HI all, wanted to share my recent shooting with a new Ruger American II, 20" barrel, 6mm Creedmore. This is a layman's review of the rifle. Scope is an entry level Discoveryopt ED GEN-II 25-56 PRS, low rings. The scope is a darn tank! But it worked great.
Used Hornady 103 gr XLD hunting round. Shot from 400yards to 1040 yards on 18" plates, no groups shot sorry.
I feel that this is a lot of rifle for the money. Being curious about long range precision shooting, I didn't want to break the bank on gear (like I normally do
) before trying the sport out.
This rifle is my deer rifle, and I also can serve as an entry-drug for long distance shooting. If I didn't like the long distance shooting, then I'd have a really nice hunting rife at a great price.
Shooting background: Marine vet 85-89, Sharpshooter on M16A1, Expert M16A2. NRA Pistol instructor, IDPA, lots of Sunday steel friendly competitions, reload 45, 40, duty carried pistol for 15 years.
Why 6mm Creedmore? I loved the idea of a 243 for deer. As I looked into calibers the 6mm Creedmore seemed like a hot-rodded modern 243. Flat shooting, good twist rate options with factory barrels, wind resistant, low recoil, accurate. Turns out the 6mm Creedmore is a bit of an orphan round that I will have to buy ammo for online. Extremely limited choices where I live and I have access to Cabelas, Sportsman's Warehouse, and many local gun shops. This is such a sweetheart of a cartridge, I'm amazed it's not more popular with factory ammo. I'm in love with the 6m Creedmore cartridge.
Impressions out of the box. High quality barrel. Good quality stock. I'm 5'8" and the comb and reach were too short. If you buy one of these and you're not smaller than me, order the high comb and length of pull kit at the same time you get the rife. The picatinny style rail makes mounting a scope pretty easy, but it also adds height and I'd to ditch the rail and get the scope lower. Not sure what use that rail is for besides aesthetics and I would not have put it on as an accessory.
I had a very hard time craining my neck up and was given foam to place on the comb to try and get my head up and cheek weild right. I was not able to get the fitment right and had to compensate all day in the shooting class.
The 20" barrel returned some pretty darn slow chrono numbers, about 2750fps. Not super happy about that. I think I'd go for a 22" if I did it over again. However, I wanted a hunting rife foremost, and an intro to long range shooting as a secondary use case, so overall I'm still pleased. It will kill deer and below to 300 yards easily with these numbers so I'm pretty happy. The short barrel with factory 103 gr cartridges didn't get the 3000fps I would have liked, but hey, it shoots great with low recoil and kills pretty far out there so...
Feeding. One at a time, the cartridges were fussy about placement, and hung up nose down many times. Better to load the magazine. Feeding from the mag was 100% reliable.
Mag. This is one spot the price point hurts. The mag, while feeding okay, is cheaply made and the mag release/magwell/mag system as a whole was a pita. Getting the mag in and out was a clunky exercise and getting the mag to "click" all the way home took effort. Several times while prone, the mag did not seat, even though I thought I heard it click home, and fouled the feeding. It takes real deliberate action to get the mag in and out.
Bolt. This is a curious thing. The bolt is made of a bunch of parts and seems overly complicated. It has a very kooky bolt design and I don't understand the engineering purpose of the bolt. It has a plastic shroud that is removable, but typical of Ruger, you can screw it up and make the bolt fall apart to the point of bringing it in to an armory. I read the directions carefully so I didn't mess up, but if an owner is impatient, they can get the bolt all kinds of messed up. The plastic shroud on the back of the bolt has a lot of play, and makes it feel really cheap. Don't see how this bolt saves money, or make it easier to operate and shoot. I like the three lugs, it cycled well and reliably and has a good feel. The machining is done well and the extractor grabbed well all day, and the ejector poked out the cases well, even working the bolt slow.
Trigger. I really loved it. I used the factory setting which had some heft, but broke cleanly with very little creep before the break. My experience with triggers is primarily with M16's, AR15's and various .22 semi-auto rifles so this trigger was like a custom job to me. Not as good as my 1911's, but close. For a rifle at this price point, it's amazing.
Accuracy; When I doped the wind right, hit steel 18" targets 400-1000 yards. This was during a long range shooting class with Bangsteel in Southwest Virginia, whom were fantastic, and we did not shoot groups on paper. I'll update once I get to shooting a group.
Things I really love:
Price
Light weight.
Balance
Factory threaded barrel
Finish on the barrel
20" barrel with the spiral fluting looks
Trigger
Accurate enough to ring 18" plates at 1000yds
Things I didn't really love:
Bolt, it's weird and feels cheap.
Magazine/magazine well and release. Felt really cheap and was fiddly to operate.
The above pro's/con's is very heavily weighted on the pro side, and Ruger knocked it out of the park on this Rifle in my somewhat limited experience. I handled many rifles from the low end to the high end in stores before buying, and I am very pleased with the Ruger American II and with the 6mm Creedmore. Both the rifle and caliber exceeded my expectations by a wide margin and this rifle offers an amazing value.
I didn't get any range photos, so here it is in the "as shoot"configuration with the piece of foam they guys gave me which helped a lot.
Here is the gun porn you all love
