Another Ruger follows me home.

Muir

Well-Known Member
I was getting in from work the other evening and there was a message on my answering machine from a store in the City saying a rifle I was looking for had come in. It's a Ruger American in 300 AAC Black Out. I'd bantered about buying one they had earlier but by the time I'd made up my mind, it'd been purchased by a law enforcement officer from up north. They got their last remaining gun from a sister store.
It's a strange piece of work, for sure, but seems to function fine so far with the dummy rounds I've run through it. I mounted a scope and dug out dies and brass. I am planning to use 210 grain cast bullets in it. Should be fun.~Muir


PS: 7 pounds with scope and full magazine.
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Hi Muir,

Looks like a nice rifle, out of curiosity, how long its that barrel, looks extremely short

Mark



I was getting in from work the other evening and there was a message on my answering machine from a store in the City saying a rifle I was looking for had come in. It's a Ruger American in 300 AAC Black Out. I'd bantered about buying one they had earlier but by the time I'd made up my mind, it'd been purchased by a law enforcement officer from up north. They got their last remaining gun from a sister store.
It's a strange piece of work, for sure, but seems to function fine so far with the dummy rounds I've run through it. I mounted a scope and dug out dies and brass. I am planning to use 210 grain cast bullets in it. Should be fun.~Muir


PS: 7 pounds with scope and full magazine.
6968.jpg
 
I sold one of those on Gunbroker to someone and just so happened to have shipped it yesterday .
 
Update:

I spent the weekend with my girl friend up in the mountains but came down in time to get to the range before total darkness and get my scope zeroed -that, test the function of the Ruger's 300AAC magazines, and maybe do a quick accuracy check. I set up two large strips of butcher paper on the 50 yard backer and just fired at the middle of the adjoined sheets. When I got the load close I switched to 1" circles and tuned the scope. It was by then pretty darned dim in the lighting department but I got the scope zeroed a half inch low at 50yds and fired a couple of groups. My last was aiming at a random bullet hole and I put 5 rounds overlapping each other to the tune of about 3/8" CTC. The previous group was about a half inch CTC with all shots cutting, tho with one slightly farther out of the cluster. I'm pleased.

My shooting was done off of a forearm rest, with no rear rest. The trigger was left untouched. It was 4 pounds but crisp after the initial 'accu-trigger' take up. I'll adjust that. The magazine(s) worked flawlessly. The feed was so smooth that occasionally I would retract the bolt and check to see if round chambered. What i didn't like was that is due to the magazine configuration it is pretty much impossible to single feed a round into the chamber. The raised centralized lips of the rotary magazine roll the round off to the right or left. Loading the first round into the magazine needed a bit of practice to get it pushed down and back under the feed lips. After that first round, the next four slipped into place easily, and frankly, after a few times, that first round was put in without any thought or extra effort. Both magazines functioned equally well. That was one of the glitches one group had on YouTube when they aired a test of this rifle so it was a particular concern of mine.

The load was a 168 grain Sierra Match King over 12 grns of Lil Gun. Not subsonic but probably in the 1500 fps class. I have recently seen data published in Handloader Magazine that has the 168 over 8 grains of Lil Gun for 1040 fps. (the same load as the 208 grain) Prudence dictates that I work down to that level. :D

Anyhow, that's the tale. Hope to do some more with it after deer season. ~Muir
 
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I almost ordered one but the price over here is just plain silly so I went for the 6.5 Precision Rifle instead (at an even more silly price!).

I have an Advance Armaments Handi Rifle in 300 AAC, I mainly use it indoors with sub-sonic loads, 3.4gr of Vhit N310 works very nicely with 165 or 115gr cast boolits, very accurate and very cheap to feed :)

I've shot it outdoors at 100m using a 168gr Nosler Custom Competition bullet over 15gr of Hodgdon H110, considering I only have a WTC 1.5-5x20 scope on it it did very well, sub 2" groups.

It's certainly an interesting calibre but can it can be quite boring shooting it indoors putting boolit after boolit into the same raggy hole :)
 
I almost ordered one but the price over here is just plain silly so I went for the 6.5 Precision Rifle instead (at an even more silly price!).

I have an Advance Armaments Handi Rifle in 300 AAC, I mainly use it indoors with sub-sonic loads, 3.4gr of Vhit N310 works very nicely with 165 or 115gr cast boolits, very accurate and very cheap to feed :)

I've shot it outdoors at 100m using a 168gr Nosler Custom Competition bullet over 15gr of Hodgdon H110, considering I only have a WTC 1.5-5x20 scope on it it did very well, sub 2" groups.

