I bought but haven't picked up a Ruger 96 lever action in 17 HMR. I did not know such a thing existed. Does anybody have experience with such a critter? I love clever actions, am enjoying playing with the 17. I was amazed at the penetration it produced when my son shot my rimfire reactive target.
New one for me so I googled it. The stock with the internal hammer gives it a real Ruger 10/22 look. If you love lever actions, you got a nice, rare one with a distinct look. Congrats for the find!
I think a factory 96/17 would be a pretty rare bird. I stumbled onto a 96/22M several years ago and, of course, couldn't just leave it at that. The trigger was not good so I sent it off to TT Shooter. It's much better but not the best trigger in the Ruger herd. It now wears a Shilen .17 HMR sporter barrel. I'm not in love but I am in like-enough-to-keep-it.
I have former members 96-17hmr cletus hungwells rifle he worked it to the point it would function with any of the barrels he had for it, 22 to 22 mag to 17hmr to 5mm to 17short and 22 short. he even had a few dedicated barrels such as running boar, heavy weight 68 gr. and such. we sold all but the 17 hmr to help his family with funeral . fun gun but he had the trigger so light I don't trust it. it works but way too light. he was great friend to all! missed a lot.
That is a Clark barrel, my buddy Rick had it done, they didn't want to do a barrel to be used on a 10/22 but when they found out what he was going to use it on, made it for him. Basically a barrel swap, the gunsmith did do a fore end tip as well but that's about all.
If I recall correctly Clark uses Lothar Walther blanks.
Lothar Walther is correct, I think. Many years ago, I was struggling with a 10/22M HMR conversion. I bought a very light weight barrel from a highly regarded manufacturer. Had over 50% extraction/ejection failures. I'm reasonably sure they would have stood behind their barrel but I had done some polishing of the chamber (which didn't help) and chose not to do battle with them. A former member here, Clint McCall, (he disappeared years ago) advised me to try a Clark Custom barrel, which I did. With no other changes, the gun became 100% reliable and is to this day. Not to mention, it's very accurate.
I have not done enough shooting to properly check out the 96. I am disabled and no longer drive. I did get to have one shooting session with it and was generally satisfied. I used to think the 17 HMR was a joke until my son punctured my steel spinner with my CZ 452. I now think of the HMR as a bridge between rimfire and centerfire.Also the 17 HMR was available during the rimfire ammo crisis and is available now.
One of the guns I wished Ruger had never dropped along with the o/u shotgun.
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