Finally got a Ruger American Ranch in .450 Bushmaster ....

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MCMXI said:
I'd buy the current .450 BM model shown below if it came with a synthetic stock that's an option on the .308 Win and 350 Legend models, but as it stands, I can see a .308 Win version in my future.

View attachment 1022850
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I hope you can forgive me for saying that, that Ruger rifle is some weird twisted mix of ugly and nice as the same time. The wood and metal finish looks great accented by the bolt in the white and the reinforcement screws/lugs under the action. And yet the lines are pretty horrendous. The honking break, scout rails and the spacers under the recoil pad all ruin the pleasing lines of the rifle and when you mix in those iron sights, that might otherwise be OK, it just looks fugly. That rifle likes something a soldier from the Death Korps of Krieg (Warhammer 40K reference) should be carrying not a self respecting deer hunter. I know there is no accounting for tastes and beauty is in the eye of the beholder... I love the 450 Bushmaster cartridge but those 450 Bushmaster bolt actions rifles leaving me wanting in the looks department. 450 BM is an AR cartridge to me so I really don't have much room to criticize aesthetics appeal but there it is and worth what you paid for it. :D
 
mcb said:
I hope you can forgive me for saying that, that Ruger rifle is some weird twisted mix of ugly and nice as the same time. The wood and metal finish looks great accented by the bolt in the white and the reinforcement screws/lugs under the action. And yet the lines are pretty horrendous. The honking break, scout rails and the spacers under the recoil pad all ruin the pleasing lines of the rifle and when you mix in those iron sights, that might otherwise be OK, it just looks fugly. That rifle likes something a soldier from the Death Korps of Krieg (Warhammer 40K reference) should be carrying not a self respecting deer hunter. I know there is no accounting for tastes and beauty is in the eye of the beholder... I love the 450 Bushmaster cartridge but those 450 Bushmaster bolt actions rifles leaving me wanting in the looks department. 450 BM is an AR cartridge to me so I really don't have much room to criticize aesthetics appeal but there it is and worth what you paid for it. :D
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:DI absolutely get where you're coming from but it's classic Ruger where affordable and reliable function trump aesthetics, though sometimes the function part is lacking a little. I have six Ruger revolvers including two that Hamilton Bowen has worked his magic on. All six are excellent revolvers but none hold a candle to the shear beauty and appeal of the 4" stainless Python I bought new in 1993 and still have. If Ruger ever manages to combine function, reliability, affordability and good looks then every other manufacture had better watch out!
 
mcb said:
I hope you can forgive me for saying that, that Ruger rifle is some weird twisted mix of ugly and nice as the same time. The wood and metal finish looks great accented by the bolt in the white and the reinforcement screws/lugs under the action. And yet the lines are pretty horrendous. The honking break, scout rails and the spacers under the recoil pad all ruin the pleasing lines of the rifle and when you mix in those iron sights, that might otherwise be OK, it just looks fugly. That rifle likes something a soldier from the Death Korps of Krieg (Warhammer 40K reference) should be carrying not a self respecting deer hunter. I know there is no accounting for tastes and beauty is in the eye of the beholder... I love the 450 Bushmaster cartridge but those 450 Bushmaster bolt actions rifles leaving me wanting in the looks department. 450 BM is an AR cartridge to me so I really don't have much room to criticize aesthetics appeal but there it is and worth what you paid for it. :D
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It’s not so bad when you take the rail and rear sight off and mount a scope conventionally on it. I would probably put a thread protector on it too and hope that the front sight came off easily as well. I don’t remember on the one I had.

I guess I am unsure why Ruger can make a normal American in 450 but have to only chamber the 450 in their tacticaled out scout model when it’s the model 77.
 
The ASR muzzle brake adapter should be here Tuesday so I'm looking forward to giving a follow up report shooting suppressed. I also have some Remington 260gr Accutip ammunition to try so the next report should be interesting. Given how well this rifle has shot thus far I'm tempted to switch out the 1.5-5x for a Mark 4 3.5-10x TMR that I'm not using on anything. The 1.5x-5x is intended for an AR and even comes with a 55gr BDC elevation dial and I'm not averse to the extra magnification.
 
MCMXI said:
Thanks, but I have a very large supply of Trail Boss so will be using that for the 405gr. QuickLOAD predicts that 14.0gr or so should work well.
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I could never get enough Trail Boss in a 450 BM do get that405gr bullet going much over 900 fps. 13.7 gr was all I was comfortable stuffing in the case and I only got 908 fps from a 20 inch barrel. I switch to Vihtavuori N32C Tin Star and got my desired 1050 fps.
 
mcb said:
I could never get enough Trail Boss in a 450 BM do get that405gr bullet going much over 900 fps. 13.7 gr was all I was comfortable stuffing in the case and I only got 908 fps from a 20 inch barrel. I switch to Vihtavuori N32C Tin Star and got my desired 1050 fps.
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But I assume you're loading for an AR and therefore are limited by magazine length. The Ruger American magazine has an internal length of 3" so it might allow me to move the bullet out a fair bit. Not saying that the leade or throat will allow the bullet to move out as far as necessary but it's something I'll be looking at. I do like Vihtavuori powders though so am not against the idea of buying N32C Tin Star.
 
