October 13, 2019

With the area flooded with tourists in search of New England fall foliage; cars, boats and planes Mainers have their own favorite spot to view the same. Mine is the view from my front porch. This is a great time of year for firearm enthusiasts, hunters… and everyone else. Still lots of work to be done before the snow comes, but it is always good to take the time to smell the maple, birch and oak trees cause it is way too late for the roses.

The Ruger Hawkeye Standard for the solitary hunter…

The Ruger Model 77 Hawkeye® Standard is one of the few firearms that is not sold with celebrity, or made into a fashion statement or pulled along with faux military imagery. It is simply a traditional hunting rifle. The rifle’s assembly is a time tested marriage of alloy steel and walnut with no trick bedding schemes, no exotic metal finishes and no Picatinny rail to invite the presence of needless accessories.

The Hawkeye has no barrel nut. Headspace and chamber dimensions are the product of precision machining and talented operators holding to close dimensional and quality of finish standards. The Ruger Hawkeye has no plush recoil pad to diminish the recoil experience and it has an internal magazine above a hinged floorplate, rather than a 30 shot detachable magazines intended for folks who take ill considered shots at fleeing game.

The bolt action rifle and 243 Winchester are my old friends

A bolt action rifle, in 243 Winchester, reminds me of six hours of tracking a deer through half a foot of snow, across steep, wooded mountainous terrain, with temperatures that burn through gloves and parka, redden the face and tax hunter determination. A tracking effort that ends with the smell of blood, bile and pine needles in the air and hide yielding to the sharp blade of an old Buck folding knife. Still have that knife, but the game has long gone to steaks and roasts and sausage and burgers. Now I’m hungry.

A bolt action 243 Winchester reminds me working public hunting areas, following marked up maps and being out for a day or two on my own. A relatively straight forward process; find a deer, kill the deer, field dress it, and get it back to the vehicle. I have hunted with other people, but the process was to synchronize plans, then split up and head out for the day. If you got your deer early, and you were fortunate enough to have keys for the vehicle, you could take a nap while waiting for the others to return. If someone didn’t get a deer, we shared our collective kills and usually got together soon after as families to enjoy the results of the day.

Yes, I realize I used the word “kill” a lot, primarily because we killed our deer and reserved the use of the word “harvest” for crops. I’ve never thanked an animal for giving its life, because I never encountered one that did so voluntarily, but I have sworn at quite a few, if only under my breath. Never sat around a campfire sharing tips on hair products or new camo designs or eating beans for that matter. The only time I ever spent the entire day with another hunter was during my eldest son’s first hunt, he was twelve, and when I hunted with my wife, because… we’ll, she’s my honey and I enjoy her company. Are we going somewhere with this, Joe? Sure. Why not? I got side tracked… Sorry. I’m old.

There are numerous 6mm cartridges, L-R. The 243 Winchester, child to the 308 Winchester, is the most popular. It is clearly up to taking deer size game on the big end and varmints and small game on the other. There is a ton of inexpensive factory ammunition and a myriad of firearms chambered for this cartridge and two and one half tons of very current handload data.

The 6mm Creedmoor is a wonderful new cartridge that offers no better ballistics than the 243 Winchester, is available in a limited number of firearms and in only a few factory loads. It does, however, give marketing types new blah, blah to blah, blah about.

The 244 Remington does offer a velocity edge over the 243 Winchester, but not enough to take significantly larger game to stretch much further. Factory ammunition choices are few and rifle choices are fewer. It is a great cartridge for folks who like to take the hard way to get some place and do their own facial tattooing with burning charcoal and pointed sticks.

The 240 Weatherby… mostly has a belt, double radius neck and produces slightly more than 244 Remington velocity. If you like overpriced firearms and ammunition and associating with pretentious people, the 240 Weatherby is definitely the way to go (see “sharing tips on hair products or new camo designs”. A little disingenuous on may part as I did a review of a 240 Weatherby and Mark V and enjoyed the hell out of it, but it would not be a personal choice.

So how well does a moderately price, traditional sporter shoot?

The planned Part II has a handload focus for this rifle and the 243 Winchester, but I wanted to conclude with some factory ammunition to establish a baseline and to set performance expectations. Muzzle velocity recorded was 165 fps below the ammunition’s 24″ test barrel rating. The 80 grain ammo fell only 20 fps under the ammunition’s 24″ barrel rating. Not bad for $19.95/box. 100 grain ammo is suitable for deer, hogs and black bear and 80 grain ammo is suitable for small game and varmints.

Conclusions?

What I like about the Ruger Model 77 Hawkeye is the straight forward approach to a hunting rifle and its excellent out of the box accuracy. It is put together to last with heavy use and only routine maintenance. What I would like to see? King Kong fighting a brown bear of similar scale and more days of hunting.