Ruger M77MKII Compact .308 with the following customizations:
Replaced factory barrel with a slightly heavier profile Shilen
Installed a DPMS 7.62 x 39 A2 Birdcage Flash Hider
New England Custom Gun Patridge Front Sight and Ramp
New England Custom Gun Rear Sight
Streamlight M3X w/GG&G M3X mount
XS Scout Mount
Aimpoint ML2 2X Optic in Warne Maxima QD Ring
Pachmayr Decelerator Recoil Pad
Timney Trigger
Ruger M77MKII Compact OEM Configuration
Ruger M77MKII Compact Customized
I bought this rifle in anticipation of attending a Randy Cain Practical Rifle course in 2002. As I didn't have anything in the gun vault appropriate for this type of course, I thought the Ruger M77MKII would serve well without having to allocate allot of money. After the experience of that first class, I set about customizing it and it turned into a project gun. The basic modifications are listed above and what follows is the evolution of the customization. There were actually two series of modifications. The first were implemented as a result of what I learned in the first class. The second series of mods occured after I attended the class again in 2004. The gunsmith performing the work had a sudden illness in his family (his father suffered a rather severe stroke) and I had to find another to finish the work. It wasn't easy finding another gunsmith because just like with 1911's, most don't like to work on guns that have already had work performed on them though in this case the last few mods were more or less minor in nature. Mike Dean was gracious enough to finish the work for me.
A short (16 inch) barreled .308 has enormous muzzle blast and flash. The night shoot in the 2002 course proved that beyond any doubt. First order of business was to add a flash hider. Problem was that the OEM factory barrel profile was too thin to thread so I had it replaced with a Shilen barrel of slightly heavier profile and glass bedded the Action. This enabled us to add a 7.62 x 39 AR15 A2 birdcage flash hider which tames the blast and flash quite well. While rebarreling the rifle I decided to install an XS Scout Mount just to provide more flexibility for mounting optics. This is the rail interface you see forward of the action. It is basically a tube that enshrouds the barrel.
I prefer Aimpoint Red Dot reflex sights on my AR's so I thought I'd add one to this rifle although with the extended range of the .308 I opted for the M2 2X model. FoV is somewhat reduced from the 1X Aimpoints but the magnification does help at distance. Finding a suitable ring became an odyssey because as you need only one for an Aimpoint, it has to have sufficient bearing surface. IOW the ring has to be wider than a conventional scope ring. For example, most conventional scope rings for sporting rifles are about ½ inch wide whereas most Aimpoint rings are closer to an inch. I found that Warne makes their Maxima rings to fit Ruger factory bases and they are about ¾ inches wide which is similar to LaRue rings. So far I haven't had any issues with POI shift.
Having Aimpoints and back up iron sights on all my AR15's I also really wanted iron sights on this rifle and by chance happened to see an ad in the Shotguns News of one that fits the Ruger factory bases. It is sold by New England Custom Gun so we also used their ramped front sight base. I initially had a red fiber optic front sight installed but after using it for awhile changed it to a patridge sight.
As seen above this rifle was the stainless steel version with a laminated stock. A friend and the gunsmith both advised painting the stock and refinishing the metal as they said it looked *pimpy*. So we painted the metal work flat black and the stock O.D. green. Since laminated stocks are so hard and tough on checkering tools and as laminated stocks are kind of slippery we added 3M friction tape. I'm not thrilled with that because I used 3M tape on the OEM stock and it eventually became affected by humidity and started to peel off. I'm sure the same will probably happen to this stock so in the mean time I'm trying to brainstorm ways of securing the 3M tape. In any event I'm sure we'll have to eventually do something.
In addition to the Pachmayr Recoil Pad and Timney Trigger, given that most sporting stocks taper out toward the muzzle we had to notch the forend so that the GG&G rail and M3X flashlight would be coaxial with the barrel otherwise the light won't directly illuminate where you're searching, especially as the distance increases. I'm not a huge fan of the M3X but the butterfly switch is very ergonomic for a conventional hold on a conventional (non AR) rifle. The M3X does throw a bit more light than the X200 so I'll probably keep using it until something better comes along.
O.A.L. = 36.5 inches
Weight = 7.75 lbs.
It is about 1.25 M.O.A. in the accuracy department but I could probably do a bit better with a conventional optic and crosshair.
See links to pics below.
A word or two about the Practical Rifle course.
This was without a doubt the most fun I've ever had in a formal training course. It's organized around fighting with a bolt action rifle and thus many of the drills are similar to what you'll find in a typical carbine course. I would never have believed you could shoot on the move with a bolt gun all the while topping off the magazine and running the bolt. There is one particular drill conducted at dusk prior to the night shoot that is very interesting in terms of the performance of optics. It will also give you an idea of the physical endurance and stamina required to be a sniper.
Wait until you have to keep the rifle topped off at night! Don't construe this as *it's impossible* because it isn't. The night shoot is the evening of TD2. After two fulls days of topping off the rifle you do get the hang of it. There is another drill, conducted during the night shoot, where the entire line participates. Randy's class was the first I'd ever done it. It is a non-typical drill that puts to the test your rifle loading skill learned during the first two days. There is also a two man team drill that is WAY cool. Lots of steel targets in this course and a scrambler drill on twin lollipops which is quite challenging once they start *bobbing* and *weaving* from bullet impacts.
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Gen 1 Mods |
Gen 2 Mods |