Ruger's transition to the dark side is complete!

[jasmap]

I drove out into the hills east of town this morning with a handful of mags and a variety of ammo. Let me start by saying that I'm out of rifle sight-in targets and all I have are big brown USPSA targets. I set up two targets and then shot for group at 100 yards. I shot in the prone using a tool box and a rolled up gun case as a rest. I used an Aimpoint and my Larue Poor Boy off my 6920 as an optic. I've got a Burris AR 332 on order and, if it ever arrives, it'll go on top.

WOLF 55JHP shoots about like you'd expect. 2-2.5" groups at this distance. Speer Gold Dot ammo shoots a little better. I also took along some old DCM reloads and was pleasantly surprised to find that a 77gr Nosler with 23gr of AA#2230-C shoots about 1.5" at 100 yards. I was worried about the 1x9 twist and the heavier bullet. Also along for the ride was a box of 69gr Nosler loaded with 24.5gr of Varget. This stuff shot the best with several groups right at or just over an inch.

After this, I moved my position back to 300 yards. Now, I don't have a laser range finder and this was actually 300 paces away from my targets. So it could be 275-325 yards for all I know. Anyway, I got back in the prone and commenced to firing 5-shot groups at this distance. At 300, I had to aim at the head to keep the rounds center mass. But I was surprised that the 69gr load still shot well. I had a number of groups that could be covered with the palm of my hand. The 77gr and 64gr Gold Dot stuff shot a little worse but still respectable with most groups running about six inches, give or take. I only fired one group of WOLF from here and I think I had something like 2 Alpha, 2 Charlie and 1 Delta at 300. Not bad for cheap crap.

As I walked back and forth to check my targets, I took the carbine with me. I kept it loaded with WOLF and blasted at rocks as I made my way down range. Somewhere through my 2nd magazine, I had a failure to extract with a rim torn off the case. By this point, the chamber was pretty dirty and the gun was pretty toasty. I guess not even Ruger can make a gun that'll run 100% with WOLF! I fired a total of 150 rounds today bringing the total to just under 300 rounds through the gun.

I gotta say I'm pretty impressed. The gun sure seems to want to shoot. I'm sure that with a target better suited for precision aiming, a lighter trigger and with a better rest, I could probably reduce my groups by 25%

The wife's out of town and she took the digital camera with her. I'm aware that without pictures, this stuff more than likely never happened. But my word is good, isn't it? We know the answer to that!

Thanks Andy. That's a very good report. What about the bolt and the buildup in it today? Did it get extremely dirty or just a little?

[Tokarev]

Thanks Andy. That's a very good report. What about the bolt and the buildup in it today? Did it get extremely dirty or just a little?

I pulled the gun apart and gave it a good cleaning today. There was a little crap in the barrel extension and chamber but the bolt and carrier was still pretty much clean. I also noted some brass flakes down in the trigger group but otherwise that area was clean too.

The gas system parts were pretty dirty. It took some wiggling and coaxing to get the gas regulator out. I soaked the gas parts in my mix of Shooter's Choice and Kroil and then cleaned off most of the fouling with a brass brush.

It isn't as easy to clean as an AK but it sure is easier to clean than a conventional AR. Just how clean your AR needs to be is another matter but, so far, I have to say that the piston set-up seems to live up to the hype. Time will, of course, tell.

[Tokarev]

I borrowed a camera.

Let's get some better pictures up, shall we?

[Tokarev]

[Tokarev]

[Tokarev]

Here's a few pictures of five rounds fired Wednesday. Sorry for the lousy cell phone pics. Anyway, this was prone at 100 yards using a Champion's Choice shooting mat. No magnification was used in conjunction with the Aimpoint. Ammunition was Winchester Ranger 64gr soft point.

As you can see, I've got three rounds touching with one round about half an inch high and another round about an inch high and right. Overall group is just over 1.5" which I think is pretty darned good.

I've got a Geissele SSA Trigger on order and that should make a difference.

[h8dirt]

I bought one a couple of weeks ago for $1650. Flawless operation so far -- but only a couple hundred rounds thru it. It is pretty accurate but has a heavy trigger. I have not measured it yet but I'd guess 8#. Yuck. It looks like I'll have to drop a couple hundred more to get a decent trigger.

[cold]

On another site I frequent, there is a large amount of people hating Ruger for past actions, personally, I hope Ruger hits a home run with this rifle. I think its great for another major mfg added the AR-15 to their line up.

