Ruger American .243 at 650 yards...

Hopefully, some stock makers will get into making some laminated stocks for these... or maybe since the rifles are selling so well, Ruger themselves might begin offering them with heavy barrels and laminated stocks in varmint calibers...
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I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the conference room when they hold their sales and marketing meetings.

If they did as you suggest, then they'd be competing with their M77- which now has a heavy barrel "tactical" model.

Substitute a heavy barrel, and a better stock on the American- and what would separate them from the M77-other than a cheaper price for a rifle that'll shoot just as well (or...better?).

That's why I suspect (just a WAG) that they intend to leave them at this price point...time will tell. Wonder what they had / have in mind...

Hopefully, some stock makers will get into making some laminated stocks for these...
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Well, now...you just might have given me something to think about...
 
Because all you people on here cant quit talking about Ruger American rifles, I had to go buy one.:D .243 Win. I hope it shoots like the one above.
 
My first opinion of the rifle is "Mosin Nagant." Not that the rifle even remotely resembles one, but it is cheap, rugged, functional, accurate, and ugly.:rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
Reynolds... I think it'll serve you well. We were working with two of them today, the one which is the subject of this thread, and the second one which is my 12 year old son's, he got for Christmas.

We found that both rifles shoot the 105 AMAX in front of 48.2 grains of Retumbo, in RP cases very well. Another three shot group at 650 yards well under MOA from the subject rifle of this thread... and the second rifle (my son's) seemed to want to do as well also, but the wind was getting up and it was hard to get the shots on the plate with the 2nd rifle.

Here are some 100 yard groups from the Ruger American, .243 win...

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Then a 'possum decided to walk out in front of the 100 yard target board while my son was shooting in the 87 vmax load...

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It was very strange... we saw three different possums out in broad daylight in the field today... the landowner put the first one down with his TC Contender in .218 Bee, and as mentioned the second one fell to the 87 vmax .243 win... and the third one was at 750 yards, and we lost sight of him before we could get a decent shot at him.

Dan
 
This kind of performance will be hard for many to believe
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Nope, not one bit. I've seen some dern good 1000 yard scores fired with 243s.

My wife's M-70 does quite well to 1200 yards using Berger 87 grainers.
 
I've been scheming for a .243 lately so this has been an informative thread.

I noticed from Ruger's spec sheet, it has a 1:9 barrel, whereas I seem to recall Remington and Weatherby Vanguard have 1:10. Any thoughts on that?
 
Thanks Dan. It is encouraging to know the American will shoot an A-max. It has been my experience that it takes a good quality barrel to get accuracy out of the A-max.
 
I don't know what Weatherby's twist is, but Remington's has been--for years now--1:9 1/4 twist. Most Remingtons I know of will shoot the 105 AMAX too... I think Hornady designed the bullet that way, so you wouldn't need a custom twist to stabilize it.

Reynolds... it is encouraging to me also that these guns will shoot the 105's, and I agree it is indicative of a pretty decent barrel, that it will stabilize that bullet and shoot it well. Of course such a long bullet tends to turn in better MOA results at 200 yards and beyond, potentially not being 100 percent stable at 100 yards.

And the 87 VMAX is a great long range bullet too... with a BC of .400, and potential velocity from the .243 Winchester of 3200 to 3300 fps (easily), it's a pretty flat shooting bullet.

Dan
 
Another possum came out at 140 yards today during our long range practice shoot... around 1pm... the guy on the line got permission to dispatch it. Not sure what's going on with the things, but yes, rabies seems like one possibility...
 
Its not unusual to see possums in the daytime. There is one that lives around my barn somewhere and I see him during the day all the time and have done so for the last couple of years. If he were rabid, he would be dead by now.
 
We worked the trigger on my son's .243 RAR.

It would dial down to just over 3 pounds... a bit heavy for accuracy work.

So I removed the single pin that holds the trigger itself into the trigger housing... easily lifted out the tension spring (a coil spring)... clipped off two coils... a dab of lithium grease on the ledge... and the whole thing went back together in about 5 minutes.

Trigger is now at a super nice 2 pounds... :)

This trigger will be very easy to work on for those who tend to tinker. (I know I know... smokin' out the self appointed mall cops, but somebody's gotta do it). :D

Dan
 
Dan thanks for that tip, very easy to do and made a big difference. Removing that spring completely gets the trigger down to what feels like less than a pound. Too light for me, but good to know.
 
'Tis good to read that a Ruger rifle did so well at a longer range.

After Ruger's dismal performance in the 20 Palma rifles they built for the 1992 US Palma Team, maybe they did something to end up with better barrels in them. Those Palma rifles had Green Mountain brand barrels in them; half with 4 grooves and half with 6. They were called "tub" guns. They shot wash tub size groups at long range with ammo that shot "saucer" size groups at long range in members own rifles.
 
Wow, what a ringing endorsement from our resident expert marksman! How's that for a punch in the --ts???!! Go SAVAGE!!!!!!!!!:D:p
 
Bart, I have a Ruger 6PPC that is not even sub minute, much less production match ready. I gave up on it. Will eventually re-barrel it. I think it is going to be ironical if Ruger's $350 American outshoots their Cadillac rifle.
 
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Thanks dan that is good to know . I will not be doing that cus my RAR will be my walking , hicking , hunting rifle and I will have it set at 4lbs-ish . 2lbs seems a little light for a camp gun but it's great on the new Savage :D
 
While such performances from the .243 case do happen, the frequency thereof is typically short lived. David Tubb was probably the first to use the .243 Win. round in high power match rifle competition and did very well with it. But as both he and Barrett (Boots) Obermeyer (barrel maker extraordinaire) told me, it starts loosing accuracy very quickly at about 1500 rounds. Its overbore capactiy powder charges coupled with max (and sometimes +P loads) eats away the leade in a hurry. But it's got twice the super accurate barrel life of its half millimeter larger bigger-case cousin, the 6.5x.284 having about 750 rounds before going south.
 
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