I chopped down a Ruger American. I bought an 18" Predator model. I would have bought the Hunter with the thicker barrel profile, but I didn't care for the color of the stock. I took it to Ed Vanden Berg at Vanden Berg Custom and asked him to chop the barrel down to whatever the legal length would be with a pinned and welded muzzle device. He did a fantastic job, and I couldn't be more pleased. I think the barrel got chopped down to 15", 16.5" with the P/W brake just for a little safety room for the alphabet gang. The rifle with the Ruger stock is very light and handy. However, the Ruger stock was a little janky, and the magazine wouldn't feed some of the crusty old milsurp .308 I have due to friction issues. The spring wasn't strong enough. The Hunter stock is heavier, but much more substantial and robust. And cooler looking. I've test fired it, but haven't put it on a bench for groups yet. I'm very excited to see what happens at longer range with heavy bullets in this 1/10" 15" barrel. Aside from playing around, this rifle will be used to keep critters out of the garden up to 300 yards. I think it will be sufficient. More importantly, it looks cool. And that's what matters.
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I chopped down my Ruger American.
- Thread starter ccjcc81
- Start date
I just did the same with my Savage 110 Elite. At 26” it would shoot little dots with 41.5gr of TAC and a 175rdf. So it took like 6 months to work up the courage to chop it to 18”. First outing with it, and it became a 1 moa gun with the load it used to like. I was devastated. Went back to the drawing board and actually stumbled upon using Shooters World Precision @ 42.3gr with that same rdf. It’s back to shooting high .2’s. Moral of the story, it may not like the exact same load after you chop it, but a good shooter is pretty hard to mess up unless your smith does some kinda shit crown job.
OP, love the look of that thing barely hanging out the end of that Magpul stock.
How easy was the barrel to pull from the action or did he thread it with the action still on?
Have a 22" 350 legend ruger american i need to cut to 16" and thread.
Have a 22" 350 legend ruger american i need to cut to 16" and thread.
@DeathBeforeDismount I wondered the same thing. I asked him about it but he didn't reply. From my understanding the barrel is attached by threading into the action and is secured with a barrel nut. However, there are no wrench flats or notches in the Ruger's barrel nut. I presume if he removed the barrel he used a special tool specifically for it, because there aren't any detectable tool marks on the finish, it looks like new.
@fresh6390 It shoots nicely. I haven't had time or ammo to find the commercial load it likes best, and I haven't had time to develop a pet load for it. My friends, family, and I put about 80 rounds of British surplus through it for fun at a shooting get together, and boy was it fun. My best group at 100 with that old stuff was about 1.5" with average groups of 2". I shot a couple of 3 shot groups from a box of Federal 175gr GMM and it was almost exactly MOA. The recoil impulse with the weight of the stock and can really puts a smile on my face. It has an Arken EP5 on it now, which is probably too much scope for this rifle, but I love it anyway. I'm really happy with it, and I'm glad I had it cut and p/w'd. I won't suffer from the velocity loss where I shoot. The longest range I can shoot it at is 500y, and our garden is only 300y cross. 10/10, would do it again.
Thanks for info. The longest shot where I hunt is about 200 yards for whitetail so velocity loss should not be an issue. The purpose of my build is I am really trying to make a nice compact hunting rifle, that is appealing to my eyes as your build is. Not worried about making this a true long range tool.
