Categories: Guns

Taking stock of things…

Good groups with cup-and-core copper jacketed bullets, but I had to slow things down to get the groups to shrink. What I need for this rifle to get the velocities up are solids.

Wow, I was absolutely elated with the groups I fired with the .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1 and when I was cleaning my rifle, I was thinking about how much I was enjoying the rifle now that I had it shooting well. I knew it wasn’t living up to its potential yet because of the excellent inputs I had received from my new good buddy David from Mississippi, who I think is maybe the most knowledgeable guy out there about the .257 Weatherby cartridge and the Ruger No. 1. David explained that I really needed monolithic (solid copper) bullets to reach the kinds of velocities the .257 Weatherby attains, and I ordered a couple of boxes of Barnes solids based on his advice.

I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new Barnes copper bullets when I started cleaning my No. 1, thinking about them and admiring the grain in the rifle’s Circassian walnut stock. Then something caught my eye. Whoa, what’s this?

The stock had cracked. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but there it was. No, I didn’t get a photo. But I had two small cracks, just behind the receiver, one on the top and one on the bottom of the rifle. When you inlet and fit a stock to a rifle, you’re supposed to provide a bit of relief between the back of the tang (the rifle receiver’s rearmost structure) and the wood. What you don’t want is the tang bearing directly on the walnut, as it can act as a wedge and crack the stock. That’s what happened on mine.

Beautiful Circassian walnut; the best I had seen after looking at dozens of .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1 rifles. But it was all for naught.

I felt sick about the stock cracking. I had selected my .257 Weatherby No. 1 (after looking at a bunch of them) specifically based on its Circassian walnut stock and matching fore end. Well, it is what it is, and bitching and moaning won’t make it better. So I called Ruger’s Customer Service, they emailed a shipping label to me while we were on the phone, and I returned the rifle to Ruger. I’m hoping they’ll find a stock that’s as nice (or nicer) than the one I had, but I’m not worried about it. Ruger’s Customer Service is legendary, and I’m sure they’ll do good by me. You’ll know about it as soon as I do. And I’m eager to try the loads and new bullets my good buddy David recommended. Stay tuned, my friends. I’m going to explore the terrain above 3,500 feet per second with this rifle, and I’m going to produce tiny little groups doing so. We’ll see what happens!

Check out our other Tales of the Gun stories!

Joe Berk