If anyone is having trouble with the accuracy that the Ruger 77/22 Hornet provides, there’s a few things you should know that a lot of people have conflicting advice On how to get this particular rifle to shoot with outstanding accuracy. I hear a lot of guys say I did this to the stock, I did that to the stock, my gun likes this ammo, & all of these things do help and are going to potentially better your accuracy in the end. But there is one thing first that most people do not understand with these rifles is the most important step you have to do before doing minor upgrades that slightly help the accuracy. Your torque specs on both takedown screws are the most important aspect you must have exact and every rifle varies exact specs from the front to the back take down screw. Ruger’s Suggested torque specs with a sporter barrel is 60 to 65 inch pounds. But if you have the stainless medium bull barrel, it’s actually 80 pounds. Now they really don’t give you a torque spec for the back takedown screw, so Think of it like this those two takedown screws have a hidden combination in inch pounds that unlock the accuracy to every rifle. So basically start by tightening the front screw which is the most important one to 80 Inch pounds, doesn’t matter which you tighten first or last like some people argue. Then go ahead and tighten the back one around the same doesn’t specifically have to be 80 inch pounds. Now fire your rifle In three shot groups and all we’re judging is how tight those groups are. Make sure you have an extremely good rest where you are not moving around, the best way is to lay on the ground with a bipod and try to get it to where your rifle is basically laying crosshairs perfectly over the bull’s-eye & all you have to do is squeeze the trigger. If they’re all over the place or even at an inch Or inch n a half groups this can easily be tightened up where the bullets are shooting one hole in the target. Some guys are happy with an inch grouping at 100 yards. But do you want to be one of those guys who says my 22 hornet shoots OK or my 22 hornet shoots amazing. So from here we either tighten one screw at a time and we do it in Very tiny increments. So maybe 2 or 3 Centimeters at a time. Start by tightening the front take down screw a couple of centimeters, next loosen the back take down screw a couple of centimeters and fire another three shot group. If your groups have opened up then u know your going the wrong direction. But if your groups are slowly tightening up then keep tightening the front take down screw 2 cm at a time and loosening the back takedown screw 2 cm at a time or in some instances you can also just tighten the front take down screw 2 cm at a time or loosen it and don’t mess with the back one. But if your groups have opened up then start loosening the front take down screw and tightening the back take down screw 2 cm at a time and keep doing this until your bullets shoot the same hole or are at least touching. If you’re happy with that then keep it that way but if you want to experiment a little more then keep tightening or loosening one or the other just to see what results you’ll get. Now having a free-floating barrel and glass betting job does help and really you only have to bed the front take down screw not the back. Here’s where a lot of guys make mistakes too with bedding these rifles is that you do not want to completely free float this barrel but you do want to cut a big enough channel into your stock that nothing touches only on the sides but the bottom you will want your barrel to rest on at least 50% because that is the way these rifles were meant to lay inside every stock. And this information comes from Ruger‘s rifle manufacturing department and they are absolutely correct. I follow that direction specifically because I was going to do a trial and error to see if that actually worked and you have to start off with leaving some of the bottom of the channel inside the stock. Because you can always grind more off but you can’t add wood you can add glass but that is a lot of extra work. Obviously changing out the Ruger trigger will also help your accuracy tremendously, Timney makes an awesome adjustable trigger which I have on all three of my 77 series rugers and I said each one of mine at 1 pound which to a lot of people is too light but for all of my competition guns & long range hunting rifles are set at 1 pound therefore I am used to this weight. Shimming the bolt is also a tremendous help for these rifles to shoot accurately and is such a cheap modification that it should definitely be on your to do list if you want the best accuracy out of your rifle. Now I know this seems like a lot of work to own one of these rifles but if you are like me you’re always doing a different project on one of your rifles or the other & not to mention I enjoy working on my riflesAs I imagine most people who love shooting also do.Results you will see from doing these modifications to your rifle will be unlike any other rifle sold on the market. There is not another 22 hornet on the market that can shoot better than my own personal Ruger 77/22 hornet. There can be other rifles that possibly shoot as