Jack O'Connor

Investment casting was used to save on costs.

The M77's popularity rose fast due to features such as Mauser-type claw extractor that filled a gap in the market that occurred in 1964 when Winchester discontinued the controlled round feed version of the M70 in order to compete with the recently introduced Remington 700, as well as the writings of the late Jack O'Connor favoring the rifle.

My introduction here into this My add-ons, I didn't know some of that.

Some of that I had heard that there was a gap in the market.

But I really liked the Mauser type action, and there was a gap in the market.

I did know that, and I know that Ruger is good at making stuff that used to be an affordable price for the working man as far as this rifle was concerned.

But I did not know that Jack O'Connor promoted the M77.

That's news to me.

We will likely never know.

Here's what Jack O'Connor had to say in his book, The Big Game Rifle.

The next step in the development of the high velocity big game cartridge in the United States was the design of the 270 Winchester cartridge.

Upon taking a peek at the 256 Newton and the 270 WCF, one might naturally conclude that Winchester ballistic engineers who designed the 270 had once seen the 256 Newton cartridge.

Oh, my gosh.

I mean, it's Jack London and Jack O'Connor and all the hunting stories and adventures that you've ever dreamed of as a kid are right there in front of you.

You're seeing it all and smelling it all and feeling it all.

And that, to me, just sums up the hunting life.

And I read an article in Field and Stream.

And I read, I remember reading a lot of articles by Jim Zumbo and Jack O'Connor.

And it was always like, just the, you know, you don't really know, like, all the different species when you're growing up.

You look at any sheep with big horns, that's a bighorn sheep, right? So you didn't know, like, oh, so they got a white one, you know? There's no difference, right? So that was kind of how you think about it.

Yeah.

So the first thing I did was when I when I finally chose the outfitter and luckily, just because the Internet, there's so much you can do.

So I read I honestly read a ton of Jack O'Connor.

I watched a lot of YouTube videos.

Go read the book.

You know, you ever heard Jack O'Connor? The

guy's

hunted all over the world.

The .270 is number two in all-time Model 70 sales, only behind the .30-06.

Now, Jack O'Connor was famously associated with this cartridge.

He did use it extensively.

He was far from the only guy that used it, though.

You can sometimes find bullet weights outside that range, and you can, of course, hand load different bullets in the cartridge if you were so inclined.

So here's one last piece of trivia on the 280 Remington before we move on from it.

Jack O'Connor was famously associated with the 270 Winchester.

However, the last rifle he ever commissioned was a custom Ruger 77 in 280 Remington.