Help me save an amazing rifle,please!)

[TresMon]

Greetings,

The following are facts,Period...

My first high power rifle was a Ruger #1B,light barrel) in .243 win. At 7 years old, I was a young lefty itching to deer hunt.
Dad happened into a great deal on the ambidextrous #1 and bought it for me. We topped it with a Leup. 6.5-20 VX III Target turret, duplex ret.

I shot it, and shot it, and shot it some more. A few years later I was taught metallic reloading and cut loose with it.
I read everything I could get my hands on about crafting bench rest loads,no Internet back then) for the rifle and started my career of testing loads from the bench.

Finally, after finding the rifle loved 85 Game Kings & IMR 4350 and REALLY long COAL, I got my all time best,ever) bench rest group of three shots in .097" with my box stock- not even a trigger job, Ruger #1. I still had not discovered weight sorting brass or ANY segregation of components!

Three shot groups may impress no one, but for a 16 year old, with a stock rifle and no coaching on bench technique, or precision handloading I was then and am now 15 years later still amazed and delighted.

Finally out of frustration, I set the rifle aside. I guess the throat is gone, as it now will only group .8 moa or so.

Now 15 years later, My wife tells me she pregnant. I sure would love to get my boyhood rifle back to tack driving. I don't have the money to rebarrel it. I thought I might ream the chamber out to a longer cartridge, to get the throat cleaned up.

It's .243 Win now. It I stick with a cartridge that uses .308 Win./30-06 case head as the parent case, I will not have to change extractors or modify the extractor cut in the barrel.

So what do you recommend? It is a 9 twist bore.

I was thinking punch it out to a 6mm Rem AI, or even a 6mm-06 AI.

I like the thought of the 6mm-06 because velocity might be sufficient to stabilize the 6mm VLD bullets in the slower 9 twist bore.

Thanks for any input, I'm sure most of you can speak from far more experience than I.

 

[TresMon]

""Ruger single shot rifles are capable of shooting good groups, but not 0.097" groups, and yours was not normal, it was a statistical fluke.""

The rifle would shoot sub .130" groups time after time after time. I had a stack of targets to proove it, until they got lost in a move. I'm talking like a dozen or so sub .130" groups.
,Well I remember the biggest group target I kept was .137" but it was the largest, and a exception.) The stated .097" was the best ever...

I'm aware of a "fluke group" coming out any given rifle once every blue fifth or sixth blue moon. I'm aware Ruger number 1's are good shooters, but not bench rest accurate generally.

But this particualar Ruger #1, as a fact IS,was.)

Hence my thread topic "Amazing rifle."

I was dumbfounded at how my box stock rifle was shooting, and everyone REFUSED to believe, except my range buddies. The targets I kept had tattered edges from showing people who refused to believe time and time again.

Thanks for the responce.

Any body else have sugesstions?

 

[tightneck]

Guess its time to dump all my BR rifles and jump into the world of the Ruger #1. If ANY benchrest rifle would shoot sub .130" groups time after time, it would win EVERY match it was entered in, by a huge margin most of the time. Were you Shooting over windflags????

 

[expiper]

We all have had a favorite growin up rifle....mine was a .243 Rem. 700....and I still have a cupla .243's....good all around hunting and shootin iron..
I realize your sentiment and desire to re-chamber,save) the bbl. on your #1....but I too,as was sugested by other posters)would leave it as is and give it to my boy to hunt with .
The thing about bbls is they just dont wear out at the throat....oooo yea it is more evident there...but...especially on a factory crome-moly bbl...it is prolly wore all the way to the muzzle....any re-chambering,esp with sumthin like 6mm-06!!!) wuld be futile and a waste of time and money...just prize the memory and frame those targets. Your son will apreciate the great history of your youth and experience with it...Roger

 

[TresMon]

Thanks Piper, all good points.

 

[constructor]

just for giggles why not just recut the throat to get clean edges,maybe $50) and seat your bullets out a little further in the .243 and see if it's still accurate.
I have a 28 year old 30-06 that was a good sheep rifle, it also started shooting bad many years ago before bore scopes. For what ever reason I pulled it from the back of the closet it wasn't even in the safe and scoped it only to find massive copper fouling. Now that I cleaned it with several good soaks of Montana Xtreme copper cleaner it's back to shooting sub moa.

 

[TresMon]

Thanks for the thoughts Constructor,

AFA cleaning the throat... It could be done...

But I have some of the original rounds I loaded When I was a kid and the COAL is rediculous.... I had "chased the lands" as far as possible, thought at the time I didn't realise what I was doing, nor that the throat was moving on me as quickly as it was...

I have cleaned the bore with MT Copper X repeatedly. I then cleaned the bore with JB bore cleaner. Then I followed up with a good TLC session with JB bore bright...