I have had a love/hate relationship with this rifle.  I did have a Weaver 2-7 variable scope on it mounted in low rings, attached to a Weigand Ruger to Weaver base.  This made the gun handle like a fat pig.  The stock is too long for good eye relief without backing the scope way back, and frankly it sits too high on top of the Weigand mount.

I'm not going to use the Weigand mount any longer.  I considered putting a nice peep sight on it (NECG makes one that fits the proprietary Ruger bases) but I have real problems with iron sights that are probably intractable.  I'd like to put a red dot on it, but there's not way to mount one that is Weaver or Picatinny style without using the Weigand base...which I'm not going to do.

I'm looking at using the included scope rings from Ruger to mount a tube style red dot.  These are kind of out of style at this point and a bit hard to come by.  I will not be spending Aimpoint money on this.  I see this rifle as an oversized 22 for all intents and purposes.  The only tube style dots I've seen lately are a Bushenll Trophy (discontinued) Tasco ProPoint, and Millet SP1.  What I'm wondering is if anyone has used any of these particular sights on an M77 and know if they are long enough to stay inside the rings.

If they aren't long enough....I'm going to sell it and get a Marlin 1894, upon which mounting a Weaver style red dot is not a production.

Burris fastfire?

More money than I want to spend, but I'll consider it.  Still, since prices on these rifles seem relatively good right now, jumping ship for a lever gun might be the smart money.

Hopefully someone with a 77/357  or 77/44 will have mounted a tube red dot in their Ruger rings and will know which dots fit and which ones don't.  That fastfire is pretty sleek though, kind of tempted...

There are a couple of ways you could mount a red dot.  Burris makes low profile Ruger to weaver mounts for around $30 that work pretty well.  Downside is if you are using them for a scope, the rear one has a 'hump' so you have to use Burris rings or get it milled off.

With just a front 30mm ring, you should be able to mount Aimpoints, Vortex Strikefire, or the ones that are a similar design.

On a two mount one, the only one I know of off the bat is the Bushnell Trophy 1x28 Multi Reticle.  It should be ~5.5" long so it'll barely fit between 2 rings mounted at the closest points on the receiver with Ruger rings.  I know there are others of a similar pattern, including the Aimpoint 9000 and H34 series, cut can't remember brands off the top of my head.

Honestly for my 77/357 I lapped the standard Ruger rings and just threw a Vortex Diamondback 1.75-5 BDC on it.  Super lightweight and handy, with a huge eyebox on low power for both eyes open shooting.  Plus once I chrono my loads, I can use their ballistics calculator online to figure out holdovers.  Granted I'd double check them, but it should give me:

158gr XTP going ~1950 (I've seen loads up to 2200 safely, so I picked a middle ground)
75 yard zero
116
168
210
251

Reticle photo isn't mine, but the rifle is.

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I tried that with a Japanese made Weaver 2-7.  It wasn't even CLOSE to having good eye relief.  Way too far away from my eye, I was doing the mount everest climb of the stock to just barely see the reticle.  The rear of the scope was basically where yours is in this picture, but it didn't work for me.  I have short arms and a stocky build.  Almost all rifle stocks are really too long for me, but there's something about the 77/357 that exacerbates that problem to severe levels (the buttstock on a Chinese Norinco SKS is about perfect for me, if that tells you anything.  I run all my AR telestocks on the second click out as well).  A magnifying optic is not going to work for me on this rifle.

I'm not going to be spending Aimpoint money on this.  It's just not worth it for a rifle that is only marginally comfortable even discounting eye relief issues.  I probably need to sell the thing and use the money to buy a Henry 357 lever gun, like I should've done to begin with.  77/357s are actually selling for more than I paid for mine new anyway.

If you decide to sell, shoot @35Remington a PM, as he's been wanting one.

Boyds does make shorter stocks btw.  When you customize your order, you can choose a LOP and they'll cut it to that and install a recoil pad.

I don't have a 357, but I do have a 44.  I would say to check out the "Hog Hunter" 1x4 on Primary Arms.  Use the stock rings and put it on, freaking epic.  Two hundred bucks.

