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I must say that reading the history of the old 303 is quite interesting, but what it has to do with this lot of 303's is a bit of a mystery.

I don't see the mystery at all. The standards for rifle manufacturing were established in the production of, first, military, then commercial rifles. They are what they are. Appears Ruger has stayed within recognized standards and specifications for .303 rifles, at least as far as groove depth is concerned.

Military rifles are by necessity made to tolerances that no sporting rifle manufactuer, today at least, should follow.

At one level I'd like to agree with you except this is an incorrect statement. Rifle specs are what they are. If originally established in the production of military rifles, then so it is. For Ruger to step outside of those standards would be the aberration, not accepted practice.

Even in war time I believe that potential sniper rifles were pulled from the production line due to their above standard of accuracy. I bet if these barrels were measured when new, projectile to bore fit would have been tighter then the rest.

This could be a really interesting goal for investigation, but I bet otherwise. Mere groove depth has so little impact on "accuracy" at the standards demanded for sniper rifles that I suspect other features came into play with far more impact. Stocking up in particular. I'd also be interested in knowing what, say, 100 of the sniper rifles averaged as far as groove depth, but would be quite surprised to find it was much different than any others, especially since the manufacturing specifications and requirements were the same. And...becuase some of my most accurate Lee-Enfields had deep grooved barrels. Lemme check and see if I can find if special bore gauges were used or different standards established for the sniper rifles. Good question, Ron.

From this, you can see why the bore dimensions of the Ruger 303 doesn't sit well with me. Would anyone who bought a new .22 cal. centre fire rifle be happy with a bore size of .227-8" ?

If the actual manufacturing specifications of original .303 rifles are irrelevant to the discussion, I fail to see how your rifle is relevant, tho your points about what excessive groove depths do are well-taken. But in answer to your question here, yes, if the original specs for the barrel were .227 and rifles for years were made as such, then I would expect modern rifles to be made similarly.

Just because the 303 started life as a military round should have little bearing on how they are dimensioned today.

I disagree. The .303 didn't just "start" as a military rifle, the vast, and I mean vast and overwhelming preponderance of the rifles made were military rifles. In fact, commercial .303's with commercial .303 barrels were a drop in the bucket compared to mil-production and even so they kept within mil-spec. They are what they are.

There is a standard size for the projectiles for the 303, it stands to reason the barrels should have been dimensioned accordingly.

Mostly, I agree with you here as for any custom .303 that might be made. However, I believe it is fully acceptable for a modern maker to follow suit of the original design and manufacturing specs for the caliber in question. Where I would diverge is that if Ruger used a deep-grooved barrel, then went on to use some other NON-spec feature of boring {oversize bore/land diamter, radically different rifling forms, etc}, it would be wholly unacceptable.

Ruger know how to make a good rifle, or at least they used to.

I think Ruger is making a good rifle as long as they stick to established design specs. If that makes for an "inaccurate" rifle, then so be it. That is what custom gunmakers are for. As for these rifles, I am still not sure what the problem is. Based on personal experience and the established material on the subject, I do not believe GROOVE depth of .315 alone is to blame for bad accuracy of new rifles. And...in fact, looking at many of the standards for accuracy of the older guns shooting the older calibers, find 3-inch 5-shot groups to be, well, dreary, but not outside the realm of "factory acceptable" with factory ammunition and considered acceptable by pretty much all makers, too. Want better than that? Get a custom rifle or shoot handloaded ammo. Or steer away from the No.1 Ruger itself...?

Again, that is why I steer away from some of these calibers, or, in the case of my old overbored 9.3's, accept them for what they are, which in my case happens to be very accurate rifles, especially when shooting custom-made bullets and ammo.

Yes, I'm defending Ruger until I find out they made some actual "mistake" in boring these rifles. Which wouldn't actually surprise me, that is, if they kept to dimensional spec of groove depth but varied significantly in form or land diameter. But this needs to be demonstrated, all at the same time as showing that the morelikely culprits; stocking and bedding, are not to blame for preventing MOA groups.

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