[Tokarev]

I'm at about 1,000 rounds fired as of today. The gun continues to run fine but I have to keep the gas on "2." Some of the guys over on ARFCOM are reporting that they can run their guns on setting "1."

The only issues I've had are with WOLF 55JHP ammo. In the 120 rounds or so of this stuff I've shot, I've had a total of four failures to extract. That's with the 55gr stuff. I've also run a mag of 75gr steel and 50 rounds of Hornady's steel practice ammo through the gun with no issues.

Does anybody else have one of these yet? If so, how's your rifle shooting? Mine shoots 55gr-69gr stuff wonderfully but doesn't seem to be as accurate with the heavier stuff. One of these days I'll see if I can't try some Hornady 75gr TAP and see what that does.

[spearogun]

I'm at about 1,000 rounds fired as of today. The gun continues to run fine but I have to keep the gas on "2." Some of the guys over on ARFCOM are reporting that they can run their guns on setting "1."

The only issues I've had are with WOLF 55JHP ammo. In the 120 rounds or so of this stuff I've shot, I've had a total of four failures to extract. That's with the 55gr stuff. I've also run a mag of 75gr steel and 50 rounds of Hornady's steel practice ammo through the gun with no issues.

Does anybody else have one of these yet? If so, how's your rifle shooting? Mine shoots 55gr-69gr stuff wonderfully but doesn't seem to be as accurate with the heavier stuff. One of these days I'll see if I can't try some Hornady 75gr TAP and see what that does.

Do you have another Lower reciever with a good trigger and a 9 or 10 power scope that you could mount the upper on. I would like to see what kind of groups you could get with a light trigger and a powerful scope.

[spearogun]

Oh and so far Tokarev, great real world review of the ruger

[gino_aki]

Whoa, a companion for the Mini...just what I need another "Gotta Have" that I have no business thinking about.

[gotm4]

I shot my Ruger Saturday with my wife and my buddy Matt. We shot at his range.

The Ruger had 6 stoppages in 1K rounds.

1st stoppage was a failure to feed with Radway Green 62gr FMJ Radway Green 5.56mm NATO ammo (gun was on setting 2 this happened after 390 rounds. After this stoppage I relubed the rifle with Militec-1).

2nd stoppage was a failure to extract, a very hard extraction. The extractor ripped part of the rim off an empty casing. I got it out by letting the barrel cool for 4-5 min then pouring water down the barrel followed by the weight of a cleaning rod and out popped the previously stuck empty.

3rd stoppage with this ammo was a failure to feed shooting the carbine using a urban/roll over prone position.

3 other stoppages were failures to feed stoppages using American Eagle 50gr hollow-point .223 ammo. It's very apparent that the Ruger does not like this ammo.

Mags used were mostly Magpul PMAGs 20 and 30 rounders and a few Lancer L5 30 round mags.

Ammo used was 55gr FMJ PMC .223 ammo, American Eagle 50gr HP .223, Federal XM193 55gr FMJ, Radway Green 62gr FMJ 5.56mm, Lake City M855 62gr 5.56mm, American Eagle 55gr FMJ .223 and Prvi 62gr FMJ 5.56mm NATO 'green tip'.

Shooting positions were off the bench sandbagged, kneeling, prone, urban/rollover prone, standing and SBU.

Optic was an Aimpoint M4S in a Bobro BLAC (QD) mount.

We took turns shooting and shot the 1K rounds in about 5 1/2 hrs, just over 250 rounds were shot suppressed on gas setting 1 with my AAC M4-2000 Mod 07. During the suppressed shooting the bolt, carrier and upper receiver got a lot dirtier very quickly, not surprising as this typically occurs in both DI and piston guns.

Conclusion:

This many stoppages in my opinion are unacceptable even with a new rifle. It did do better than I thought it would have but still in my opinion it didn't do any better than I have had direct impingement AR15s do. I've had DI ARs do 1/2 and less than that stoppages in the first 1K rounds. The receiver extension does show signs of pretty extreme bolt tilt....not good. I can't recommend this rifle.

