M77 Ruger trigger job

[reynolds357]

I just purchased a M77 Ruger with tang safety. This rifle has the absolute worst trigger I have ever seen. 9+lbs as it is now. I backed the weight and sear adjustments all the way out to get 9 lbs. There are two problems with the trigger.
1. Sear is grooved so badly it must be replaced. (Bad machining, Ruger should have never used it)
2. Everything that pivots on a pin has a ridiculous amount of slop in it.

Should I go with a Timney or repair the factory trigger?
Timney would be about $110.
The only way I know to repair the factory trigger would be:
1. New Sear. ($39 for a good one)
2. Drill all pins oversize and use oversize pins.

Anyone else have any other/better options?

 

[gman3]

I see that you have determined that it has a terrible trigger. How does it shoot? I ask because even with the bad trigger is there any sign that it might be a good shooter. I had a tang safety M77 Ultra-Light rifle in .257 Roberts from the early days that would not shoot in spite of all of the usual attempts and methods to make it acceptable.

Trigger, glass bed and free float, full length bedding job, several different scopes, many different bullets and loads, hundreds of rounds experimenting.

Finally, I cut my losses and sold it to someone who collects them. It was really a shame, because it was a very nice rifle.

I have three other M77s that are tack hammers. They are all M77 MKll rifles, which by the way don't have the best triggers either. They do however have good barrels, and some polishing can make the triggers quite good.

Unfortunately, if you happen to have one of the early ones with a bad barrel, you may as well not waste the $110.00 on a trigger, as you will have a rifle with an awesome trigger that you cant hit the side of a barn with from the inside.

They can be very disappointing.

The best mine ever shot was about 5 inches at 100 yards.

With the older M77s, you pay your money, and you take your chances.

 

[reynolds357]

I have not shot it yet. The main reason is because I can not hit a barn with a 9 lb trigger. If the barrel is bad, I will have to re-barrel it.

 

[dahermit]

Those old tang-safety M77 Rugers had, in my opinion, good adjustable triggers. I was satisfied with them. It was the later Rugers with the Winchester type safeties that had terrible triggers. If I had one with the problem you describe, I would try to repair the faulty parts, if available.

 

[Panfisher]

I replaced the trigger in my wife's MKII Ruger with a Timney, I thought it was great she didn't like it was too light. So ended up reworking the factory trigger, better but that Timney was NICE, and caught it on sale from Midway so cost wasn't bad either.

 

[reynolds357]

I looked at the parts list for the Timney trigger and realized that it does not come with a new sear. I guess I will just get a new sear and do a trigger job.

 

[dahermit]

The only way I know to repair the factory trigger would be:
1. New Sear. ($39 for a good one)
2. Drill all pins oversize and use oversize pins.

I have not looked at a M77 (with tang safety), for many years. Why is it necessary to do Number 2 in your post? Why can they not just be pushed out with a punch and stay with the original size?

 

[reynolds357]

They can be taken out with a punch. I have had it apart and put it back together. The problem is that there is so much slop in the parts moving on the pin that the only way to eliminate the slop is drill larger holes and use perfect fitting oversize pins.

 

[Slopemeno]

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/3494676/1

We had quite a few 77s pass through our doors back then. I never saw anything close to 9 lbs.

 

[dvdcrr]

I have also never seen a tang safety with a trigger that heavy. I wonder if it is broken or if somebody messed with it.

 

[Scorch]

You can make Ruger 77 triggers pretty darn nice if you know how. That said, a Timney is much nicer. I say go with the Timney.

 

[reynolds357]

I stated in my opening post that the sear was damaged. It has a diagonal groove cut in it. Typical RUger crap machine work.

 

[FrankenMauser]

Typical RUger crap machine work.

Then why did you buy it?




If it were me, I'd shoot the rifle before I touched anything else. There's no point in spending money on the trigger, only to find out that you'll also be into it another $400+ for a barrel.
And... that trigger should not be at 9 lbs at its 'lightest' setting. You should be able to hit 4 lbs or less, easily. If it's 9 lbs, there's something wrong besides the sear.

 

[steveNChunter]

I have a tang safety M77 that was about 7 pounds with the weight and sear adjustments backed all the way out.

I did some light stoning of the sear and trigger engagement surfaces, but not much since there was little creep to begin with. Then polished where I had stoned, and replaced the trigger spring with one out of a ball point pen. Most of the reduction came from the spring swap. The factory one is HEAVY.

