First outing with my Ruger American 300: ammo, mags
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2017 10:11 pm
Finally got my Ruger American Rifle in 300 out to the range last night after work. It was pretty cold (37 - 40), but dry and little breeze.
Before getting into the shooting, a little bit about magazines. I have the one supplied with the rifle (#1) and two additional factory ones (#2 and #3). All have the "+" sign on them. #1 functioned 100%, loaded pretty smoothly and locked in. No problems. #3 would click in, but several times was pushed out of the rifle when cycling the bolt. Both #2 and #3 had feeding problems and were difficult to load (first round in would want to dive under the follower). Often when trying to load rounds, these two would let the bullet nose rise up too far and stick above the chamber. I had read about this, so wasn't too surprised. Today I called Ruger and they are sending me 2 new mags. No problems and no request to return the ones I have. If that holds through receipt of the replacements, I may attempt to open them up and wind the spring tighter as described on the Internet.
I have a Nikon P-300 mounted on the rifle and the first shot at 25 was about 6" out at 2 o'clock. Got it dialed in using Rem UMC 120's. Also fired one group of Magtech 123s there before moving to 50 yards.
First group of 3 UMCs at 50 were centered and high in a nearly touching triangle. After adjusting for elevation, I put a 5 round group into about 1". One 5-shot group of the Magtech went about 2", but I was being stupid and trying to hold the bottom of the bull, so my sight picture wasn't very consistent.
Moving back to 100 yards, I again started with the UMCs and put 5 into about 1.5" (4 of which were under an inch). The Magtechs gave me a 4" group when using the stupid 6 o'clock hold, but then I wised up and went back to a proper center hold and just moved the cross-hairs around using the really nice target turrets on the Nikon. Second group of Magtechs was 2" total with 4 of them in 0.8". (I hope these flyers are me and the cold, indicating that the inherent accuracy is around 1".) Both of these loads seems decent in this rifle.
I also tried a couple of my handloads, but didn't go too deep due to the cold and it getting late. I had some loaded with pulled 150 gr M2 bullets from 30-06 ammo. With 15.5 grains of H110, I got a 4-shot group at 1" with a 5th round opening it up to 2". At 16.5 grains, the group size jumped up to over 4"!! Guess I need to do more development around the 15.5".
Last group I show as a load that I previously tried out in my AR pistol: a pullet 110 gr M1 Carbine bullet with a charge of H110. These feed from the mag in my AR pistol, but NOT from the Ruger. They single load fine and went into a group a little over 2" at 100 yards.
I'm pretty happy that the Ruger and my AR pistol both seem to shoot the surplus M2 bullets well as I have about 3000 of them that I paid around 4.5 cents each for. I have 6000 of the M1 carbine bullets, so if they feed and plink from the AR, that's pretty cool, too.
Any and all comments are welcome.
Rob
Before getting into the shooting, a little bit about magazines. I have the one supplied with the rifle (#1) and two additional factory ones (#2 and #3). All have the "+" sign on them. #1 functioned 100%, loaded pretty smoothly and locked in. No problems. #3 would click in, but several times was pushed out of the rifle when cycling the bolt. Both #2 and #3 had feeding problems and were difficult to load (first round in would want to dive under the follower). Often when trying to load rounds, these two would let the bullet nose rise up too far and stick above the chamber. I had read about this, so wasn't too surprised. Today I called Ruger and they are sending me 2 new mags. No problems and no request to return the ones I have. If that holds through receipt of the replacements, I may attempt to open them up and wind the spring tighter as described on the Internet.
I have a Nikon P-300 mounted on the rifle and the first shot at 25 was about 6" out at 2 o'clock. Got it dialed in using Rem UMC 120's. Also fired one group of Magtech 123s there before moving to 50 yards.
First group of 3 UMCs at 50 were centered and high in a nearly touching triangle. After adjusting for elevation, I put a 5 round group into about 1". One 5-shot group of the Magtech went about 2", but I was being stupid and trying to hold the bottom of the bull, so my sight picture wasn't very consistent.
Moving back to 100 yards, I again started with the UMCs and put 5 into about 1.5" (4 of which were under an inch). The Magtechs gave me a 4" group when using the stupid 6 o'clock hold, but then I wised up and went back to a proper center hold and just moved the cross-hairs around using the really nice target turrets on the Nikon. Second group of Magtechs was 2" total with 4 of them in 0.8". (I hope these flyers are me and the cold, indicating that the inherent accuracy is around 1".) Both of these loads seems decent in this rifle.
I also tried a couple of my handloads, but didn't go too deep due to the cold and it getting late. I had some loaded with pulled 150 gr M2 bullets from 30-06 ammo. With 15.5 grains of H110, I got a 4-shot group at 1" with a 5th round opening it up to 2". At 16.5 grains, the group size jumped up to over 4"!! Guess I need to do more development around the 15.5".
Last group I show as a load that I previously tried out in my AR pistol: a pullet 110 gr M1 Carbine bullet with a charge of H110. These feed from the mag in my AR pistol, but NOT from the Ruger. They single load fine and went into a group a little over 2" at 100 yards.
I'm pretty happy that the Ruger and my AR pistol both seem to shoot the surplus M2 bullets well as I have about 3000 of them that I paid around 4.5 cents each for. I have 6000 of the M1 carbine bullets, so if they feed and plink from the AR, that's pretty cool, too.
Any and all comments are welcome.
Rob