I had one and sold it to fund another project and by a lever .357.

I regretted it and eventually bought another one a couple weeks ago. Local store had about 8 new ones still in stock.

I love these rifles. Don't sell it for a lever gun.

the eye relief won't be enough. The PA is 3.5 to 4.9 inch eye relief. The scope I had on it was 3.5 to 4.5 inches. That extra 0.4 inches won't cut it.

If it's that bad, I'd get the stock to fit first and go from their.
Have you considered an intermediate eye relief scope to get more eye relief?
This one has 6 inches.

Oh so the fastfire bit got me thinking.  A couple of companies make red dots that use their mounts.  So you could grab the Ruger mount for a Fastfire and then slap a different brand dot onto it.

I actually looked for that specifically but couldn't find anything. Know any brand names?

Let me see what I can dig up.  I also realized that the Leupold Prismatic might be up your alley.  Think of it like the back half of a scope.  Big eye box and something like 1.1x with a crosshair or circle dot.  They pop up on the EE every now and again.  Depending on what you screw the diopter in to adjust it.  They go up to 5" I think.  

So it looks like the Redfield Accelerator, Burris Fastfire II or III, Vortex Venom, Insight and EoTech MRDS, Docter Optic, or (if you can find one) Primary Arms reflex should fit that mount.

Check out the EE.  You could probably snag a deal on there.  Personally if I wanted a red dot, even an inexpensive one, I'd pick up a used Vortex Strikefire for $100-125 (they retail new for $150) and throw it in a 30mm Ruger ring or get the Burris adapter for Ruger bases.  Lifetime warranty on them, even if it is used from the EE.  

Could also get a used Sparc / Sparc II and throw it on the Burris adapter and be really low to the rifle as well.

Your rifle is a piece of shit.  Sell it to me.

LMAO!  

I actually have a PA micro dot I could do this with.  Problem is, the Burris adapter appears to have some kind of hump in the middle of it, makes me think the sight wouldn't fit.

Not the PA micro dot, they made a Fastfire style reflex for a while. The micro dots take aimpoint pattern mounts. 

The Sparc appears to mount similarly to the Micro Dot and T1.  That's why I mentioned it.  A mounting solution that would mount a Sparc, at least it appears to me, ought to mount a Micro Dot or T1 as well.

Ah okay.  I thought you were saying that the sparc and reflex took the same mounts.  Nevermind.  

Looky here: http://www.outdoorhub.com/news/2017/01/18/heres-sneak-peak-primary-arms-new-micro-dot-slide-mount/

But again, rifle is total dog crap.  Sell to me.

Heres a very old pic of my mini 30 Tac.   PA red dot mounted with a single Warne QD ring.  Still Works perfect.  I get to shoot with irons anytime i want.

Looks like a good setup. Liking that Mini30 in general as well.

Burris and others also make scope base adapters, maybe you will like one of them better?  A small red dot would mount to a single base adapter. The rear sight dovetail can also be used to mount a small red dot scope with something like this Volquartsen dovetail adapter.

If you really need I can pull my 10/22 that has a millet sp1 red dot out and my 77/357 out and see if the scope rings are spaced where they could work.

Consider this Weigand 77/357 Base

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You can attach this to your rifle and then use any Red Dot that has the capability to mount to a Picatinny rail.  You can also have a scope in QD rings to swap out with should you desire.

Interesting, I snagged a brand new 77/44 a few months ago and am now on the hunt for an optic.......

I personally really like the vortex scopes with dead hold bdc.  Gives you good holdovers to 250 depending on load, and they have a calculator on their website.  If I had the cash, I would have bought a 77/44 when I got my 357.  

I was the other way around. Last fall when I found out they had pulled production on those rifles I immediately jumped online and found all the 357's were gone, leaving me with just he 44 Mag version, so I jumped on one of those. Murphy's law always kicks my ass in these situations whenever I hesitate.

At 51 yrs old, my eyes are not as good as they used to be so an Optic is definitely required even though I only plan on using this rifle as a brush gun for deer season where my longest shots have almost always been well under 100 yards.

