Mr. Chrome/22

A 26" re-barrel will greatly enhance the perfomance of your Ruger M77 chambered in .270 Winchester. I never could understand why Ruger put 22" barrels on a rifle holding like 60 grains of powder. It really limited the long range perfomance of a tremendous cartridge.

Now, please do not take offense, but there are many better choises out there than a Douglas re-barrel, wheter it be a Std. Douglas or a Douglas Premium. They do make a fine barrel, "for the price". But in the same price range you can do way better quality wise from a company like PacNor.

Some people would argue that there would be no reason to install a premium quality barrel from the likes of Shilen, Hart, Kreiger, or even Bartlien on a Ruger tang safety M77 hunting Rifle. Well, I would not be one of those because the quality of your barrel blank can make all the difference in the world as to how your rifle will shoot with the full weight range of projectiles suitible for your .270 caliber rifle.

I have some experience in this field after building custom bolt rifles for the last twenty years or so and have done a few Ruger M 77's as well. 600.00 for the job you described seems a little steep to me but each riflesmith charges what he thinks the market will bear.

Good luck to you on your project and the best advice I can offer is for you to get a couple more quotes on your job and see what some other gunsmith is willing to do the job for. Perhaps you just might find one willing to the job for the same price but install a higher quality barrel at the same time.