I’ve always felt in terms of quality of workmanship the walnut and blued M77/22 (top) was equal to or a cut above medium high end factory sporters like the CZ 453 (middle), Remington Model 5 (bottom);



or the Remington 541S.



My early production version doesn’t come up all that short of the Winchester Model 52 Re-issue sporter or the Kimber Model 82 Sporter.




Now…to be fair they often need some tweaking for decent accuracy. Mine was only about 3 MOA accurate. But shimming the bolt, bedding the action and free floating the barrel, and replacing the trigger cut the ground size in half making it a solid 1.5 MOA five shot group rifle at 100 yards.


Adding that kind of quality is the least expensive way to add value, but I don’t think Ruger ever really figured that out. If that had, people would have still been more than willing to pony up $1000-$1200 for a 77/22.