Loads for Ruger 77/50?

[Recoil Rob]

Got myself a 77/50 for the coming NY deer season, last couple of years I have been using my A&H 420, a great gun, accurate as hell but at over 10lbs., more than I want to carry all day.

I have a bunch of Clean Shot pellets and 50 cal. Barnes 300g Expanders in sabots that I used in the A&H with percussion caps, the new gun uses shotgun primers.

What performance can I expect from these loads or should I be looking at something else?


thanks,

Rob



"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
Ernest Hemingway

 

[Okie Hog]

IME: Clean Shot pellets are very hard to ignite. I played around with two jugs of Clean Shot pellets a few years ago and they never did light off right. Sometimes a burning pellet would be projected down range. Sometimes nothing at all happened.

Finally loaded a 5-10 grain igniter charge of granular Clean Shot before loading the pellets. They worked well that way.

If you want to use pellets, go to the Pyrodex pellets.

Good luck with your hunting.

 

[Panhandle]

Rob.....
You've got yourself a handy, lightweight, good shooting rifle in my opinion. I picked one up last year in a trade and enjoy shooting it. I use T7 or BH 209 in mine, and have decided to shoot the .458 Remington HP with a Harvester Black Crushed Rib sabot. I opened the flash hole in my breechplug to .035 and with CCI mag primers it ignites the BH very well. Those Barnes Expanders should work OK but I'd change powders. If you want to stick with pellets try some T7, or Pyrodex. T7 will get you more speed. The only down side to the Ruger is the cleaning. I found it necessary to tear down the bolt after every shooting session. It's a time consuming process compared to a breakdown.
Zen

 

[Reese]

I also have a Ruger 77/50. I tried the 209 conversion breech plug but felt that I acquired more mess with no benefit because I use loose T7 and had no problem igniting it with a #11 cap. I did a brief test and was able to shoot T7 pellets by going to CCI #11 Mag caps. The alteration that Panhandle did to get BH209 to work sounds like a future project I might try.

A load that has worked very well for me using #11 CCI cap is 85 gr FFFg T7, 250 gr SST or XTP (.452) and Harvester smooth short black sabot.

Enjoy, they are good rifles.