Sage of the Sage

I thought I'd go ahead and post a review of the Ruger American; the one I owned briefly was a .308 win. First off, however, I'll admit that my review might not be altogether fair, as the gun I bought from Cabela's was defective. That said, I've generally been a believer in an axiom I once heard: ""You can spend $500 on a rifle that will kill an elk at 300 yards; and you can spend $2500 on a rifle that will kill an elk at 300 yards." - true to an extent. I'm more of a hunter than a shooter, and as such see firearms through the lens of what will be practical in the field.

I can tell you that I was looking for an affordable "mountain rifle", something I could shoot big game with an not mind carrying for miles and miles in Pintlars, Pioneers, and Saphire Mountain Ranges where I do most of my hunting. The Ruger American stood out in a lot of the internet posts and articles I'd read as being light weight, accurate, and affordable. What I got out of the box was, in fact, affordable and very light weight. I gave it a good going over and was impressed with the overall simplicity of it. The bolt is a one-piece, 3 lug design with very little to malfunction. The action was basically smooth, although not notably so, and oddly seemed to make a lot of unnecessary racket when opperated. Did I mention it was light? Weighed around 7lb's w/ the scope on it. That's good, in that it was a feature I was looking for. It's magazine fed, and although I was leery of the plastic magazine, it seemed to work fine. The hardware was well machined, sturty, and lined up right.

Now a few things I didn't like. It was light, yes, but the stock is hollow and knocks loudly if bounced off the handle of your knife sheathed on your belt, for example. It was also a bit more flexible than I felt comfortable with. Maybe that's really not a problem, but it just somehow [I]felt[I] like I was carrying an airsoft rifle when I handled it.

The trigger was adjustable (reportedly 5 to 3 pounds), good feature I suppose, but I sincerely dislike the trigger inside a trigger design that we're starting to see on lots of economy rifles. Savage calls it "accutrigger" Ruger calls it "marksman trigger", but to me they seem like gimmicky junk intended to imitate the feel of a two-stage trigger (which I'll admit I'm not fond of anyway). When cocked, the "marksman trigger" sticks out quite a ways from the rest of the assembly. I could easily imagine a random branch hitting it inside the trigger guard while the rifle's slung and I'm negotiating my way through a jungle gym of deadfall, and breaking or bending the inside part. It's flimsly - no other way to put. The whole trigger assembly could wiggle side to side and, when firing, there was still some creep and drag in the trigger even after the inside part is pressed into the larger part of the trigger. So, to summarize, I did not like the trigger. Not at all.

But I thought maybe I could get used to it. So I went to the range and the accuracy was awful. In several trips to the range, I tried four different types of ammo with similar results. I talked to Ruger and they were pretty good about sending me a box to send it to the factory, where they had it for less than a day. Litterally the day after Ruger received it, they returned it saying, "repaired muzzel crown".

So, here's where my part in this becomes unfair. I didn't shoot it again. By that time I was so frustrated by the range experiences and the annoyance of having bought a defective product right out of the box that the things I didn't like about the rifle (mostly the trigger) had become glaring in my mind, to the point I just didn't even want the silly thing anymore. I wasn't sure I could develop a lot of confidence in shooting it with a trigger system like that, especially when the hunting rifles I'm used to (a Vangaurd II 300WM and a Remington 600 .243) both have crisp, single stage triggers. I took Ruger's word for it that they'd fixed the gun, then I sold it back to Cabela's, shelled out a little more cabbage, and ordered a Tikka - which is probably what I should have gone with in the first place.