Took it down to between 2.5-3 pounds. That's no target trigger, but more than adequate for hunting. Your's may need more stoning/polishing then mine, but I'd be willing to bet you can get it down to at least 3 pounds, maybe lower. I didn't have the problem with slop in the pins though, you will have to address that issue first. Your idea of drlling and oversize pins should work.

Rugers can be a little rough around the edges sometimes, but there's potential there. The best shooting tang safety M77's are the ones with Douglas barrels.

My M77 in 6mm remington ('84 model) has a Wilson barrel and it's a 1.5 MOA gun with my handloads. I can't blame that entirely on Ruger or Wilson, since there is a ring in the bore where the rifling had been damaged (probably by a stuck patch) before I aquired it. Nevertheless it's about to be rebarreled. Some of the Wilson barreled guns are tack drivers, some so-so, some minute-of-barn door. The Douglas barreled rifles were much more consistently accurate.

IIRC they outsourced barrels to Douglas from '68-'73 and then Wilson barrels from '74-'90, and then started making their own barrels. Have you dated yours? If not here's a link - http://www.ruger.com/service/productHistory.html#

 

[teejhot.40cal]

I put a timney trigger on my American Enfield and I love it. It is super crisp and breaks like a glass rod at 3 lbs. If you can afford it and you're a trigger snob, it it the was to go.

 

[FrankenMauser]

IIRC they outsourced barrels to Douglas from '68-'73 and then Wilson barrels from '74-'90, and then started making their own barrels.

The most accurate break down that I have seen is from a friend that sent me this a while back:

As for the M77 versus the M77 Mk II...
Ruger used contractors for barrels during most of the years that the original, tang safety, M77 was in production. They generally stuck with Douglas barrels from '67-'73, and Wilson barrels from '73-'91, with other contractors filling in when demand was high. So, performance was all over the map. Wilson barrels, in particular, earned a reputation for printing shotgun patterns, and being insanely terrible when warm.

The M77 Mk II, however, has used Ruger's own (in-house) hammer-forged barrels since 1991. They may not be on par with high end match-winning barrels, but most have done well, and they're pretty consistent across-the-board.

Wilson barrels can be found on tang safety 77s with prefixes 79, 770, 771, 772, and 773. (773 also including the transition to hammer forged, but there weren't many.)
Douglas barrels can be found on tang safety 77s with no prefix (just the serial number, up to 4 digits), or prefixes 70 through 77 (skipping 76).

Tang safety 77s with prefix 78 were special runs, generally reserved for varmint, target, or special edition builds. Because some of these actions were used to build rifles from the early '80s into the mid-nineties, they can have any of the barrels installed on them. ...And Ruger almost never gives out ship dates for 78-prefix rifles, so trying to identify the barrel won't happen.

Mk IIs with the 780 prefix included transition time from Wilson to Ruger barrels. They should be avoided, unless you just want the action.
The rest of the Mk IIs have the best barrels Ruger has put on their rifles - with quality improving as time passed.

So:
Douglas from '67-'73
Wilson from '73-'91
Ruger hammer-forged from '91-Current
Other contracts filled in where needed, if Wilson or Douglas couldn't meet demand.


One note: I have a 78 prefix tang-safety M77 that was originally chambered for .220 Swift. I have no idea whose barrel it was (but it was of ~1983 production), but it shot like a dream. And that barrel, 4,500+ rounds later, is still going strong on another 78-prefix M77 tang-safety, in the hands of a predator control contractor in Montana.

 

[steveNChunter]

Tang safety 77s with prefix 78 were special runs, generally reserved for varmint, target, or special edition builds. Because some of these actions were used to build rifles from the early '80s into the mid-nineties, they can have any of the barrels installed on them. ...And Ruger almost never gives out ship dates for 78-prefix rifles, so trying to identify the barrel won't happen.

My M77 is a 78 prefix, I figured that made it an '84 according to Ruger's chart. It's just a Walnut/blued sporter barrel in 6mm remington. What would be "special edition" about that?

 

[FrankenMauser]

My M77 is a 78 prefix, I figured that made it an '84 according to Ruger's chart. It's just a Walnut/blued sporter barrel in 6mm remington. What would be "special edition" about that?

Was it a varmint model?

That seems to be the most common application of the 78- receivers.

 

[steveNChunter]

Was it a varmint model?

That seems to be the most common application of the 78- receivers.

Nope, skinny 22" barrel. Just your run of the mill blued/walnut w/red butt pad ruger M77

 

[603Country]

Years ago we kids bought Dad a tang safety Ruger Ultralight in 270. At some point the trigger pull went from decent to very heavy and rough. I assumed it was from rust or whatever, since Dad never ever cleaned a rifle. A friend put a Timney on it and all was good.