that chamber also, so they would have been appropriate for that chamber anyway, even if it had headspace beyond SAAMI specs. The next thing I checked was firing pin protrusion, which was also perfect. So that leaves the main spring. Remember, it was in a fire. I should also note that the trigger breaks at just two pounds in this rifle and the bolt lifts while cocking the striker with little effort. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this when I started the project, but it was clear now that all the springs had been stress relieved from the fire while they were in compression, installed in the rifle. They simply just needed to be reset. Most people would think that they needed to be replaced, but springs never really wear out, unless they break. If a coil spring seems to have worn out, or it no longer pushes with the same force it once did, you can stretch it out to the length it’s supposed to be and then bake it in an oven at 450F degrees for about 20 minutes and it will be as good as new.

Unfortunately, the story kind of ends here for now. A gunsmith doesn’t really have much time for his own projects, and I still need to reset all the springs in the rifle and then shoot it more to be sure it’s fixed for good. So this story will need to be updated later. I hope you enjoyed this campfire story of an otherwise destroyed rifle I found, and brought back to life, so it can serve as a useful tool again and for many more years to come.