I use a Leupold Ultralight 3X9X33 with Ruger low mounts on mine. I believe the 2.5X20 offers about 5" eye relief whichis a little help to you, I haven't seen any with a red dot to be of any help.  Recently added the Alumina covers.
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SnaitN

"I don't have a 357, but I do have a 44. I would say to check out the "Hog Hunter" 1x4 on Primary Arms. Use the stock rings and put it on, freaking epic. Two hundred bucks."

What Primary arms mount did you use?

I have several rifles with red dots absolute co-witnessed with peep/ghost ring sights.  I almost always have the red dot sight turned off as they're no faster nor more accurate than a ghost ring for me and I enjoy using iron sights more.  I prefer to keep a skill honed rather than rely on something that may have dead batteries.  Simplicity without sacrificing effectiveness.

I have two Ruger 77/357's.  The stock sights are fine, but this carbine is much more suited to ghost ring sights, especially for its effective range of 100-150 yards.  I put a Skinner barrel-mounted aperture sight on my first one, removing the aperture so that the big, open, framed ring of the sight becomes a ghost ring.  Even though the opening is big, being mounted down on the barrel gives it a sight picture similar to an AR15 rear sight mounted closer to the eye.  It works great.  You can call it a low-tech red dot as all you have to do is look through and ignore the rear ring, put the front sight on the target, and pull the trigger.  Your eyes will automatically center everything.  Very fast, very accurate.  With the aperture installed, it becomes a peep sight and it becomes much slower without any great gains in accuracy.

I shot that carbine for a few years and then bought another one.  On the new one I put the NECG Ghost ring (not peep) sights.  It gives a longer sight radius as it sits back on the receiver, but as it sits much higher, the front sight has to be replaced to a minimum of 0.570".  Replacing the front sight was not necessary with the barrel-mounted Skinner ghost ring.

Both work fine, and although I expected the longer sight radius of the NECG to be more accurate, I was underwhelmed by it.  I actually prefer the barrel-mounted Skinner sight as it's half the cost, much lower profile, and actually keeps the line of sight significantly closer to centerbore of the barrel, which may explain why it's just as accurate as the NECG, despite have a shorter sight-radius than the NECG and being much further from the eye.

I shoot almost exclusively from 50-100 yards with these rifles, sometimes stretching out to 150.  The range I go to has a field filled with steel hogs, rabbits, and chickens, and I have no problem ringing and knocking them down with almost boring regularity with either rifle.  I have tested the older rifle with the Skinner ghost ring against the newer one when it still had factory leaf sights, and the ghost ring sight was much, much faster and more accurate -- there's only one thing to line up, and that's putting the front sight on the target.  This is especially true when shooting offhand.  Using a benchrest, the factory leaf sights were just slightly slower than the ghost ring, but when standing and shooting unsupported, the ghost ring is incredibly faster and more accurate, maybe even twice as much in both categories.  That could be why ghost rings are so popular when hunting, where the targets actually move.

So, I recommend trying the Skinner barrel-mounted peep/ghost ring sight.  It's only about 50 bucks.  If you really want a red dot, just paint the front sight with red nail polish.  I did it with orange, and that sucker sticks out there like crazy and is very easy to put on target.  Keeping the factory gold bead will also work well, depending on where the light is coming from.  Getting a red dot sight on the Ruger 77/357 will be difficult and you may find that it works no better than a good ghost ring setup.  You could always do both, putting the red dot on a QD mount, and keeping the barrel mounted ghost ring as a back up.

I used a Weigand base with a Primary Arms advanced micro dot on my 77/44 and I’m liking it so far!

Maybe look at a Leupold VXR 1-4. Some magnification and built in red dot. Just need 30 mm Ruger Rings. I put a VXR 2-7 on my 450BM and love it. Have been contemplating putting the VXR 1-4 on my 77-44. Gun shoots good enough it deserves a good scope.

If you call Ruger, they may swap your rings out for a 30mm set.  I had a defect in one ring and they sent me a whole new set with no questions asked beyond what the issue was.  Their CS is 100%.