good but my rifle at 110 yards shoots five shot group in literally the same hole, to where it is hard to tell if i even shot two bullets in that hole. I have three different ruger 77 series rifles, a 77/17 WSM, a 77/17 hornet, & a 77/22 hornet all in stainless steel medium bull barrels. Therefore I was a little more invested than the average person in this line of ruger rifles. I spent months trying new things and trying to figure out what would make these rifles shoot from about an inch grouping to ragged hole. It took me a while but I did figure it out, so all of this information comes from Hours on top of hours in the field, on my own personal rifle range. All of us Ruger shooters know how expensive these rifles are, add around $1000 apiece on top of the new thumbhole stocks that I glass in embedded and bored out the rifle channel, then add three decent scopes plus triggers and we’re talking probably close to five grand or more invested into these rifles. Most guys would’ve sold all three of these guns at one point or the other, but me I wasn’t going to stop until I figured out how to get these rifles to shoot the way they do. And now I’ve done all the work for you, all ya gotta do is take these directions and if you apply them correctly I promise you will get the same exact results. I am so sure of this because I did not just succeed on getting one of my rifles to shoot this way but all three. As we all know, we who shoot Ruger’( The 22 hornet was probably the worst accuracy and trigger out-of-the-box rifle) I have ever bought. But me being a Ruger fan loving this exact rifle I was not satisfied with that. But now I can say this rifle is as enjoyable to shoot then any of the dozens I have in my collection. Honestly it is one of my favorite rifles now & Believe me it did not start off that way. My Ruger 22 hornet after changing the trigger, its accuracy went off the charts horrible. To an upsetting 6 inch group, but what most people don’t understand about these rifles is that when you take the stock off to modify something those take down screws have to be torqued at an exact spec and whatever Ruger suggest those takedown screws be torqued at is a good place to start, all you have to do is fine tune it after that. On top of that if you remove your gun from the stock to replace the Trigger and then send it back to Ruger because the accuracy went to %%%% because you didn’t know how tight those torque screws we’re supposed to be then they will take your trigger off put a factory one back on it torque the screws at the exact spec and send the rifle back to you and you will be back to square one, so just avoid all of the BS you will deal with in the future. And if you glass bed that stock or bore the channel for the barrel out and send that into Ruger they won’t even work on it and your warranty was voided because you altered the stock. So save yourself the hassle read my directions carefully and get your rifle shooting as it should be. Obviously certain bullets shoot better out of certain barrels, we might have the same exact rifle but you’re 22 hornet likes hornady varmint express 35 grain, while mine likes the 45 grain SoftPoints. So that too is important in finding out which bullet your rifle prefers. But let me tell you I went to five different brands of ammo, 35 grain Hornaday, 45 grain Hornaday Softpoints, Winchester Jacketed hollow points, Remington 45 grain soft points, and PPU 45 green soft points and me always thinking that the torque specs were supposed to be at 60 to 65 Inch pounds tried all of these rounds in literally one did not shoot better than the other, they all grouped horrible from 6 inch groups being the worst to 3 inch groups being the best. But after my extensive research and time in the field I torqued The takedown screws at the right poundage (80 inch pounds) and did everything I explain to you in this post and every single one of those bullets either shot in the same ragged hole At best & at worst every bullet hole was at least touching each other. But to my surprise after having the gun set up the way it should be it just about shot every bullet the same. And I know you always hear people saying I’ve done a lot of research on this & that, but over the last three years I’ve owned these rifles I have really done a lot of research on these rifle, my homework has been done I’m on extra credit. I can tell u more about these rifles from personal experience than any ruger salesman who’s job is knowing these rifles. Been hunting hunting food for my family since the age of 9 until this very day. Never missed a year, so I’m not your average enthusiast or weekend warrior. I don’t send rifles off to my local gunsmith, if something needs fixed, changed out or upgraded, rebarrled I do it myself. The deer heads & hog mounts on my walls speak for themselves as I literally have piles of euro deer skulls in every corner of my house because I’ve been out of wall space for the past 10 years. When uve has half as many kills as I got u have to be somewhat of a decent shot, but I’m above that. Some say the best, I say definitely above average. I hope this helps, always practice safe shooting and good luck!!!
