Steve,

I just finished the absolute longest ordeal I have ever endured getting a gun to shoot. It was a new Hawkeye in .257roberts.(BOB). The bob was a beautiful gun. Nice wood, nice finsih on wood and decent matte finish on bbl. The trigger is NO BETTER, the safety is good if you like the 3 pos. type. It is light. Fits nice to the shoulder.

BUT, the wood to metal fit was absolutely HORRENDOUS. This gun wouldn't shoot for a hoot. I mean 4" groups were "good" for this thing. We tried 18 different loads in 4 different bullet wts. It was very frustrating. I floated the bbl, changed pressure points etc.... The gun had such bad bedding that it moved in the stock every shot. The floorplate wouldn't open after one shot, take it out of the stock, line everything up, it would work fine, then one shot it would all go to pot. A call to Ruger was good in that they were honest about the poor bedding. They offered to find a new stock that "might help but we can't guarantee it".

So, I bedded the action and first 3" of bbl. The tang was AWFUL. I mean there is a line of acraglass nearly an 1/8" completely around it. The recoil lug was worse and from the recoil lug forward to the front pressure point was just a big "hogged out" area full of sawdustthe first time we took it out of the stock. The front sling stud screw protruded up so far it hit the barrel!!!. Once all this was eliminated. The gun will now turn in 3 shot groups of barely sub MOA. The barrel is very thin and cools VERY slowly...must be the matte finish.

Overall I would give the gun a 3 on a scale of 1-10 and that is just because I can appreciate a nicely checkered piece of walnut.

This may be just ONE gun, with bad problems but I doubt it is the only one from the tone I got at the factory.

Just my opinion.

Dave in WV