Has anyone here measured the weight of a Ruger No.1 action? It would be reasonable to include in this weight that of the stock bolt. I wonder how light one could make a gun on one, with a custom barrel and wood.

Hi Guys

I have reread the De Haas article and don't believe that he was able to pull the barrel from the Ruger, as was his normal practise.  So the weight was probably an educated guess (one would have to say very well educated guess).  I think he was a bit optimistic, and that the action may be up to 4 oz heavier - but this too is only a poorly educated guess.  The Ruger barrel profile is quite a heavy one, and that is a further factor in the reason they are hard to "get light".

I ended up quitting my Ruger project for this reason, and have a Browning 1885 Low Wall coming - it'll be interesting to see how it pans out.  The big thing to remember in this weight thing is that many of us would be best off to shed 5 lbs from our own figure, rather that  spend a lot of $$ trying to shave 5 oz from a rifle !!

Cheers - Foster

As a number of you know, I picked up a Ruger#3 in 45/70 on this Forum. It is light enough for me, however, I am just a young feller 
(age 70), and have never been bothered by rifle weight. The previous poster who suggested getting in shape has the right idea (I haven't been in shape for a rather long time, as my friends will attest ). That is the real answer, of course.

The back side of light weight is recoil. My little #3 will be used mostly with 300-350 gr bullets (largest game for me will be white tail deer). Five hundred grain bullets in the #3 at the velocities attainable in that strong action will make your "eyes bulge" and slam you to your toes. Recoil is rather grim . However, when hunting, you normally don't take more than one or two shots (one is what I strive to do as I am sure most of you do, also). You can stand quite a bit of recoil if you don't shoot long strings.

On the other hand, I have long admired the .257 Roberts for a "power package" with light recoil. It seems to me, that particular caliber (.25) represents the bottom floor of consistent bullet performance on the lighter big game. I am thinking of deer, sheep, black bear, etc. I have a couple of these rifles and truly admire that cartridge. There are terrific GAME bullets available as well as light varmint bullets that will do what you wish. The various 6mm's have had numerous "bullet" failures that somewhat reduce my desire for that caliber as a light big game rifle. I have been in on about 70 black bear autopsies and while my experience pales in comparison to a number of you fellows on this board, it has been enough to give me an idea of the bottom limits of a good big game rifle (mostly, lighter big game).

Dale53

JD;
It gives me great pleasure to have a gentleman with as much "real world" experience agree with me.
Thank you, kind sir!

Dale53

MartiniBelgian;
Do you think someone would take my slightly beat up Cadet and make it look like that for, say, $350.00? 

What say, HST?

Man, what a beautiful sporting rifle. About as nice as one could ever hope to see.

Dale53

Thanks, Dale. I expect your experience in some areas is far far more than mine. We DO have black bears down here (Teddy Roosevelt got his much-hated 'Teddy' nickname as a result of a MS bear hunt back before WW1) but we haven't had a season on them for many many decades, so I missed out on that.

MB, I've always been an admirer of the Cadet as well as Maurice Ottmar (unfortunately deceased) and Bob Snapp (still building rifles). I just hope my latest little Cadet project turns out to look HALF as good as theirs!

It would be relatively easy to build a switch-bbl Cadet in 225 Win, 7-30 Waters and 35/30-30...............
Regards, Joe

David, your points are well taken. The cleaning-from-the-rear feature of the rimfire Cadets can easily be incorporated into any centerfire model by boring the requisite hole, along with some much-needed reshaping of the top of the wrist area.

And at first glance the thicker walls of some rimfire Cadets seem to be a real asset to the strength of the little action, and I guess they are. But as it turns out when you run the calcs and look at the record, the real weak point of the Cadet is the relatively small diameter of the barrel shank within the receiver ring. Even the thinner side walls can handle far far more thrust than can be generated by anything that won't first bulge & burst the chamber end of the barrel. IOW the strength added by the thicker sidewalls won't matter since the action would have already failed by the time that particular added strength came into play. Yes, the thicker action usually makes up into a better-looking stock, but I personally will opt for the lighter weight of the thin-side model, with improvements of course. (VBG)

But we digress. Did we ever decide exactly how much the Ruger actions weigh? Are we wanting to get them lighter?
How about it, Joe

Every time I see a pic of a Snapp-built sporter, I have to be careful not to short my keyboard...  The ultimate argument for people claiming that Martini's are ungainly.  Those little sporters just breathe class and style!
I also have a cadet action lying around somewhere, doing nothing - and, JD, I would also indeed be VERY pleased to finish up with a rifle looking half as good.  I also have some pics somewhere of some less-'decorated' Snapp rifles which are every bit as classy as this one.   
But - bottom line is these can be made up in some very light sporters, for those wishing such a rifle.  After all, if even a big Martini sporter chambered for a large .45 can with a 30" barrel can be made to barely break the 6lbs barrier, then a cadet offers even more weight-saving potential.  (just to get back on topic...)