Hunting is a gear intensive sport. When you first start out, if you don’t have a dad or buddy to loan you equipment, it can be daunting to collect quality gear all at once. The solution is to look for high value options that perform well and cost little.
Weapons, guns and bows, are typically some of the most expensive pieces of equipment a hunter buys. Rifles can easily cost over $1,000 for a mid-range setup of rifle and optic. The reason for the high cost is the skilled craftsmen who hand assemble these weapons and make sure they function flawlessly.
Modern machining has now made it possible to produce a rifle that is accurate, reliable and durable, cheaply and quickly. This new breed of rifles is becoming known thanks to several manufacturers offering rifles that vary widely in price and quality but all follow the same philosophy and purpose.
The New Way to Make Guns
The old way of making rifles is gone. The times where a gunsmith carefully assembled an action, screwed on a barrel and hand cut the checkering of the stock have been replaced by massive machines and assembly lines that press fit barrel underneath partially assembled rifle action that only get touched by human hands to double check what the machines did.
The new manufacturing technologies make for rifles that can hold their own against weapons made the old way and in many ways, outperform them, while being roughly half the cost.
The Ruger American is one example of this new breed of rifles, made for a price point, and trimmed down in features, materials and labor hours.
Ruger American Review
The Ruger American is one of the best from the new generation of mostly plastic beginner grade hunting rifles. They are certainly made specifically for hunting. They aren’t the highest quality, most accurate or most durable rifles on the market, but they’ll fling a bullet across a food plot to take deer with ease.
The main benefit of these rifles is their cost. You can easily buy one or two of these if you need a cheap way to introduce a young shooter or new hunter to the sport without too much cost. These rifles, although inexpensive, aren’t cheap and the shooter won’t be lacking quality or features necessary for their hunt.
Other by product benefits come in the form of weight and simplicity. Because these rifles are made to a price point they have thin plastic stocks that go a long way to making the rifle light and the lack of features makes for a rifle that is extremely easy to operate, field strip and clean.
The Ruger American started in the typical standard north American hunting cartridges and now includes specialized short guns, predator guns, stainless and magnum rifles in over a dozen calibers and almost a hundred configurations.
This is a product line to watch because it builds on the Savage Axis and the low end Remington and Mossberg rifles but does just about everything better without being too expensive.
PROS:
- Low cost
- Huge used market
- Available in dozens of combinations
- All common and a few uncommon calibers
- Easy to come apart and clean
CONS:
- Press fit barrel means you cannot replace it
- Magazines are expensive
- Stock is slightly flimsy
Models:
Standard
Blued steel and black stock available in all the common long action and short action calibers. This is the base line model. It comes with everything needed to go bang, but nothing extra. This is the original Ruger American and offers the best bang for the buck. The cool thing about these is that the short action rifles are built on a true short action. That makes it truly shorter and lighter than the long action.
Stainless
This is everything the blued steel rifle is, but in stainless steel. Offered as an upgrade that resists corrosion, this is a satin finished stainless gun in the same calibers, barrel length and features as the standard blued guns just made in stainless steel. It is slightly more expensive, but a good option because of the corrosion resistance and the look of the stainless finish. The best thing is you don’t have to worry about a finish scraping off.
Compact
These are the youth and truck guns. They’re only available in short action calibers and come with 18 inch barrels. They really are made of a shorter action, just like the model 7, and come with shorter stocks and barrels than standard. They balance well and make for an awesome little carbine that can be used by a youth hunter, or even a man on a fast and light stalk or high country elk hunt. They’re light and trim, and work great as a budget “ultralight” rifle.
Predator
These rifles are pretty cool. They’re short, light and trim with short action calibers. Made for predator hunting they come in short action calibers and with short 18inch barrels that are thicker than the standard Ruger American barrels. They come in some hard to find calibers such as the 6.5 Creedmoor and the 6mm Creedmoor.
Ranch
The ranch model of the Ruger American is one of the best versions practically speaking. They’re the smallest and lightest and come in intermediate rifle caliber like .223 and .300blk in an ultra-small rifle action, short length of pull and short threaded barrel.
This is an optimal truck gun for riding around the farm or while camping and hunting out of a truck. They also come with a tan colored stock that is slightly lighter than Magpul FDE. These can be a little hard to find, if you want one look hard and wait they’re worth it.
Magnum
The magnum rifles use the same action design but elongated and slightly beefed up to handle the increased pressure. They also feature longer and thicker barrels to take advantage of the huge powder capacity of the .300 Win mag and .38 Win Mag. These guns cost substantially more than the standard versions of the American and are only available in stainless with a black stock.
