If you glass bed the Ruger and float the barrel it will shoot with any gun on the market. They have an angled screw that pulls the action into the stock that must be tuned properly for the best accuracy. They are not a gun you play with. You set them up and leave them alone.
The Ruger is simply an all around better made gun. The Ruger already was, 30 years ago, what the Savage has been three decades trying to find enough add-ons to create, nearly.
dcliffhanger, why bed the stock of the Ruger when the new Savage comes already bedded? ... without all the delicacies of the Ruger's angled screw and all that?
And why, if the Ruger is so much better, has it remainded forever, (sic: decades trying to be better), the fifth and even sixth best selling bolty in this country?
I'm not knocking the Ruger because it is a fine rifle. But, better than the Savage? I hardly think so and I think the numbers will back me up.
The Savage 110 is the longest continually manufactured bolt action rifle in the history of the United States of America.
It is considered the most accurate out of the box bolty out there ... and has been for decades.
In terms of overall sales of American made bolties it is, #1 is Savage 110 series, #2 Remington 700 series, # 3 Winchester Model 70, # 4 Browning BBR/A Bolt (A Bolt went Jap in 84), # 5 Ruger M77 and Weatherby ... almost a dead heat tie.
That does not count the fact that most will claim the Ruger lags behind Mauser 98 conversions in terms of total numbers out on the streets ... even though Bill Ruger intended to build a modern 98 when designing the Model 77.
Here is another very telling thing about the Ruger 77 series imho.
You ever seen one used tactically? I haven't. I've seen a ton of converted Remingtons and Savages but never a single Ruger. I've seen Weatherbys, bu never a Ruger. They even used a few Model 70s in WWII and Vietnam ... but never a Ruger on even a SWAT team to the best of my knowledge. That tells me something.
The first time I picked one up the first thing that hit me was, INVESTMENT CASTING ... ACK! Then I looked at the scratched up aluminum floor plate and thought to myself ... why? To save ten cents? The trigger was horrible ... matter of fact there used to be a joke in the eighties about the 77. "Yeah, they're okay rifles if you put a Remington adjustable trigger in them, redesigned the action a bit, put a better safety in them, bedded or replaced the stock (yes, same complaint against the Savage back then), rebedded and installed some new barrel lugs, shrink the oversize bore ..... owell, you get the picture. Anyway, the punchline was, "hey, by then you'd have a pretty nice 700!."
Not to mention the fact that Rugers are only required to shoot 1.5 MOA out of the factory and they are notorious for dropping accuracy like a sailor drops whooers on Sunday morning ... the dirtier they get, the worse it gets. I knew a guy who used to brag about the accuracy of his 77 ... but he always qualified it with, "shots 4 - 12 at least." Meaning, in a cold deer stand, cold bore, he'd get 1.5 - 3 moa and that's fine ... from a deer stand.
They are outstanding deer guns. No arguing there. But most people want a little better out of the box these days ... most expect better. I know Ruger has been upgrading over the past few years, just like Savage ... but then again, I am not claiming Savage has been perfect for decades. But Savage has been the best value for the dollar for decades and decades and recently, they compete with anything at any price straight off the factory floor. They always could accuracy wise anyway ... much more so than the Ruger imho.
I'm going to look around. Ruger has entered its rifles into the last two service competitions for tactical rifles contracts ... they failed to even make the final five cut both times. And I know Bill Ruger liked to claim the Mini-14 was going to be the pick over the AR ... but we all know he lied about that one too so the claims that Ruger made that they withdrew from the competition because of unfair specs is the same deal ... just another excuse for not meeting the high standards demanded by the military.
Oh, and let's not forget the extractor problems they were famous for through the 70s, 80s and early 90s before the redesign.
So where you get the, "
The Ruger is simply an all around better made gun. The Ruger already was, 30 years ago, what the Savage has been three decades trying to find enough add-ons to create, nearly," is beyond me. It just doesn't hold water. And again, I am certainly not knocking Ruger but, I am stating that Ruger has had
as many or more evolutionary issues as any other maker ... and they certainly have not been doing it better than Savage for decades, no way.
Declaration for clarification. I own four Savages, a 110 in 30-06 (my first Savage), an older Weather Warrior FSS in 308 (without the accustock that I will eventually sell for a FCSS), a 10FP LE2 in 308 of course that I have for sale right now and a 10 LE PC with all the bells and whistles. But I also own a Remey 700 PSS 5r milspec that I have for sale right now and a Tika T3 with a McMillian stock in 300 Win Mag that I am also getting rid of. So I've owned or own my share. I hunt with a guy who hunts nothing but Rugers - he lives for them. They are fine rifles but they are not decades ahead of Savage by any means. They have a few innovative design features but still, for my money, and obviously for the money of the majority bolty buying public, the Savage is the better value. And I'll also add this one last thing in terms of innovation.
No rifle company, none, has been more innovative in the past decade than Savage. Savage's accutrigger changed the bolty world. Savage's accustock is doing the same thing and their accupad is rivaled only by Beretta's and Bennelli's recoil system. Savage is about to go full bore with their new adjustable muzzle break that will also revolution the world of stock factory bolt guns. So there is simply no way Ruger surpasses Savage in that arena either, imho..
Again, that just my 2 cents for what it is worth ... but I felt compelled to respond to that last sentence of yours dcliffhanger ... again, no knock on Ruger. I think the International is one of the best looking bolties out there and did I not already own a CZ 527 FS (my official 223 bolty that I practically stole from Walmart when they consolidated their gun stores), I'd probably take a closer look at the Rugers.
However I have held one and to me they almost feel and are balanced as well as my Savage. Personally you cant go wrong with either
