Ruger No. 1 in .303 British
 

I'm considering a Ruger No.1 in .303 British. Anyone have an opinion. I'd like to say that I have a .270 Win for long range shots. I just want something with a bigger bore, a lighter kick, and a different action than I currently have.

That would be a great choice, in my opinion...

A classic chambering in a classy rifle...:happy0001:...
What's not to like...???...

Not to mention it would be a very functional hunting rifle for most any non-dangerous game at the ranges where most of us kill most of our critters, say 250 to 300 yards...

For sure! I've not killed a whitetail in years over 80 yards away.

Why not, it's kind of in the middle of a 30-30 and 30-06 and just as common in Canada. One day I'm going to strip mine and put it in a synthetic stock and make a rifle out of it again.

im a huge fan of the .303 but heed my warning, reloading .303 brit casings is a true pain in the arse and there is a serious lack of light weight high ballistic coefficient bullets in .311'' needed for the .303 to perform beyond 300 yards. find good brass, learn how to anneal it (easy enough with a blow torch set in a purpose built fixture) and dont ever use it more then 5 reloadings if you plan to load on the top end load density. the sloping case and semi rounded shoulders of the .303 make it stretch beyond that of other options in its class. the chamber dimentions of the .303 have also changed throughout the years. when i fire a new production hornady bullet out of my 1914 h&h mk.III HT the shoulder gets blow forward about 0.050 but when i shoot the same bullet from my 1943 bsa no.4 the case almost doesnt expand at all.

Dylan...I have no experience loading the .303....

However I have read that at least some of the problems with case life ( i.e. case stretching) were due to the rear locking feature of the SMLE rifles..

Do you suppose that the more rigid Ruger # 1 action would help alleviate some of the issues..??..

I am not arguing, but just asking your opinion for the sake of discussion...

Good idea that'd be a good choice

+1 IMO. Love Ruger #1's.

case stretching due to rear locking is a myth. but that said the myth spans from 2 once common rifles (probably the most common with rear locking) hailing from europe. the mannlicher schoenauer and early lee enfield's although typically extremely accurate were cut a little deep when it came to chamber reaming. the reason for this was that the brits had expected the enfield to be in service across the entire world and therefor the rifle needed a chamber that could safely fire poorly made ammo. the mannlicher schoenauer had a chamber cut in a similar fasion for the same reason except for safari use not millitary. these were not the only rifles seen with case stretch and in almost all other incidents the case stretch is due to the chamber. to be honest i dont see why rear locking might make a case stretch. if its locked, its locked, doesnt matter how its achieved. if the bolt doesnt experiance any movement during firing there should be no problem. to boot, most of the bolts on front locking rifles also have a bearing surface on the head and a fitted recess in the receiver to further prevent bolt "wiggle".

Are the No. 1's fairly accurate out-of-the-box? Never owned one.