MCMXI said:
But I assume you're loading for an AR and therefore are limited by magazine length. The Ruger American magazine has an internal length of 3" so it might allow me to move the bullet out a fair bit. Not saying that the leade or throat will allow the bullet to move out as far as necessary but it's something I'll be looking at.
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Before I sent mine back to Ruger I could have loaded it out 2.340” COAL. Lee manual calls for 2.260. The factory Federal I was shooting measured 2.153 and the factory Winchester measured 2.228. Haven’t played with it yet since I got it back so I don’t know what it measures now but I would think it would be similar based on what you mentioned about barrels and accuracy earlier.

I don’t know if this helps you or not but I’m sure you will find out when you test it on your own.
 
earlthegoat2 said:
Before I sent mine back to Ruger I could have loaded it out 2.340” COAL. Lee manual calls for 2.260. The factory Federal I was shooting measured 2.153 and the factory Winchester measured 2.228. Haven’t played with it yet since I got it back so I don’t know what it measures now but I would think it would be similar based on what you mentioned about barrels and accuracy earlier.

I don’t know if this helps you or not but I’m sure you will find out when you test it on your own.
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That's good information thanks. I resized three Remington .458 bullets this morning, and tested COAL to see how short the cartridge needs to be in order to chamber and extract. 2.365" will chamber easily with just a hint of "stickiness" on extraction. A COAL of 2.350" would be good but I'll need to modify the feedlips of the magazine to allow the case head to pop up earlier because 2.350" is too long to feed from the magazine, in fact, 2.260" with the entire top cannelure inside the case mouth still won't feed from the factory magazine. I think it's worth playing with one of the magazines to get it to feed a 2.350" COAL round so that's my next step.

The nickel cased round shown below has a COAL of 2.365" and will chamber in the rifle with just a hint of "sticky" extraction.

coal_comparison_01.jpg
 
MCMXI said:
But I assume you're loading for an AR and therefore are limited by magazine length. The Ruger American magazine has an internal length of 3" so it might allow me to move the bullet out a fair bit. Not saying that the leade or throat will allow the bullet to move out as far as necessary but it's something I'll be looking at. I do like Vihtavuori powders though so am not against the idea of buying N32C Tin Star.
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If you can load them longer you might be able to make it work. I was loaded for an AR so was pretty hard limited to 2.26 OAL. If you can load longer than that you might get enough Trail Boss in there to get over 1000 fps.
 
earlthegoat2 said:
Before I sent mine back to Ruger I could have loaded it out 2.340” COAL. Lee manual calls for 2.260. The factory Federal I was shooting measured 2.153 and the factory Winchester measured 2.228. Haven’t played with it yet since I got it back so I don’t know what it measures now but I would think it would be similar based on what you mentioned about barrels and accuracy earlier.

I don’t know if this helps you or not but I’m sure you will find out when you test it on your own.
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Did you ever try feeding those 2.340" COAL rounds from the magazine? So far it's looking like the .458gr JSP bullets aren't going to work, even at 2.260". Not a big deal since I bought them years ago for my .45-70 Govt. and can use them in the AR if I want.
 
MCMXI said:
Thanks, but I have a very large supply of Trail Boss so will be using that for the 405gr. QuickLOAD predicts that 14.0gr or so should work well.
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Let us know how that works.

I do use 11.0gn of TB with my cast/coated 150’s for 308.
 
The ASR brake showed up yesterday so I got that installed before a couple of friends showed up to pick up rifles. I'm not sure about SilencerCo's ASR QD system yet. It seems only marginally better than the god awful AAC system that I had @MachIVshooter fix on four of my AAC suppressors. That said, this combination plain shoots.

I swapped out the Leupold Mark 4 1.5-5X for a Leupold Mark 4 3.5-10X. Using the same Hornady 250gr FTX ammunition I shot the sub 1/2" group at bottom right after bore sighting and aiming at the center diamond. I adjusted the scope up 8moa and left 3.5 moa and then let my friends shoot a group each. Friend #1 shot the lower group to the left, and friend #2 shot the upper group to the left. You can see a .338 cal hole near the center diamond. That was friend #1 trying friend #2's new Remington 700 chambered in .338 LM. :D The scope has 1 moa clicks for elevation and 1/2 moa clicks for windage so after my friends finished shooting I clicked windage 1/2 moa right and called it good.

This is such a good "little" rifle that has completely surpassed my expectations. Next up is to try some handloads and find a bullet suited to sub sonic use because the 405gr .458 swaged to .452 aren't going to work. I should probably work up a supersonic load first using the 260gr Accutips after I've shot some groups with the factory stuff I have and measured velocity.