This gun gets extremely hot. We had to stop 8 times to let it cool down and try again. We used the 3 Troy rail covers that came with it. 3 Magpul XT rail covers and a Daniel Defense forward grip. Toward the end of the day one of the Troy rail covers self ejected and popped off on its own because of the heat. My wife did burn her self touching the gas block on accident. I think the Ruger gets hotter than DI guns because the barrel isn't free floated and does contact the proprietary Troy rail quite a bit (not a wise decision IMHO). The Ruger is very accurate even while being hot. I shot a 1/2" group at 50yds using the 2MOA dot of the Aimpoint M4S half way through the day. Most of the shooting was at steel at 200yds. Two small silhouette Rams and two 9"x13" plates. I started suffering from some eye strain and starting missing the small rams and even the larger steel more than a few times (I'm left eye dominant but shoot rifles right handed). When my right eye starts straining I have to close my left eye and my right one will start having something going on similar to tunnel vision after that I started shooting a little left handed. Matt and my wife were ringing that steel like crazy both are solid damn great shooters. I removed the Aimpoint twice during the day, if the Bobro mount causes a shift it wasn't noticed. The Ruger would hit that steel every time if you do your part at 200yds.

Ruger with all the mags emptied today shooting.

The receiver extension at the end of the day you can feel the divot left by the carrier with your finger and you can clearly see the evidence of carrier tilt:

[Tokarev]

Do you have another Lower reciever with a good trigger and a 9 or 10 power scope that you could mount the upper on. I would like to see what kind of groups you could get with a light trigger and a powerful scope.

Unfortunately, no. The other stuff I've got have equally poor triggers.

This trigger really isn't THAT bad. It's fairly heavy but breaks crisply and cleanly.

[jasmap]

I shot my Ruger Saturday with my wife and my buddy Matt. We shot at his range.

The Ruger had 6 stoppages in 1K rounds.

1st stoppage was a failure to feed with Radway Green 62gr FMJ Radway Green 5.56mm NATO ammo (gun was on setting 2 this happened after 390 rounds. After this stoppage I relubed the rifle with Militec-1).

2nd stoppage was a failure to extract, a very hard extraction. The extractor ripped part of the rim off an empty casing. I got it out by letting the barrel cool for 4-5 min then pouring water down the barrel followed by the weight of a cleaning rod and out popped the previously stuck empty.

3rd stoppage with this ammo was a failure to feed shooting the carbine using a urban/roll over prone position.

3 other stoppages were failures to feed stoppages using American Eagle 50gr hollow-point .223 ammo. It's very apparent that the Ruger does not like this ammo.

Mags used were mostly Magpul PMAGs 20 and 30 rounders and a few Lancer L5 30 round mags.

Ammo used was 55gr FMJ PMC .223 ammo, American Eagle 50gr HP .223, Federal XM193 55gr FMJ, Radway Green 62gr FMJ 5.56mm, Lake City M855 62gr 5.56mm, American Eagle 55gr FMJ .223 and Prvi 62gr FMJ 5.56mm NATO 'green tip'.

Shooting positions were off the bench sandbagged, kneeling, prone, urban/rollover prone, standing and SBU.

Optic was an Aimpoint M4S in a Bobro BLAC (QD) mount.

We took turns shooting and shot the 1K rounds in about 5 1/2 hrs, just over 250 rounds were shot suppressed on gas setting 1 with my AAC M4-2000 Mod 07. During the suppressed shooting the bolt, carrier and upper receiver got a lot dirtier very quickly, not surprising as this typically occurs in both DI and piston guns.

Conclusion:

This many stoppages in my opinion are unacceptable even with a new rifle. It did do better than I thought it would have but still in my opinion it didn't do any better than I have had direct impingement AR15s do. I've had DI ARs do 1/2 and less than that stoppages in the first 1K rounds. The receiver extension does show signs of pretty extreme bolt tilt....not good. I can't recommend this rifle.

This gun gets extremely hot. We had to stop 8 times to let it cool down and try again. We used the 3 Troy rail covers that came with it. 3 Magpul XT rail covers and a Daniel Defense forward grip. Toward the end of the day one of the Troy rail covers self ejected and popped off on its own because of the heat. My wife did burn her self touching the gas block on accident. I think the Ruger gets hotter than DI guns because the barrel isn't free floated and does contact the proprietary Troy rail quite a bit (not a wise decision IMHO). The Ruger is very accurate even while being hot. I shot a 1/2" group at 50yds using the 2MOA dot of the Aimpoint M4S half way through the day. Most of the shooting was at steel at 200yds. Two small silhouette Rams and two 9"x13" plates. I started suffering from some eye strain and starting missing the small rams and even the larger steel more than a few times (I'm left eye dominant but shoot rifles right handed). When my right eye starts straining I have to close my left eye and my right one will start having something going on similar to tunnel vision after that I started shooting a little left handed. Matt and my wife were ringing that steel like crazy both are solid damn great shooters. I removed the Aimpoint twice during the day, if the Bobro mount causes a shift it wasn't noticed. The Ruger would hit that steel every time if you do your part at 200yds.

