I took my M-77 RL in .250 out to the range yesterday. I shot fifty 100 gr. Remington factory loads through it. First group measured .603. I followed that with fifty handloads consisting of a 120 gr. Sierra GameKing HPBT over a full dose of RL-15 -a powder that I don't remember ever using before. My last group of the day measured .900.
A Ruger M-77 with a pencil-thin barrel and nothing done to it other than mounting a Leupold 2-7X Vari-X IIc to it and sighting it in shouldn't shoot that well, but it does, and I'm not complaining about it one little bit. It was about 17 degrees when I started shooting, about 25 degrees when I stopped, so my barrel never had much chance to warm up.
I was delighted with the sub-inch result from the 120gr. GameKings because I've got 10 five pound bags of them that came with the rifle when my dad re-gifted it to me last Christmas, and I've got nine unopened boxes of those same bullets, all with the 1950 S. Painter Ave, Santa Fe Springs, CA address on them. The reason for the 50 pounds of bullets in paper sacks is that my parents live just a few miles from Sierra's old factory and my dad used to send me over there with a "shopping list" to buy bullets by the pound when I was a kid.
He also gave me 10 one-thousand count boxes of Federal 210 primers, so aside from powder, and replacing my cases when I wear them out, shooting this .250 of mine is gonna be pretty darn cheap for a while.
Rev. Jim asked for bullet recommendations......
I only had my M-77RL in .250 for a few years, and mostly shot pigs with it, and a few feral goats. I did most of that with Remington Core-Lockt 100 grain bullets because the grouped best out of my rifle and proved to be a pretty dang "deadly mushroom" from the .250. I tried a box of Nosler Partitions, shot some pigs and goats with them, but they were like 2.5" groupers out of my rifle and didn't kill any deader from my .250 Savage than much cheaper Core-Lockts did, so I went back to using them.
My .250 never was my "main thing" like the one I have now was for my dad. He shot a handload with the 120 gr. Sierra GameKing over a full load of W-W 760. I was with him when he shot his last deer with that rifle, and by that, I mean we were sitting on the same rock. When we saw what was one of the biggest mule deer I'd ever seen in that country in the whole of my life, I passed on dad's offer to let me have the first wack at it, because it was farther off than I felt comfortable shooting, and I had a No.1 in .300 Weatherby on me at the time. He said, "Oh, I don't think it's as far off as that," and there was the popping report of the rifle, followed along a short eternity later by the dull, thumping slap-back echo of the bullet hitting home, and there was the deer staggering in place and falling over.... It weighed over 200 pounds, field dressed and with the skin off. And I still wouldn't try to shoot it that far with a .300 Weatherby, let alone a "weenie little .250 Savage."
But that 120 gr. GameKing got the job done, and it only took one.
This .250 of mine was a huge confidence booster to my dad during the ten or eleven seasons when he hunted with it almost exclusively. He put more rounds through this in the off-season than any other gun he ever had. He felt like he simply couldn't miss with it. And having had it at the range a dozen times since he re-gifted it to me, I'm gaining the same confidence in it.
I don't shoot it from standing, kneeling, sitting, and prone nearly as well as I shoot my .30-'06 No.1 but I'm closing the gap with every range session.
The little .250 is just flat out fun to shoot, even if I don't shoot it as well away from a bench as I do my hotrodded Marlin 336 or my No.1. It makes my .30-30 firing LeveRevolution rounds feel like a magnum by comparison, because the recoil is so non-existant.
Next weekend, I'll be re-aquainting myself with what the little .250 can do to feral hogs. I'll be using the 120gr. GameKing handload. I'm pretty confident that if I come home empty handed, it won't be the .250's fault.
JP
