Battle of the Mini-Scouts: Ruger Gunsite Scout vs Mossberg MVP Patrol 5.56 NATO

hey guys I'm Chris from Lucky gunner in the last few days I've been out at the top secret lucky gunner valley where we film a lot of our videos I've been testing a pair of bolt-action rifles both chambered in 223 or 556 NATO the first is the Ruger gun sight scout rifle the 308 version of this has been out for a while but they just came out with the 223 version and right off the bat there were complaints because they stuck with the accuracy international magazines instead of something more common like ar-15 magazines or even their own Ruger mini-14 magazines so that has naturally invited some comparison with the Mossberg in VP Patrol it's about the same size as the Ruger also chambered in 223 but it does take a our mags on paper these rifles have a lot in common if you want to see the side-by-side technical specs we've got that in our blog article basically they're about the same size and weight both about 7 pounds both have 16-inch barrels with threaded muzzles both have picatinny rails and backup iron sights but they start to diverge in some of the details the Mossberg front sight is a fiber optic and the rear is an adjustable open sight on the barrel the Ruger only has a plain black blade front sight but the rear is the far superior adjustable ghost ring aperture sight mas Brooks put a standard Picatinny rail over the receiver for mounting optics the Ruger has a scout style rail forward of the receiver so you can use intermediate I relief scopes and red dot reflex sights recently I wrote an article all about the scout rifle concept lightweight handy bolt actions that can be used as general-purpose rifles now neither of these two guns really meet the criteria of being a true Scout mostly because they're not chambered in 308 but they still follow the spirit of the scout rifle and the smaller 223 caliber has some advantages over 308 it's cheaper to shoot and it's got a lot less recoil the MVP Patrol and the Ruger Scout or what you might call mini scout rifles they aren't purely hunting rifles they're not target rifles and they're not ideal for self-defense but you can squeeze them into any of those roles if you really need to so which one is the better Mini Scout running up through their paces at the range I was looking at three basic criteria one I wanted to know how the actions compared what happens when you run these folks hard and fast second the overall handling how did they balance did they have good ergonomics are they quick to get on target and third accuracy did they hit where I pointed them testing accuracy is usually pretty straightforward I shoot 100 dart groups from a bench rest with a few different loads but it was hard to get a side-by-side comparison of these two rifles because of the optics situation in addition to working with two different mounting systems these rifles are best used with compact low-power scopes that are really good for close to medium range on the Ruger Scout Mount I had a loophole two and a half power fix intermediate eye relief scope for the Mossberg I was using a Bushnell AR 1 2 4 by 24 power scope both of these optics are great for quick target acquisition and they still give you a little magnification but it is not made for shooting tiny little groups on paper now having said that I did get some decent groups out of these rifles the one 1/8 twist rate on the Ruger's barrel seemed to run great with heavier bullets 77 grains cbc-mac ammo gave me this six round group inside of an inch it also shot around one MOA with 77 grain Remington premier match the Mossberg has a one in nine twist rate so the heavier bullets didn't perform quite as well unfortunately I didn't have any match grade ammo in lighter bullet weights but I did get some good groups out of the MVP with standard 62-grain Fiocchi ammo like this one that was just a little over an inch bottom line I just wanted to make sure that these guns were decent shooters any bolt gun you buy today should be shooting at least close to one MOA with the right a mo like I said these are not benchrest target guns but if you want to do some informal target shooting the accuracy is there I just think it would be a shame to mount a bulky high magnification optic on these things and relegate them to bench duty that's not really what they're for they're the kind of rifles you want to sling over your shoulder and take with you and on that note the handling it's one of the strong suit of both of these rifles at seven pounds they are at least a pound heavier than a lot of other bolt guns out on the market and that's before you add the magazine but they've got the shortest barrels that you can legally have on a rifle and with a lot of those other lightweight guns you won't have iron sights and a scope rail and a muzzle device so these many Scout type guns packing a lot of features at the expense of just a little weight increase overall I think the MVP patrol handles much better than the Ruger the Mossberg will take just about any ar-15 magazine but it comes with a short ten round magazine that adds minimal bulk and it's extremely light the Ruger magazine also has a ten round capacity but it's a single stack so it's much longer it's also surprisingly heavy and I think that throws off the balance of the rifle it makes it feel much heavier than it is the Scout scope also adds to this perception the loophole was only seven and a half ounces which is less than half the way to the Bushnell that I had on the Mossberg but having that weight on top of the barrel really makes a difference the worst was shooting from a standing position either offhand or with the sling holding the rifle up got tiring a lot quicker than it should with rifle it's supposed to be light and quick fortunately you can get smaller five round magazines for the Ruger and it's possible to mount a scope over the receiver in the normal spot I didn't have a chance to try these things out but I think there would be a huge improvement the quality of the action is often an underappreciated aspect of bolt-action rifles if you've got ten rounds in your magazine I think should be able to crank them off as quickly as possible that's what Scout rifles are all about but that's not always really easy with bolt actions if you get too sloppy when you're working the bolt you can easily experience problems like double feeds or binding the action the best way to find out what could go wrong with these actions was to add a little time pressure so I ran a few simple drills on the clock to see what would happen when I wasn't taking my time both actions gave me a little trouble usually was short stroking I had to jiggle the bolts a few times to keep things going and at least once with each rifle I managed to create a double feed bad enough that I had to actually remove the magazine to clear it the number of hiccups I had with each rifle was pretty much equal but I think the Ruger is the better action for me it had a lower learning curve and it was easier for me to get the hang of just how to manipulate the bolt it was smoother and it required less effort the Mossberg there are some sacrifices when they have built in the ability to be able to feed from AR magazines and it just never quite feels natural when you're running the bolt it's got kind of a gritty quality to it and there's a lot of side-to-side play so both the Ruger and the Mossberg have their strengths and weaknesses and they've got similar features too so what about the price tag the MSRP for the Mossberg is 709 you'll see it selling for closer to 550 or 600 the Ruger's MSRP is 10 39 and it sells for closer to 800 that's a pretty big price gap so in that kind of complicates this comparison but here's my take on it if you have an ar-15 and you want a bolt-action rifle to mess around with for target shooting maybe a little hunting and you don't want to spend a fortune then go with the Mossberg if you want to shoot the rifle a lot and run it really hard if it's going to get abused and haul through bad weather then get the Ruger if you have no idea what we would do with either one of these guns just get an ar-15 you

Channel: Lucky Gunner Ammo

Views: 768,177

Keywords: Gunsite Training Center (Organization), Ruger Gunsite Scout, 5.56×45mm NATO, review, scout rifle, mossberg mvp, Sturm Ruger & Co. (Business Operation), Mossberg, .223 Remington

Id: mMSydO0ALlA

Length: 7min 57sec (477 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 17 2014