8 Problems with the Ruger American

what's up you guys that's right today i am thrashing the ruger american and talking about all of the problems with it but before this video is lit up with negative comments i want to talk about why i love the ruger american i mean it's got a hammer forged barrel it's lightweight it's cheap as dirt it's got a good recoil pad there's a lot to like here for the price point than it is the reason i wanted to do this video though is because often when i review more expensive rifles the comments are just why would you buy this just get a ruger american and i think some of the people don't appreciate the differences and the problems that you're just not quite fixing at this price point so today the problems with the ruger american a little bit later i'm going to tell you about this mamba mag from mdt so let's go first to the thing that is difficult for me to even talk about with my son so i have a 13 year old his name is ruger and he used this exact rifle on his very first deer hunt i'll show you some of the clip here of what happened so a decent little buck comes out ruger gets set up we're getting all excited in the little box blind this is in texas he goes to take off the safety and listen to this yep that loud nasty click is the safety going off it was loud enough that about 35 yards away this deer immediately hears it look up and it threw him off enough that he wasn't able to get off a shot before that deer ran out of there so it's not a big deal it's just a safety but it is very clicky there's kind of no way to do it quiet maybe if you really put two fingers on it and kind of slow it up but a lot of people the way they hunt is they're going to hunt on safety and then they'll flip off the safety so it actually can be significant when you're hunting pretty easily solved just kind of use two fingers and slowly move it up it's not that big of a deal but it did cost us a whitetail number two this is an accuracy thing it's not very well free floated though often because of the just polymer stock here it you know made the design be perfect to fit in the barrel but like this one the plastic is just kind of warped over enough that the stock is pretty much always contacting the barrel and a lot of times you'll see that on kind of a polymer stock but there is enough flex up in the front that pretty much always if you're shooting on a bipod there's enough pressure especially if you're kind of leaning into that bipod that the stock is going to contact the barrel so i have found the ruger american to be a very accurate rifle especially for its price point but you can see some unexpected flyers and things when that happens so i do wish we had a little bit stiffer of a four forend and a little bit more generous of a free float number three i would consider the feeding reliability of the ruger american to be about 90 percent usually it's going to work fine and in some specific cartridges you may get it to work 100 to 100 percent of the time and so i'm sure a lot of you will come and say oh i've never had feeding problems with my ruger american i totally get it but there are a lot of different variations of the ruger american a lot of different cartridges and all you have to do is search on youtube for ruger american feeding problems and you'll see a long list of videos it feeds most of the time but not every time and in fact that exact situation with my son ruger he tried to take the shot the deer kind of moved moved away and then he took a hail mary and i was like no no don't don't shoot when the deer's running away but then he tried to chamber another round and couldn't the magazine was just kind of blocking the bolt he couldn't get a second round in i would consider the achilles heel of the ruger american to be this guy this magazine some of them have a straight magazine others come with the rotary mag and i do tend to see more problems with this rotary mag style on the ruger american in some cartridges by the way this is a little bit of an aside from this video but i wanted to show you something cool from mdt this is called mambo mag you've heard of mambo number five this is mamba number 10 because what you do with this is they come for remington 700 patterns so you know your bagara b14 that's going to work as well it works with tikka t3x works with remington 783 and 7600 so these are oh look at that thing that's sweet so this is a straight 10 round incredibly solid magazine that you can put in so this is my tikka t3x super light take out the magazine put it in backwards mambo mag goes right in and now on this 6'5 creedmoor i have a 10 round magazine and you can even get the bottom metal like on a remington 700 they have it for howell 1500 so that you can convert if you have you know a hinged floor plate on one of those rifles you can get the bottom metal and then you're good to use the magazine it's a really big upgrade especially if you're taking a rifle that you know you could use hunting for sure but especially i think at the range is so helpful to me when i don't have to constantly be reloading i'm also excited about using it on some rifles i have that just aren't super reliable have kind of really cheapy magazines this one is just super high quality and so i really like it this