Rimfire
The Ruger American Rimfire rounds out the product line up and offers a fantastic low cost bolt action rimfire rifle. These rifles are available in .22lr, .22wmr. and .17hmr. These rifles are perfect for squirrel hunting, training or just for fun. They can be had with or without threaded barrels for attaching a silencer. The stocks have a removable cheek riser for using the attached iron sights or on for a dead-on cheek weld with a scope.
Uses:
Training & Plinking
If you need a rifle for training a new shooter, then the Ruger American is a great starting point. If you have a youth hunter getting ready for their first season a .223 or .243 is a great starting point or even a .22lr or .22mag to get fundamentals down before transitioning up to a larger caliber.
The best reason to buy one of these is because they’re as much as $300 cheaper than a Remington 700 or a Savage model 11 and that $300 buys a whole bunch of ammo to train up and get ready to be a responsible hunter and experienced shooter.
Hunting
These guns are great for hunting because they’re replaceable, easy to use and accurate enough. You can check into a Ruger American and Vortex Crossfire 2 scope for cheap, sight it in with a box of ammo, and bag a deer for under $600.
These rifles are great for another reason as well....they’re replaceable. No one has a sentimental attachment to a black plastic stock and low budget barrel. If you fall on this gun and scratch the stock up, you won’t care nearly as much if you would have ruined a Weatherby stock.
Competition
These rifles aren’t the best suited for competition, but as a starter these guns can go a long way to getting your feet wet for moving up in standings. The great thing about these guns is they’re capable of 1 MOA if matched with a good load and good scope. Most people can’t shoot 1 MOA at 100 yards if their life depended on it, until you get some lessons and some experience one of the Ruger American Predator rifles can be a great asset to learn.
Features:
Ruger Marksman Adjustable trigger- A decent rigger modeled after the Savage Accutrigger makes for a clean and crisp break and improved safety.
Synthetic Stock- Lightweight and somewhat rigid stock makes the rifle extremely lightweight. Comes in different colors depending on model
Recoil Reducing Butt Pad- Standard squishy but pad for reducing the coil of harder hitting calibers. It comes bigger and beefier on the magnum rifles out of necessity
One Piece Three Lug Bolt- One piece steel bolt with a 70-degree bolt throw. Makes for easy loading and ejecting and secure lock up. The bolt handle is small enough to clear scopes but large enough to grasp, it could use knurling though.
Colt Hammer Forged Barrel- The cold hammer forged barrel for long life and 1 MOA accuracy
Power Bedding V-Blocks- Inside the stock are aluminum bedding blocks that lock in the action and free float the barrel. They work great and function like overbuilt stock studs on a traditional rifle.
Tang Mount Safety- Positive, perfect safety color coded and ambidextrous right where it should be.
Rotary Magazine- The rotary magazine provides for several rounds in a small package and looks like a gigantic Ruger 10/22 magazine, magnum models have standard magazine because of how big the rounds are
Value
Overall these rifles are cheap, but they do lack some crucial traits of traditional rifles. For starters, they don’t have very much aftermarket support and cannot be upgraded in the future. Aftermarket magazines are still scarce and the factory mags are expensive. The barrels, being press fit, cannot be replaced or upgraded. When the barrels are shot out, just buy a whole new rifle.
Stocks are factory only and for the most part nonadjustable and Ruger still insists on their proprietary rings and bases that ship with their guns. Aside from the usual non-specific upgrades such as scopes, slings, and recoil pads all work well and go a long way to making this a better rifle for cheap.
The value equation with these rifles is balanced when it comes to the standard rifles and even better when you look at the predator and ranch rifles that come threaded, ready for a suppressor. These rifles are great for a shooter who wants a good rifle in a common caliber.
The compact and stainless compact models are probably the best all-around rifles and are available in the usual suspect calibers, including the new addition of .223. The predator rifles are more expensive but do offer a shooter better caliber selection such as the awesome 6.5mm Creedmoor and 6mm Creedmoor rounds.
The only rifles that don’t make the value equation are the magnum models. For the price of their new magnum versions of the Ruger American you can step up to a high-quality production gun such as a Savage or Remington.
If you’re truly interested they make the magnum in .300win mag, 7mm Rem Mag and .338 Win Mag. Overkill for anything smaller than an elk, but seriously fun if you’re inclined to pay in recoil and in price.
Bottom Line
If you’re in the market for a cheap rifle that’ll launch bullets wherever you point them, this is your rifle. Don’t get bogged down in the Ruger American rifles vs Savage Axis debates online. In my opinion, the Ruger is much better. It’s great for hunting, awesome for casual plinking and could, in theory be pressed into service for accuracy matches. The rimfire is a great training aid for young shooters who can transition to a .223, .243 or .308 later.
As you can see from this Ruger American review, these rifles are economical and easily the best of the new breed of cheap, mass produced price point rifles. If you chose the right model and caliber from the dozens of combinations Ruger offers, you won’t be disappointed when you hit the range or take to the field!
