Ruger American Rifle


Ruger is on a roll, introducing new guns faster than I can keep up. The Ruger American is a bolt action rifle with closed top receiver, interchangeable magazines, synthetic stock and a  short bolt-lift of seventy degrees. The trigger has a safety blade on its face; the trigger's pull weight is said to be adjustable from three to five pounds. Weight of the rifle is listed as 6.12 to 6.25 pounds.

I haven't seen an example of this rifle yet. I remark at this time because the rifle reflects an industry trend toward the closed top, and because it is quite a departure for Ruger. Their high powered bolt actions have heretofore been based on the Mauser 98, a conservative approach.

The Model 77 series (son of Mauser) continues in production, including the nifty Gunsite Scout Rifle.

Some previous designs that followed the closed top, interchangeable magazine approach are the Steyr SBS and the Tikka T3. These are successful and well liked rifles. Perhaps Ruger called their new model the American to fend off the observation that it owes a certain amount of its design thinking to Europe.

No word yet on the price of spare magazines for the new Ruger American.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A moldy oldie review: The Singlepoint sight

Image
"I don't know just what it is, but I'll let you have it cheap." So said the fellow at the gun show, and that is how I came to have this thing in my collection. The Singlepoint is an ancestor of today's red dot sights. It created a stir back in the seventies. It was discussed in the English  Parliament . Its moment of fame came on the Son Tay  raid in the Vietnam war. It even got writeups in  Popular Mechanics  and  Popular Science , honors reserved for things that were maximally cool. By modern standards, though, it's a pathetic gunsight. It was a good try for its time, no doubt. It is an occluded eye gunsight (OEG), meaning you can't see through it. When you look in the end you see a black field with a red dot floating in it. You look at the target with your other eye and your brain merges the two images into one. Thus, you see the red dot superimposed upon the target. Well, sort of. It doesn't work perfectly. The effects of  pho...
Read more

Classic gun review: First generation Thompson Center Contender

Image
Including a pictorial on how to change barrels The Contender is a break action single shot. You can set up the gun as a pistol or carbine, depending on your tastes. Barrels are interchangeable and available in many calibers. The gun reviewed is an older model, made in the seventies. There is a more recent "G2" second generation model with numerous changes to the mechanism. In between the early model shown and the present G2, there were several variations in parts and design, most significantly a redesign of the barrel latch to make the gun easier to open. The review gun lacks the easy-open feature. More about that later. The Contender figured in a  Supreme Court case , which established that having a pistol and parts to convert it to a rifle did not amount to possession of an illegal short barreled rifle. Thus in a small way the Contender has a place in gun rights history. Of course, it is still illegal to assemble the pistol barrel to a receiver which ...
Read more

The Williams Foolproof sight -- it really is!

Image
I have these classic micrometer peep sights on two rifles, at present, and they are good gear! This type of sight has been around approximately forever. The company makes numerous versions to fit a great many firearms. On some guns you will need a taller front sight when you install a peep sight but this is by no means true of all. It used to be old graybeards would look at my peep sighted rifle, nod approvingly and say to me, "See ya got a Foolproof. Good, good..." Now I am the graybeard saying that to younger folks. There is a great deal to approve of. The windage and elevation settings are finely adjustable. They ride on screw shafts and the setting have countable clicks and a visible index. Adjustments are supposed to be in minutes of angle and fractions, but of course that will vary with the length of the barrel, as a matter of simple geometry. Since I have this sight on a rifle that is longer than normal, and on another one shorter than normal, nothing works out to ev...
Read more