My Wish as a 12 year old comes true!

[polishshooter]

When I was about 12 and shooting the hell out of a borrowed JC Higgins .22 and starting to read all about the dastardly "GCA 68" from all the old G&A magazines my (then) future Bro-in-law gave me and the old 'American Rifleman" mags a family friend JP who happens to be the last Democrat I respect gave me, and knowing more about guns than I ever have since I decided SOMEDAY I was going to own a .220 Swift and a .375 H&H Mag.

Well, last year some varmint hunting buddies that were bugging me for years finally got me to go to South Dakota for a week or so and 'Whacka-Mole" some prairie dogs.

What a BLAST! Even though all I had was my Rock River 16" Ar, I did alright, plus they let me shoot their WInchester 70 custom .223, Remington 700 .223, and a Savage Custom 22-250. I WOULD have gotten to fire another custom 22.250 if the numbnuts wouldn't have left his AMMO BOX on his kitchen table in New Jersey!

Anyway, one night at the hotel after a few belts of quality bourbon and a good cuban cigar I shared my 12 year old story...and one of them said, why not buy your Swift now that you have a reason to?

Well, long story short, tomorrow I am driving 3 hours south to buy my Ruger M77 Mark II .220 Swift that I just bought via GB.

Anybody with loads, experience with a Ruger M77 .220 Swift, or anything else you want to share about it will be welcome!

I have to buy from scratch my dies, components, etc., although I am kinda leaning towards the 40 grain V max for my foirst loads--- I like the reviews I am hearing aboput them...4300 fps supposedly does BAD things to the p-dogs!

[CampingJosh]

Congratulations on the new purchase, Mike! You been waiting on that one for a few years?

And it's good to see you again. We've missed you for the last several months.

Don't miss the giveaways in the "Off Topic" forum at the bottom.

[Helix_FR]

Experience with a Ruger M77? yes
220 Swift? No, but I am super jealous right now.
I read this and was like, He bought a what in a what?
I love the M77. 220 swift is a bad a*$ round. Just a word of caution. The 220swift is so hot, it can erode barrel very prematurely. Don't shoot quick strings of shots. That barrel will heat up super fast.

[jack404]

Glad you followed up of your wish

i dont do 220 now due to cost of good barrels running swift and a few WC loads

40 grains are nice but look for berylium coppr for less burn on the barrel

, but still some roo shooters like em and most reload , i'll ask em and post what comes back

[Gunner Snipe]

When Ruger first came out with the .220 Swift in their 77-V (about 1975) I bought one. I used Winchester and Norma brass with almost any LR primer and 42.5 grains of IMR 4350 under a Sierra 55 gr. Spitzer or a Hornady 55 gr. V-Max. In W-W brass it ran about 3650 fps and in the Norma brass about 3700 fps. This load printed 1/2 MOA groups with some going under 3/4" at 300 yards. That rifle and load used to do a number on Buckeye 'chucks and it won every impromtu BR match where I used it. I am still using some of that brass. I only neck size and trim about every third or fourth loading.

[polishshooter]

If I remember how to post pictures, here it is in my side room today sitting in my Christmas gift I got from my wonderful wife this year, an RCBS RASS shooting bench.

The scope that came with it is a Tasco World Class 8x32x44. I'm not much on Tascos, and intend to upgrade, but playing with it today looking out the window it was kinda growing on me, just a SMALL Targ-dot reticle. Kind of like the one my buddy had in is 12x M8 Leupold on top of his Model 70 .223 we shot a lot of dogs with last summer.

I can't wait till we get some of that "Global Warming" to melt all this darn snow so I can go shoot it!

And yeah, I know all about the stories of Swifts burning barrels, but remember a lot has changed in propellents, barrel steels, cleaning techniques, chemicals and bullets since 1935! I've also heard from a lot of old timers that a lot of "burned out barrels" were actually just ones lined with copper because nobody had ever dealt with cleaning barrels with that much speed pushed through them. Some have told me if it was the other way around, and the 22-250 came out FIRST in the 1930s, and the Swift 20 years later it would have been the same thing, only people would be dumping on the 250, which makes sense.

Throat erosion is a different matter though.

This one looks like it wasn't fired a lot, and is in great shape all around, I'm just mad because my high dollar Dewey rod I bout for my AR is too short to use it on this one if I use a bore guide, so that's another $40-50 I wasn't planning on.

I don't know how I did on it, I think all right. $735 complete, I picked it up so I didn't have to pay shipping, and it came with the scope, a Harris bipod, and two boxes of ammo.