OK ... next step is to shoot another group with the Hornady 250gr to get velocity assuming that the suppressor and LabRadar play well together. Then get velocity and accuracy with Remington 260gr Accutips and then work up a 260gr Accutip load. After that work up a subsonic load.

ruger_american_450bm_03.jpg

ruger_american_450bm_02.jpg

hdy_250gr_ftx_02.jpg

hdy_250gr_ftx_03.jpg
 
MCMXI said:
The ASR brake showed up yesterday so I got that installed before a couple of friends showed up to pick up rifles. I'm not sure about SilencerCo's ASR QD system yet. It seems only marginally better than the god awful AAC system that I had @MachIVshooter fix on four of my AAC suppressors. That said, this combination plain shoots.

I swapped out the Leupold Mark 4 1.5-5X for a Leupold Mark 4 3.5-10X. Using the same Hornady 250gr FTX ammunition I shot the sub 1/2" group at bottom right after bore sighting and aiming at the center diamond. I adjusted the scope up 8moa and left 3.5 moa and then let my friends shoot a group each. Friend #1 shot the lower group to the left, and friend #2 shot the upper group to the left. You can see a .338 cal hole near the center diamond. That was friend #1 trying friend #2's new Remington 700 chambered in .338 LM. :D The scope has 1 moa clicks for elevation and 1/2 moa clicks for windage so after my friends finished shooting I clicked windage 1/2 moa right and called it good.

This is such a good "little" rifle that has completely surpassed my expectations. Next up is to try some handloads and find a bullet suited to sub sonic use because the 405gr .458 swaged to .452 aren't going to work. I should probably work up a supersonic load first using the 260gr Accutips after I've shot some groups with the factory stuff I have and measured velocity.

OK ... next step is to shoot another group with the Hornady 250gr to get velocity assuming that the suppressor and LabRadar play well together. Then get velocity and accuracy with Remington 260gr Accutips and then work up a 260gr Accutip load. After that work up a subsonic load.

View attachment 1024479

View attachment 1024480

View attachment 1024481

View attachment 1024482
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Curious why the 405 gr bullet resizes are not going to work for you? I got pretty good groups in my attempt.

Not that it maters but I have never minded AAC 51t mounts. They have worked great my SDN-6, just leave the mounts dirty and it's happy as a pig in mud.
 
mcb said:
Curious why the 405 gr bullet resizes are not going to work for you? I got pretty good groups in my attempt.

Not that it maters but I have never minded AAC 51t mounts. They have worked great my SDN-6, just leave the mounts dirty and it's happy as a pig in mud.
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No matter the overall length, the 405gr loads won't feed from the magazine. The meplat is large as you know and the entry angle and barrel geometry result in the meplat crashing into the barrel tenon. Your experience is with an AR and obviously they work for you but they're not going to work for me.

I have four AAC rifle suppressors including a Titan QD, Mk13-SD, 762-SDN-6 and an M4-2000. All four would shoot loose all the time on 51T and 90T brakes. One friend had his 762-SND-6 head downrange due to this issue. If you're happy with the AAC mount then good for you. I wasn't happy and had one modified at a machine shop based on my specs before ECCO Machine were offering conversions. I sent that one along with the other three to him to be upgraded since he was able to do a better job. There's a big tolerance stack issue with AAC's mount system so some have it better than others.
 
So I got some velocity data from the 16" barrel with the Hybrid 46.

Hornady 250gr FTX

hdy_250gr_ftx_04.jpg

Remington 260gr Accutip

rem_260gr_at_01.jpg
 
horsemen61 said:
Awesome! Looks like good stuff
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Yeah, I had another SilcencerCo induced anomaly today with the first shot of four of the Hornady stuff (see shot #1). I didn't mention this in my earlier post but when some friends were over yesterday, the first bore sight shot missed the paper entirely due to me forgetting that the scope had a zero stop feature for elevation. After the first miss I bore sighted again and then took the turrret cap off and remembered how to fix the zero stop so that I could move the reticle up more. The point is, I don't know if the first round through the suppressor yesterday would have been out of the 1/2" group that I show in my earlier post this morning. I've experienced weird first round issues with SilencerCo suppressors on other rifles so will need to do some more shooting.

The Remington stuff shot ok (center diamond) but I couldn't see any of the hits on 10X so had no idea where they were landing. I did dial left 1.5 moa after shooting the four Hornady rounds, and then clicked 0.5 moa right once I was done with the Remington stuff.

hdy_250gr_ftx_rem_260_at.jpg
 
Took mine out today and managed a 1.5" group with Winchester 260 Power Points. Go back tomorrow with some Federal 300 and Winchester 250s and see what happens.
 
Have you tried reforming the 405s mess with some fl dies with the decaper removed, having something like the Lee push thru stem for the bullet sizer works good. A weatherbyweatherby die will make a nice roundpoint.
 
troy fairweather said:
Have you tried reforming the 405s mess with some fl dies with the decaper removed, having something like the Lee push thru stem for the bullet sizer works good. A weatherbyweatherby die will make a nice roundpoint.
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I haven't tried that. Sounds like it'd take a fair amount of pressure to round the nose of the 405gr bullets. Interesting idea though. I have some bullet forming dies from a blackpowder ammunition project I consulted on. I might have .45 caliber know that I think about it. I have a big Dake press too so could possibly use that to form the bullets. Have you done this? Can you post pictures?
 
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