Ruger M77
bolt-action rifle
The Ruger M77 is a bolt-action rifle produced by Sturm, Ruger & Co. It was designed by Jim Sullivan during his three years with Ruger. It was designed primarily as a hunting rifle featuring a traditional Mauser K98-style two-lugged bolt with a claw extractor.
History
Ruger's first bolt action rifle was introduced to the U.S. market back in 1968 after some years of design and innovation led by Jim Sullivan and influenced Bill Ruger himself, who hired Sullivan in 1965 primarily to develop the rifle.
Investment casting was used to save on costs. The M77's popularity rose fast due to features such as the Mauser type claw extractor that filled a gap in the market that occurred in 1964 when Winchester discontinued the controlled round feed version of the Model 70 in order to compete with the recently introduced Remington 700, as well as for the writings of the late Jack O'Connor favoring the rifle.
Design and features
From the beginning, the M77 was intended as a modernized Mauser 98, though numerous changes were made. Bill Ruger wanted to use investment casting in place of a forged receiver. The Sullivan-designed bolt dispensed with the Mauser blade type ejector and instead used the simpler plunger style of ejector. A two-position tang safety and redesigned trigger system were also designed from scratch, while the stock design was carried out with the aid of the famous stock designer Lenard Brownell.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ruger M77” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.