[polishshooter]

And oh yeah, it has one of those "Score High" sleds in it making it a single shot, which I like, first the previous owner(s) used it as a single so probably didn't pump a lot of rounds through it quickly, and second I don't have to buy one for it!

The action now closes without having to push down the follower like any other mauser derivative too.

With all the other custom guns my buddies have, that's all they do is use them as single shots so their handloads aren't banging around in the magazine under recoil.

One of them doesn't crimp his .223 loads at all, leaves the bullets WAY out, and let's them seat themselves against the rifling for optimum accuracy.

I had never heard of this before, and discovered it by accident when he let me shoot it. I popped a dog, reloaded, and then all the others went down and we had a lull, so they decided to go for a walk, so I made the gun safe like I always do by opening the bolt and extracting the round...except it came out without the bullet and spilled powder all through the action! He told me then that he should have told me before, that he always "unloads through the muzzle." The funniest (for us, not him!) thing was we had cleaned all the rifles the night before and had left ALL of our cleaning rods in the hotel! SO I have a picture of HIS buddy slamming the stock of his $1500 rifle/scope combo on the butt on the ground!

We finally got it out by dropping the weighted end of the bore snake I had in my AR bag down the bore, and using my AR chamber brush to clean the chamber area so we could keep shooting.

But hey. I learned something!

[redwing carson]

I have been shooting Swifts for over 50 years. It is a very fine long range .22 varmint round. I shoot 55 gr. bullets at 3,700 FPS this load works better on long range dog shooting. As far as burning the tubes out I have never seen it. Everyone who does not shoot Swifts can tell you about burn out. Proper cleaning of the barrel like any rifle and it will last a very long time. I do not care for the 40 grs. loads running 4,000 FPS they are not that great.

RC

[polishshooter]

Thanks RC, I have a box of 55gr Hornady Vmax I got with the rifle I want to try, and about 75 60gr Vmax bullets left from experimenting with reloads for my AR. I want to try them both, I will go with the best grouping round, but I was kind of hoping I could get 40 grainers to group at about 4000, and have two loads, one for the windy days.

I'm kind of thinking I can't have a Swift and not hit 4000+ even if just because I can, LOL

But I shot a dog last year in South Dakota with one of my buddies' .223 Remington 700 at 225yds with a direct crosswind 50 mph gusting to 60 right to left. First two shots I missed left, then he laid down perpendicular to me atop his hole facing right, I put the horizontal cross hair through his body, and the vertical TWO FEET off his nose to the right and got him! That 55 grainer moved TWO FEET in the wind, I'd hate to see what a 40 would do.


That was my first shooting in REAL wind, what an experience!

What kind of powder do you use? I've used IMR 4064 a lot and see a lot of loads for it for the Swift, but people tell me not to use an extruded powder but go with a ball. ???

[muddober]

If your barrel twist is 1 in 10 or even 1 in 12, I think you will find 60 grain bullets at about 3600 are going to be the hot ticket. If the twist is slower than that you might want to sick to 55 grain or even 52 grainers but I wouldn't even think 40 grian bullets for a myriad of reasons. Me, like Redwing have had good luck with IMR4350 but 300H&H (Kirk) got me using IMR4064 and I must admit I like it a little better. My gun is an old model 70 that was orginally a swift that I rebarreled and restocked has a 1 in 12 twist and it likes 60 grainers very well.

Ron

[redwing carson]

Polishshooter. I have been using RL15 for most of my Swift loads. The old H414 works well. The Winchester brass and primers are my first choice. The big thing with the fast running Swift. Make sure you keep the bore clean. I use Sweets and JB bore cleaner. I have found that 99% of the burn out Swifts barrels are just results of poor cleaning. I have bought a number of these and cleaned them to find a nice rifled barrel under a lot of copper. I knew an old Desert Rat that lived in the Red Desert near Hell Springs. His only rifle was a .220 Swift. He killed every thing from fox to elk and deer with that old Mdl. 70 WCF. The Swift has a big engine so you can go for power and speed with this .22. If you are a timid hand loader buy a .22-250.

RC

[polishshooter]

Yeah my other p-dog buddies have 22-250s, and not only did I always want a Swift, I also wanted to be different. Maybe I can convert them to the "One True Faith." I also like the old tried and true stuff, and you gotta hand it to a round that was first offered in 1935 and is still what everybody uses to measure against.

They said knowing how I push things they are both bringing entrenching tools next year to South Dakota so they are ready when I haul out my reloads

What kind of primers do you use?

I believe I am going to start with Vmax bullets because I have some and have had good luck with my .223 with them, and while I will try some 40 grainers I think I am leaning towards their 52 gr BT Vmax moly.

Half the fun will be working up a load anyway, so I'll see where it takes me.