Rebarreling a Ruger#3

Hello to all of you question askers of Ruger No.1 barrels,

I'm 75 years old and have built lots of Ruger No.1 varmint rifles for myself and also for lots of customers. I have not dealt with recent manufactured  Rugers. Like a lot of other manufacturers I'm sure Ruger has probably started making some pure junk. The latest manufactured rugers  that I ever worked on or owned was probably mid to late nineties. I have never owned a bad one. I had lots of number 1's and only a couple of bolt guns and both of the bolt guns gave superb accuracy. Some of the No.1's had to be tuned a little but not much. Nearly all of mine were No.1 varminters. The biggest problem with the No1 varminters was that the barrels weren't heavy enough in 22-250 caliber, the recoil made them jump too much so see your bullets point of impact and if you are out west shooting prairie dogs and the wind is blowing so hard that the birds are practically flying backwards and you can't see the point of impact ,you will  have heck doping the wind.

There wasn't a .223 or .22-250 that I owned or one belonging to someone else that left my shop that wouldn't shoot under and inch and usually closer to 1/2 inch. This is not a  cast load, this was with jacketed ammo.The bolt guns I owned were in larger deer hunting calibers and the only fault that I found with them was that the stock was too clubby around the receiver area. Yes, the .223 and .22-250 rifles mostly had long throats in those day and being a handloader I would just find a bullet long enough that I could seat out to the lands and work up a load. In the forearm problem. A guy mentioned  tapping the forearm  hanger and putting in a screw to put a little tension on the barrel and clearing out the forearm away from the barrel. This works, but if you rest the forearms on the bags way out on the front end it will more that likely shoot about  1 1/2 inches higher than it does when rested right in front of the action. It doesn't take near as much pressure as most people try at first. I think it was the same fellow mentioned not using the hanger and putting a block on the bottom of the barrel and putting a screw straight through the forearm and bedding the block and floating the barrel. This works pretty well but not as good as the screw though the hanger and up against the barrel . I also made a little v-block to put under the barrel where the screw would be pushing into the center of the barrel and not off to one side. 

Here is an example of a accurate No.1 .223. I traded my son a N0.1 .223 years ago with a single set trigger and about 900 rounds of hand loaded ammo. It had been setting in the gun safe for several years. They took it out a few months ago. My 16 year old grandson put three rounds into a 1 inch circle at 200 yards. one of the biggest problems with the varminters was the ejecton spring assembly rubbing on the forearm and this will throw a chunk in the wheel. This was the biggest problem I found and usually solved the problem with most and some didn't need any tuning, just good loads..

I'm sorry to hear that Ruger has started turning out the quality of rifle that you people are telling about, but then, they aren't the only ones.

Mashburn