Sage of the Sage

I was looking for basically 2 things in a new rifle: light weight and accuracy. Everything I read about the Ruger American seemed to draw me in, and I liked the price. So, I bought one, a .308, on Black Friday and took it to the range. The only thing I've tried in it so far was 165grn Hornady American Whitetail (it runs great through my other rifles), but it was pretty awful in the RAR. Couldn't do any better than about 3 inch groups at 100yds.

I'm not a sophistocated shooter. I'm a hunter; to me shooting and guns are a means to an end and not an end in themselves. I don't reload and really don't have much interest in starting. What I like to do is zero my rifles at 200 yards and placing my personal limit in the field at about 300 - I figure if I can't get closer than 300 yds to a deer or an elk I need to be a better hunter. So, I'm looking for sugestions on factory loads that might work to that end out of a Ruger American .308.

Anybody already been through this with RAR .308? Any suggestions?

Bbj270

Mine likes the 150 Remington corelokts

super_hunt54

6 groove 1:10 twist should be able to stabilize any of the factory offerings so twist isn't the problem. Some rifles are just picky and some rifles the shooter needs to shoot a good bit to get consistent groupings with them. Your best bet will be to just sink some money into a few different boxes of ammo to find the one your rifle likes. But before you do that, I would suggest grabbing a small jar of JB Bore Paste and hitting the bore with about 50 strokes of that and trying those Hornady's again. You may find that there was a little burring left over as this happens sometimes with mass manufactured rifle barrels. It could also, as I kinda hinted at earlier, be the shooter. The triggers on Ruger rifles leave a LOT to be desired in my own personal opinion and a crappy trigger will easily lead to crappy groups.

GTOHunter

Clean the Rifle and try a lighter grain bullet...I always use my Caldwell Leadsled to sight in my Rifles,it keeps the Recoil down and makes sighting them in more enjoyable.

muzzlestuffer

How is the trigger weight and is it clean and crisp that has a big affect on accuracy.

Sage of the Sage

Trigger is not as crisp as my other rifles, but still, I've had worse. I'm able to take out the slack and break the shot w/o causing the crosshairs to jump - dry firing, that is. There's a slight left/right play in it which I will need to try and shore up.

Last night I scrubbed it out w/ a tornado brush and several patches of 2 in 1 solvent. Someone on a different sight said he's had good luck w/ Hornady sst's 150grn. I grabbed a box of those and will try them. I've also had Federal Fushion 165grns suggested. I note these are both boattails. I figure I'll just be running different loads through it for a while until I find something it really likes.