Big And Little Bores: Ruger Offers Two New Bolt-Actions

One Is chambered For .17 WSM, The Other For .450 Bushmaster
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Ruger’s Scout Rifle is now available in .450 Bushmaster. It features a black s
ynthetic stock and matte stainless barrel and action.

Ruger Rifle

Ruger Rifle

When Ruger announced two new rifle model configurations, it took all of a nanosecond for me to start snooping out the details, and it’s all good news.

Enter the Ruger Scout Rifle chambered in .450 Bushmaster, and the 77/17, a bolt-action rimfire chambered for the warp-speed .17 Winchester Short Magnum, a cartridge that should scare the daylights out of varmints and small game.

Let’s take them one at a time. Ruger’s Scout Rifle is a robust little beauty in any caliber, and by chambering it in .450 Bushmaster, this platform becomes big medicine for wild hogs, bears and other big game that hangs out in brush and mixed cover. This is definitely a logical choice for hunting out to ranges of 200–250 yards for deer or elk, for example.

The rifle has a 16.1″ stainless steel barrel featuring a 1:16″ rifling twist and is fitted with a precision rifle hybrid muzzle brake. It’s cut with six lands and grooves on a right-hand twist. It’s got a protected blade front sight and adjustable ghost ring-type rear aperture sight. Integral scope mounts are machined into the receiver, and the rear aperture sight is mounted on the rear scope mount.

Featuring a black synthetic stock textured on the forend and grip surface, with a good rubber butt pad and QD sling swivel studs, Ruger supplies a trio of half-inch spacers to allow the length of pull to be adjusted. It’s got a four-round detachable box magazine, and Picatinny rail ahead of the action for scope mounting. The magazine release is located just ahead of the trigger guard and behind the magazine when it is inserted.

Ruger designed the action with a non-rotating, Mauser-type controlled round feed extractor, and there’s a three-position safety.

The Scout Rifle is 37–38.5″ OAL, depending upon whether the spacers are installed. It weighs a comfortable 6.2 lbs. and the finish on all metal surfaces is matte stainless. The MSRP is $1,199.

Ruger Rifle

Ruger Rifle

Going all the way down from a .45-caliber bore to the tiny .17-caliber hole in the muzzle of the 77/17 is a smallbore rifle with some big potential.

The .17 WSM rimfire cartridge is a sizzler. Introduced back in 2012, its parent cartridge is the .27-caliber nail gun blank round, necked down to take the tiny bullet launching in the neighborhood of 3,000 fps. Having seen other .17-caliber rimfires perform on ground squirrels and even prairie dogs, I’m convinced the .17-caliber projectile falls well into the realm of “worst nightmare” for anything it hits.

Now one can find ammunition from Hornady and Federal/American Eagle with 20-gr. polymer-tipped pills and Winchester reportedly offers rounds with bullets weighing 15, 20 or 25 grains, all with polymer tips.

When Ruger reintroduced the 77-series bolt-action rifle family, the company decided to offer it in the .17 WSM chambering with a cold hammer-forged 20″ blued barrel cut with a 1:9″ right-hand twist and handsome checkered walnut stock. It has a six-round rotary magazine. Three words come to mind: Pure eye candy.

But this isn’t just a showpiece. The 77/17 is a tough rifle with lots of attributes, including integral scope mounts machined into the receiver, and scope rings are included.

The bolt is stainless steel, and the 77/17 bolt throw is 90 degrees for fast follow-up shots. It’s got a three-position safety, 13.5″ length of pull, and the rifle weighs a comfortable 5.7 lbs. Add a scope and it will still be an easy carry, thanks to the presence of QD sling swivel studs fore and aft.

Ruger says this rifle has an improved trigger pull over previous 77/17 WSM models.

The MSRP for the 77/17 is $999.
For more info:
Ruger
Ph: (336) 949-5200
https://www.ruger.com/

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