Ruger American action. Worth messing with?

[swampcrawler]

So, I recently picked up and American Predator in 6.5 Creedmoor, and have absolutely fallen in love with the cartridge, and to an extent, the rifle. Recoil is blissfully mild, very good ballistics, excellent and expanding factory ammo choices, etc.

For a 400 dollar rifle, I very much like the American. It's accurate, handles well enough, usable trigger, and I actually like the bolt. It could cock a bit more smoothly, but as far as the 3 lug design and large diameter, I kinda like it.

Now, because I can't leave well enough alone, Ive been planning to grab a Boydes stock (which needs pillars, glass, and better bottom metal) and a Timny or Jard trigger.

Now, if I put the extra money into it, I will want to rebarrel it once the factory tube stops doing so well. In the eyes of folks who know them, is the action decent enough to justify the additional work, or is it flawed to the point that one is better off just shooting it while building a "better" rifle from another action?

 

[Sunray]

Factory trigger's adjustable between 3 and 5 pounds. Don't think a Timney(at $129.74) or other aftermarket trigger will be any more adjustable.
It's pillars or glass bedding, but shoot the thing before you do anything. Consistency is what you're looking for, not itty-bitty groups.
"...rebarrel it once the factory tube stops..." It takes literally tens of thousands of rounds to wear out any commercial hunting rifle.
The Boyd's stock(kind of odd the Boyd's Ruger Predator stock is worth more than other stocks) comes with a trigger guard.
Metal is metal. There is no 'better'. Limited a bit by the rotary box mag's shape too.

 

[Bart B.]

It's pillars or glass bedding, but shoot the thing before you do anything. Consistency is what you're looking for, not itty-bitty groups.

Itty-bitty groups only happen with consistency.

" It takes literally tens of thousands of rounds to wear out any commercial hunting rifle.

This takes the cake for most interesting lead post sentence in any firearms forum.

When is a commercial hunting rifle barrel worn out?

My 264 Win Mag barrel's throat advanced 1/10th inch in 640 rounds. At that rate, it would be an inch down the barrel at 6,400 rounds. Would it last 10 or 20 thousand rounds more?

 

[LoonWulf]

I like the ruger action, and its not a hard action to tinker with. I almost made a barrel nut wrench for my .300aac american, and rebarreled it myself, but decided to just let the gun go instead. Im not concerned with shooting super small groups but i like to see them average an inch or better and i dont think you need to do any action work with a decent RAR for them to do that.

The biggest down side to the RAR imo is that the trigger is hard to modify for adjustments, if your replacing that then your pretty well set to go.

 

[4v50 Gary]

If you like the action and the barrel is worn, that's when you rebuild it. As for the trigger, once yours is adjusted properly, leave it alone. You don't have to spend the $$$ on a new trigger. I'd put the money in a good barrel that is properly installed. Then I'd pillar bed the stock after that.

 

[swampcrawler]

Factory trigger's adjustable between 3 and 5 pounds. Don't think a Timney(at $129.74) or other aftermarket trigger will be any more adjustable.
It's pillars or glass bedding, but shoot the thing before you do anything. Consistency is what you're looking for, not itty-bitty groups.
"...rebarrel it once the factory tube stops..." It takes literally tens of thousands of rounds to wear out any commercial hunting rifle.
The Boyd's stock(kind of odd the Boyd's Ruger Predator stock is worth more than other stocks) comes with a trigger guard.
Metal is metal. There is no 'better'. Limited a bit by the rotary box mag's shape too.

My trigger has been adjusted. It's weight isn't the problem. It's the safety blade and then it of creep that drives me nuts.

As for bedding, and the cost of the boydes stock, the American uses two "v blocks" as the mating surface between the receiver and stock. From what I'm seeing, the only truly solid way to bed into the boydes stock is to glass bed the "V Blocks" into the stock, as well as install pillars from the bottom of the blocks through the stock so that one is not compressing the stock material between the bottom of the blocks and the head of the screw, if that makes sense.

And as to the barrel, I realize that my hunting rifle barrel isn't on the same level as a BR competitors barrel, but I do shoot more than the "one box a year" hunters, and do expect consistent point of impact and 100 yard groups of less than 2 inches or so. I'm not an expert here but I don't think the Creedmoor barrel, which is usually spoken of as a 2-3000 round barrel, will make it to tens of thousands.

And lastly, the bottom metal that comes from boydes is plastic.

 

[Varminterror]

It's pillars or glass bedding,

News to me... Been blocking and bedding rifles for customers for many years. I'd never pillar block an action without bedding.

 

[FTG-05]

I love my RA rifles, I have two of them. I could not adjust the triggers on either one of them below about 3.5-4 lbs no matter if the trigger adjustment screw was almost all the way out. Instead, one the first one, I replaced the trigger spring with a spring from a Bic ball point pen. Now it's a very consistent 2.5 lb trigger pull. I've killed 5 does and one 7 point with that rifle this last season, all one shot DRTs except for one spine shot doe.

On my RA Predator, I replaced the spring with a SS spring I got from the local hardware store. Again, another very consistent 2.5 lb trigger pull. Can't say much about accuracy from this gun yet since it has a cheap (free) china-made scope on it. Gotta get a good vortex for it.

This is what I used as a guide for working on my RA triggers; except as I mentioned, I replaced both springs: https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=519494

Good luck!

 

[swampcrawler]

I love my RA rifles, I have two of them. I could not adjust the triggers on either one of them below about 3.5-4 lbs no matter if the trigger adjustment screw was almost all the way out. Instead, one the first one, I replaced the trigger spring with a spring from a Bic ball point pen. Now it's a very consistent 2.5 lb trigger pull. I've killed 5 does and one 7 point with that rifle this last season, all one shot DRTs except for one spine shot doe.

On my RA Predator, I replaced the spring with a SS spring I got from the local hardware store. Again, another very consistent 2.5 lb trigger pull. Can't say much about accuracy from this gun yet since it has a cheap (free) china-made scope on it. Gotta get a good vortex for it.

This is what I used as a guide for working on my RA triggers; except as I mentioned, I replaced both springs: https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=519494

Good luck!

Thanks for the tips. I actually removed that spring all together. I am NOT advising anyone else to do so, of course. But on my particular rifle it is absolutely fine. I cycled the bolt brutally hard, beat the butt on the cement floor, pulled trigger with safety on then flipped it off, and finally it's gone about 100 rounds sense then and functions and resets perfectly fine.

Anyhow the weight is wonderful, but it has a tiny bit of creep that I don't care for.

And as for accuracy, your Predator should do quite well. Mine is easily consistently around .8 at 100 yards for 5 shots if the barrel cools between shots. Hot barrel opens it up to around 1.5. All factory ammo.