is mambo mag from mdt give it a look number four so if you're buying an inexpensive rifle it's nice to have the ability to kind of build on it over time and kind of replace something that could improve your rifle over time as you kind of save up a little bit of money right well the ruger american is not a remington 700 pattern they're using kind of their own action here this is a three lug bolt instead of you know a two lug bolt like you might see on the remington 700 which is nice it gives you a short 70 degree bolt throw instead of the 90. there are advantages to it i like that it has that shroud on the bolt even though it's just kind of chintzy plastic and so there's a lot to like about this action but i would consider the value in this rifle to be right here in the barrel they're giving you a cold hammer forged barrel in a very inexpensive rifle and that's why they're pretty accurate ruger americans and so i would consider to be less value in the action and usually if there's a rifle you're wanting to invest in improving over time you want the value to be in the action because you can build everything else kind of around it okay that the next one i get is very petty i mention it because i think there are enough people on this channel and we get enough views for rifle reviews that if we start talking about some things we might get the industry to start finally catching on and you guys know i hate sling studs they are the bane of my existence who designed this seriously it's a terrible design to have a sling stud here and here i know it's on every rifle and i totally get that but it's a terrible design we have cutie flush cups now that are you know just a circle in set that you can just clip your sling right inside it and so when you're riding the bag when you're shooting with this sling stud protruding out when you're shooting during recoil boom it's kind of moving the rifle around that's a terrible idea for accuracy plus it means when you put a sling on like this is on your back well this is what's hitting your back these sharp points it's a terrible idea a much better idea would have cutie flush cuts cush flush cups there and there because then everything's flat against your back and not digging into you all day i would just love to see some cutie flush cups taking off on more of these inexpensive rifles it can't cost more than a nickel to switch from a sling stud to a cutie flush cup mount and i think it's just a better mounting system next up is the trigger now i would not consider this to be a bad trigger i have confirmed that we're empty here it's kind of this bladed style but when you are pulling the trigger there is very noticeable creep i mean nobody's going to be under any illusions that this shoots like an expensive trigger it's not it's a very inexpensive trigger you definitely get used to the way it goes it feels very repeatable in the creep some of them are very as you're pulling the trigger and this one is just squishy it's it doesn't feel grainy and lots of stops it's just one long big squish to the wall and so it's not a horrible trigger you're gonna do just fine with it but if you wanted to use this for more precision rifle it's not the best you're about from three to five pounds so it's not super light either there are many replacements you can pick but just know you're going to get a higher quality trigger if you were to step up a little bit in gun next up is the stock now there is a version of the ruger american that comes with a magpul hunter stock that's pretty cool adds a little bit of weight and i do like that this very sleek stock does cut down a lot on the weight this is a very lightweight rifle but it sounds like a woodpecker i mean it just it just doesn't feel nice i mean the fact that it's hollow and it sounds like that what does it really matter you know it's just something you notice nobody's going to be under illusions that this is an expensive stock either there are those issues like i mentioned at the front the forend that can cause some accuracy stuff we have a plastic trigger guard i've seen a few reports of that getting smashed during hunts and the attachment point of the magazine to the stock because it's all plastic that's what's causing some of those feeding issues as well also because it is so sleek the cheek piece is very low down from the line of the bore and so you're rarely going to get a cheek weld while you're shooting on us on a stock like this but i am glad that they put a good quality butt pad on there actually there are a lot of rifles that are more expensive that i think this is a better butt pad than that on it so it's an inexpensive stock it's all rounded at the front so you're not going to get you know a great purchase on a bag something that's going to keep you steady when you're shooting but it's not bad either overall the ruger american is still probably the best very very cheap rifle out there but it's not perfect and so in this video hopefully i was able to address some of the things that make this a cheap rifle so that you can choose if you want to step up or not

Channel: Backfire

Views: 357,026

Keywords: Backfire, Hunting, Outdoors

Id: 4F0cYYwl9Ec

Length: 11min 54sec (714 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 27 2022