Ruger with all the mags emptied today shooting.

The receiver extension at the end of the day you can feel the divot left by the carrier with your finger and you can clearly see the evidence of carrier tilt:

Interesting. If you don't mind me asking....who was shooting when the stoppages occurred? Also, is that British ammo something you would commonly run or is it something you just had on hand? Six stoppages isn't a glowing report for the gun but do you think it could possibly be ammo related?

I may be wrong but I think buffer tube wear is common in piston guns and I have never heard of it causing a malf. Keep at it because these guns have huge potential!!!

[gotm4]

Interesting. If you don't mind me asking....who was shooting when the stoppages occurred? Also, is that British ammo something you would commonly run or is it something you just had on hand? Six stoppages isn't a glowing report for the gun but do you think it could possibly be ammo related?

I may be wrong but I think buffer tube wear is common in piston guns and I have never heard of it causing a malf. Keep at it because these guns have huge potential!!!

I was shooting when every malfunction happened. The really hard failure to extract was off the bench. Every other stoppage was the gun at weird angles, all failures to feed. The gun has M4 feed ramps and should feed everything. All of my D.I. guns feed the Radway and the American Eagle 50gr hollowpoint just fine. Usually Radway will short stroke many non piston guns because it's pressure drops very quickly compared to U.S. made M855 (Radway is made this way so that it does not beat up the British SA80A2 as much), Radway will short stroke in my 10" SBR unless the suppressor is mounted.

Carrier tilt with wear in the buffer is common on piston guns, this however doesn't mean it's acceptable and it does cause some problems (a buddy of mine had a POF that looked like someone attacked it with a rat-tail file and had all kinds of problems). Radway runs in my Colt with PWS piston conversion and ran in my old 11.5" SBR with an ARES piston conversion. I'm using an experimental buffer in my Colt which 100% stops carrier tilt. The designer is waiting on his patents and then he'll be offering them for sale. This buffer also cured my buddies POF.

[Tokarev]

Here's my carrier with somewhere around 1,000 rounds fired.

My carbine has been reliable with the exception of four torn rims with WOLF ammo. These occurred fairly early on and might have been from mixing steel and brass. Or maybe the gun's fine and some of the cases are out of spec. Mine feeds fine too. I've used soft points, FMJ, JHP and frangible ammo in the gun and the only other failures have been caused by my fiddling with the gas regulator.

Interesting enough, the last 140 rounds fired have been the very same WOLF ammo that caused the earlier jams. These last few times out the gun has been clean and I didn't switch back and forth between steel and brass.

[Charles Bond]

Guys this is a really great thread. I wish we had more like them.

[jasmap]

Interesting. If you don't mind me asking....who was shooting when the stoppages occurred? Also, is that British ammo something you would commonly run or is it something you just had on hand? Six stoppages isn't a glowing report for the gun but do you think it could possibly be ammo related?

I may be wrong but I think buffer tube wear is common in piston guns and I have never heard of it causing a malf. Keep at it because these guns have huge potential!!!

I was shooting when every malfunction happened. The really hard failure to extract was off the bench. Every other stoppage was the gun at weird angles, all failures to feed. The gun has M4 feed ramps and should feed everything. All of my D.I. guns feed the Radway and the American Eagle 50gr hollowpoint just fine. Usually Radway will short stroke many non piston guns because it's pressure drops very quickly compared to U.S. made M855 (Radway is made this way so that it does not beat up the British SA80A2 as much), Radway will short stroke in my 10" SBR unless the suppressor is mounted.

Carrier tilt with wear in the buffer is common on piston guns, this however doesn't mean it's acceptable and it does cause some problems (a buddy of mine had a POF that looked like someone attacked it with a rat-tail file and had all kinds of problems). Radway runs in my Colt with PWS piston conversion and ran in my old 11.5" SBR with an ARES piston conversion. I'm using an experimental buffer in my Colt which 100% stops carrier tilt. The designer is waiting on his patents and then he'll be offering them for sale. This buffer also cured my buddies POF.