It's certainly an interesting calibre but can it can be quite boring shooting it indoors putting boolit after boolit into the same raggy hole :)
I also plan on using this for cast bullets. I have a 6-18X varmint scope on it now but will swap out to a 3-9X for periods in between load development when it will ride in the back of my pickup truck. I settled on the 311-290 Lyman bullet to start off experimentation with, then I'll switch to the RCBS 30-200-SIL. (I'm expecting good things from that bullet!) I was playing around with a Savage custom about 15 years ago in 300 Whisper (identical to the 300 AAC) using the Lyman 218 grain #311-284 with very satisfying results. I expect this Ruger to deliver same. Yesterday was mostly a zero and function test.

Good call on the 6.5 Precision. I drove over to my shooting buddy's house after the range and he showed me a .28" c-t-c five shot group fired prone at 200 yards. That's the second sub-1/4 MOA group I've seen from his rifle at that distance. Of course, I watched him shoot 5" at 1000 yards so I guess that's no surprise. He has had some excessive fouling with his Precision rifle in 308 and Ruger wants him to ship it back for a rebarrel. That is the second case of excessive fouling (rough barrel) I've heard of in 308. Mine, thankfully, has no such problems.~Muir
 
Well it looks like my 6.5 may be here in December instead of October, Viking Arms (UK Importer) ordered 50 and only got 15 delivered, there are supposed to be more due in about 2 weeks but they'll have to go off to the proof house (money making for no good reason) and be returned then shipped to the dealers. Luckily we're away for a couple of weeks picking up huge amounts of shooting stuff at sensible prices in Florida :)

I stuck my Handi Rifle in an ATI cheapo "Tacticool" stock as I need the extra length of pull (being 6' 5")

300aac.jpg
 
He has had some excessive fouling with his Precision rifle in 308 and Ruger wants him to ship it back for a rebarrel. That is the second case of excessive fouling (rough barrel) I've heard of in 308. Mine, thankfully, has no such problems.~Muir

Are you thinking of running the cast loads early on as means of lapping the bore, in addition to just fun loads?

A friend and I enjoyed working up loads for his .300 Whisper on a Thompson single shot. We had two patches of land we could hunt, each about 65 acres, near our homes and just crawling with deer, but with homes on either side. The Whisper shot 200-gr match bullets very well, but they were a bit tough, so he switched over to cast lead 200-gr ( can't recall his mold), and slayed deer inside of 100 yards with it, very quietly.
 
Well it looks like my 6.5 may be here in December instead of October, Viking Arms (UK Importer) ordered 50 and only got 15 delivered, there are supposed to be more due in about 2 weeks but they'll have to go off to the proof house (money making for no good reason) and be returned then shipped to the dealers. Luckily we're away for a couple of weeks picking up huge amounts of shooting stuff at sensible prices in Florida :)

I stuck my Handi Rifle in an ATI cheapo "Tacticool" stock as I need the extra length of pull (being 6' 5")

300aac.jpg
Nice!
Working up Sub sonic loads for my Ruger is a little pointless because I don't have a suppressor, still I like the idea of it. By the way, I read that text wrong. The 6.5 group measured .203" ctc. You can think on that during the cold months! ;)~Muir
 
Are you thinking of running the cast loads early on as means of lapping the bore, in addition to just fun loads?

A friend and I enjoyed working up loads for his .300 Whisper on a Thompson single shot. We had two patches of land we could hunt, each about 65 acres, near our homes and just crawling with deer, but with homes on either side. The Whisper shot 200-gr match bullets very well, but they were a bit tough, so he switched over to cast lead 200-gr ( can't recall his mold), and slayed deer inside of 100 yards with it, very quietly.
My 300 AAC is fine, as is my Ruger Precision Rifle in 308. I have no clue how my buddy will handle his rifle. I will go straight to cast in the Ranch Rifle 300 AAC. I am looking forward to doing some casting for it.~Muir
 
OK... Not straight to cast bullets in the 300AAC. A good deal on Nosler 125 grain Hunting Ballistic Tip's got in the way. I loaded these over 17.2 of Lil Gun and got sub MOA at 100 off of a bipod, and just 1.2 MOA at 200 in a slight breeze. What a lot of fun.~Muir
 
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