Quilly, These Ruger' s are great rifles. I haven' t had any dealing with the Compacts though.The full size M-77' s are good shooting rifles.Triggers are generally a little heavy.I wouldn' t worry about the short barrel and heating up. Remember it' s a BA not a full auto.You' re not going to put hundreds of rounds a minute through it.Ruger along with other companies test these guns.If the 16" bbl wasn' t suited to that cartridge I' m sure they would have changed the bbl length. You' ve dealted with enough different guns to know they all shoot different. I think you would be satisfied with a Ruger.
Ruger Redhawk