Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles What's keeping the RAR from replacing the 77?

I have always loved blued steel and walnut,but seems when I buy black matted steel and plastic,( for half price)the bullets all seem to group nicely,which is what I'm after.

I think the RAR has replaced the 77 as Ruger's top seller. My 77 is a real solid rifle with pretty wood and steel and shoots terrifically (after a trigger job, free float of the barrel, glass bedding etc.) it is my favorite rifle but it is after all a tool, a means to an end and not an unfired safe queen investment piece.

The RAR I got this year in 30-06 will be an extra for me and my grandsons first big game rifle. I did have to put one of those Sims vibration rubber grommets on the barrel - not because I wanted to tune it - the barrel was just too light to balance right and hold steady. I shot 2 sub MOA groups today at 100 yards one with 150 grain factory cheapies and one with 180 partitions and the 130's my grandson shoots group just as well.

Ugly and effective is preferable to pretty and finicky for my hunting purposes.

Sometime in the mid sixties, I was young, married, had two kids, and was working entry level pay. Remington had just come out with the ugly 600 series at a MSRP of $99.95. A friendly LGS guy put me into one for $75 and for a small down and 30-60-90 payout. I went to Gibson's and got a set of Weaver mounts at about $7 and one of their house brand scopes for about $10. I used a 1" black target paster for a target. Once zeroed, the 6mmR, put three touching on the paster, and again, and again.

Then came the 788 a few years later. Another cheap date that folks soon found to work better than a red neck girl.

The arms companies often put out finely engineered low cost stuff that works, often better than the top of the line, but they have NO SOUL, for lack of a better description. You can't be seen in public with them, but make fine truck guns.
Jack

Pretty much....

SOUL is a word that people who spend too much for something use to justify the extra expense.

You'll know when you find a rifle with soul. Sounds like you are making excuses for being a cheap bastid too....

Rifles have no 'souls', that's invented for the guys like you to not feel guilty about jerking off to 'fine' wood.

Your taste in beer matches your taste in rifles!




Dave

Not his taste in mowers...

Don't hate on the Beast!

There are times when "going cheap" isn't that bad of an idea. Beer to stash in the camp fridge isn't going to be top notch, and the rifle to bang around on the tractor or Polaris might be more of the wal-mart variety. The other two main rifles we use for those purposes are pawn-shop 788's. I went SS RAR so I could just leave this one behind the seat of the truck all the time and not sweat the humidity changes. Pun there..... (grin)

Definite points on the JD.




Travis

I do not judge.... grin.




Travis

Drinking the Beast the next step is admitting you have a problem

I believe the Ruger American rifle will eventually dominate.
Reasons:
1. Kenny Jarrett has stated in a number of places that a three lug action will out perform a two lug bolt. I think he is serious because he set up to produce such an action. Also, I think he knows what the heck he is talking about. By the time you get a complete action together you will have spent at least 1600 bucks.
2. The magazine box is a cousin, design wise, of the rotary magazines in the Savage 99 and Manlicher Schonoer (sp) which were praised for having the best systems ever designed.
3. A push feed action with a center feed clip is extremely reliable. In fact it is just as reliable as a control feed out of a double stack magazine box. The model 1911 pistol, the Glock, and just about all modern semi automatic and automatic rifles (AR's) use such a system and they never fail to feed.
4. The barrel nut system, that allows one to quickly and easily change barrels is a big advantage.

It is inevitable that there will be many aftermarket parts.


The primary the detraction regarding the Ruger American Rifle is that it is readily available and reasonably priced. Also, it works really well without a bunch of upgrades.

Just wait until Jewel makes a trigger for it.

Wish they'd hurry up on decent replacement mags.....

Read somewhere that Draganov said that designing the magazine was the hardest part of the Draganov rifle project. Took them a year to get it right. Ruger rushed it, in my opinion.

What he said....

I put mine in a Boyds and it is a nice shooting rifle, but don't like the magazine.

I have both a RAR, in 7-08, and my beloved, old M77 tanger in 7mag sitting side by side in the safe. The RAR is in the same league as my Glock - it is a tool that does what it was designed to do, and does it well. The M77 is a whole 'nuther story. After 37 years, it is still a beauty in my eyes, one look at her takes me back to when I was a 21 year old kid driving my '71 Beetle home from the gun shop with my first new rifle. She has earned her place as 'queen' of the safe. I'm just a sentimental ol' fool, I guess.

I thought long and hard about an American the other day, but finally plunked down my bucks for a Weatherby Vanguard S2 stainless. It was, on average, about $200 more than the stainless RAR, pretty much dinner and a movie these days. I'll cook the dinner, watch something on Netflix, and call it even.

mebbe you should go hungry tonight and lissen to the radio.