Thanks gotm4. Good info sir.

Tokarev, I appreciate the photos. They are very helpful.

[Mig]

GOTM4: "This gun gets extremely hot."

Question: How and where is the gas vented, i,e. front sight and under the handguards?

PS Very good report - thanks

[Tokarev]

GOTM4: "This gun gets extremely hot."

Question: How and where is the gas vented, i,e. front sight and under the handguards?

PS Very good report - thanks

I ain't gM4 but I can answer this.

The gas is vented through a small port in the bottom of the gas block. The port is located under the hanguard/rail.

[Mig]

The gas is vented through a small port in the bottom of the gas block. The port is located under the hanguard/rail.

Thanks - Do you think the gas port position/venting is causing the barrel over heating problems?

PS Tokarev - Thanks for your write up.

[Tokarev]

The gas is vented through a small port in the bottom of the gas block. The port is located under the hanguard/rail.

Thanks - Do you think the gas port position/venting is causing the barrel over heating problems?

PS Tokarev - Thanks for your write up.

Maybe a little.

Probably most of the heat is from the large gas block. It's pretty big, especially compared to a conventional FSB. I'm going to guess that it acts as kind of a heat sink.

They all get hot but the Ruger seems to stay hot for awhile. I haven't popped a Troy rail cover off, though. Maybe a Knight's rail cover would do a better job of taking the heat.

[Tokarev]

I'm using an experimental buffer in my Colt which 100% stops carrier tilt. The designer is waiting on his patents and then he'll be offering them for sale. This buffer also cured my buddies POF.

I talked to Mark Gurney of Ruger about carrier tilt and cam pin drag. He said all piston guns show tilt wear to one degree or another depending on tolerance stack. The prototype and trial guns all showed wear that started early, peaked out and then never got any worse.

I've seen this buffer discussed on ar15.com and it looks like an interesting solution. The only "problem" with it is that you have to pull both pins to take the rifle apart. That's really the only gripe anybody seems to have about it.

Another approach mentioned--I don't really know if anybody has tried it--is to screw the buffer tube in another couple turns so that it actually protrudes into the lower. This would require notching the tube for the detent and cutting away the excess material so the upper and lower could close. The idea with this is to keep the bottom of the bolt carrier in contact with the buffer tube further into the lower receiver.

Both sound like they'd work and I've got an old used buffer tube here I could sacrifice. But I think I'll stick with what I've got and see just how bad the wear gets. If I notice it getting much worse after another few hundred rounds, I'll give Ruger a call and see what happens.

[Tokarev]

I went out this morning and ran another 140 rounds through my Ruger. I started with ten rounds of brass cased reloads to verify sights and then went into positional testing.

Testing was done with four magazines loaded with WOLF 62gr JHP. The gas regulator was set on #3 since I've had several short cycles with this particular lot of Russian ammo.

Magazines used were two Lancers, a TangoDown ARC and a C Products stainless steel. I chose these for no other reason than they were already loaded and ready to go.

Testing consisted of firing six rounds prone with the magazine resting on the ground, six rounds in reverse rollover, six rounds in rollover, six rounds in SBU and six rounds standing with the carbine at hip level but held upside down.

I experienced two failures to extract with the first two rounds out of the 2nd magazine. I had another somewhere through the 3rd magazine. All three of these were cleared with a cleaning rod. Otherwise the rifle was continuously fired with the only pauses being to change position and reload.

I had a failure to feed with the 3rd round fired in the upside down position on the last magazine. At first I thought this was a failure to extract. When I rolled the Ruger over to remove the magazine, I saw that the chamber was clear and the bolt had stalled out. A quick tap on the bottom of the magazine cleared this and I finished the remainder of the mag upside down.

Once the gun was good and hot, I finished off the day with ten additional rounds of brass cased reloads (50gr Sierra Varminters with AA#2200 powder) to check accuracy with a hot barrel and handguard. From the sitting position at 100 yards, I fired four rounds in the "B" and one into the "A" on the head of a USPSA target.

One little caveat; don't burn yourself on hot casings when switching from rollover to SBU. During one of the strings, I stuck the inside of my forearm down in my recently ejected pile of hot steel cases. Ouch! I'm sure anybody watching got a good chuckle out of this one! I think I might have uttered a dirty word or two, as well.