Yesterday I got an in-stock notification from Kentucky Gun Co (www.kygunco.com) for the new Ruger for the third time. I called immediately and they told me they had just received 150 of them in, so I drove down there to get one. Price on the website was $509.99 plus tax since I am in state.
Everything went smoothly with the purchase and they even threw in 30 minutes free on their range. Before completing the transfer I confirmed that they had given me the 17-round model with threaded barrel (they had), then I headed to their indoor range. In my haste I forgot to check which magazine adaptor was installed. Turned out to be the Ruger which was unfortunate because by the time I figured it out my 30 minutes had already started. The good news is that I found, under "duress", I was able to change the adaptor in just a handful of minutes. For those that are unaware, the whole receiver has to be removed from the stock to change the adaptor.
Once everything was back together I loaded the gun with the first of nine (9) Glock mags (KCI brand). This was also a minor test of these mags as I bought them just for the Ruger (I don't own a Glock). Of the nine total mags, 5 are 17-round and 4 are 31-round. When I arrived at the store all my mags were preloaded with an assortment of random bullets I had laying around. This was deliberate and was done in an effort to test the reliability of the rifle. The ammo included factory 115 grain from Blazer and Remington as well as 124 and 130 grain reloads. The mags all inserted positively and firmly with no issues. As has been mentioned in several reviews, the long mags wiggle a bit, but I found this only happened when I pushed on them. In any event they caused no feeding problems.
I spent approximately 20 minutes shooting and reloaded several mags. The best count I can come up with is 266 shots fired. Of those, I had 2 stovepipes which were almost undoubtedly from the batch of 130 grain ammo based on the heavy soot on those cases. I loaded up a bunch of these awhile back at a reduced load that cycled another gun of mine and included them in this test to see if the Ruger could handle them. Apparently it can handle them - most of the time.
Overall I was left with a favorable impression of the rifle. The stock looks cheaper in person, but for my purposes that's a non-issue. The trigger feels very close to a standard 10/22 trigger the reset was minimal. Recoil was more noticeable than I would have thought, but it was still very much manageable. I found the gun to be extremely accurate, although I had to fire all shots unsupported from standing.
The sights are similar to those of an M1 Garand or other military rifle with ears next to the front post. This made aiming very easy. I didn't bring my red dot, but I'm sure that would been fine as well.
I did notice the gun got very hot at the rear of the forward handguard. This is likely due to the takedown lever being in that area combined with the high rate of fire (I was shooting a round on average every 4.5 seconds, including time spent reloading and dealing with a minor target carrier issue). By moving my hand to the forward end of the handguard I had no further problems with that. Normally I would take more time to fire that many shots, but I was trying to get as much shooting in as I could before my time was up.
Pictures are below. I only used one target with the first group being in the center and the final group in the bottom right (it was a star before I shot it). There are several shots that appear to be stray, but I was actually verifying that certain loads were clearing the barrel in most cases. The target was left at 15 yards to minimize that variable.
Everything went smoothly with the purchase and they even threw in 30 minutes free on their range. Before completing the transfer I confirmed that they had given me the 17-round model with threaded barrel (they had), then I headed to their indoor range. In my haste I forgot to check which magazine adaptor was installed. Turned out to be the Ruger which was unfortunate because by the time I figured it out my 30 minutes had already started. The good news is that I found, under "duress", I was able to change the adaptor in just a handful of minutes. For those that are unaware, the whole receiver has to be removed from the stock to change the adaptor.
Once everything was back together I loaded the gun with the first of nine (9) Glock mags (KCI brand). This was also a minor test of these mags as I bought them just for the Ruger (I don't own a Glock). Of the nine total mags, 5 are 17-round and 4 are 31-round. When I arrived at the store all my mags were preloaded with an assortment of random bullets I had laying around. This was deliberate and was done in an effort to test the reliability of the rifle. The ammo included factory 115 grain from Blazer and Remington as well as 124 and 130 grain reloads. The mags all inserted positively and firmly with no issues. As has been mentioned in several reviews, the long mags wiggle a bit, but I found this only happened when I pushed on them. In any event they caused no feeding problems.
I spent approximately 20 minutes shooting and reloaded several mags. The best count I can come up with is 266 shots fired. Of those, I had 2 stovepipes which were almost undoubtedly from the batch of 130 grain ammo based on the heavy soot on those cases. I loaded up a bunch of these awhile back at a reduced load that cycled another gun of mine and included them in this test to see if the Ruger could handle them. Apparently it can handle them - most of the time.
Overall I was left with a favorable impression of the rifle. The stock looks cheaper in person, but for my purposes that's a non-issue. The trigger feels very close to a standard 10/22 trigger the reset was minimal. Recoil was more noticeable than I would have thought, but it was still very much manageable. I found the gun to be extremely accurate, although I had to fire all shots unsupported from standing.
The sights are similar to those of an M1 Garand or other military rifle with ears next to the front post. This made aiming very easy. I didn't bring my red dot, but I'm sure that would been fine as well.
I did notice the gun got very hot at the rear of the forward handguard. This is likely due to the takedown lever being in that area combined with the high rate of fire (I was shooting a round on average every 4.5 seconds, including time spent reloading and dealing with a minor target carrier issue). By moving my hand to the forward end of the handguard I had no further problems with that. Normally I would take more time to fire that many shots, but I was trying to get as much shooting in as I could before my time was up.
Pictures are below. I only used one target with the first group being in the center and the final group in the bottom right (it was a star before I shot it). There are several shots that appear to be stray, but I was actually verifying that certain loads were clearing the barrel in most cases. The target was left at 15 yards to minimize that variable.
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