Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Floppy fore-end on the Ruger American

SAS will need to respond but he made the comment while at SHOT so the new stocks might not even be available yet.

Is this group with your "floppy forearm" RAR 4th point?







While I agree Ruger should have addressed the warped forearm issue from the get go, their so called "floppy forearm" hasn't prevented myself and many others from shooting sub MOA groups constantly with their RAR..

From the above target looks like you don't have much of a problem shooting good groups with yours..

Group size isn't the issue.

The issue is changes in point-of-impact that occur when the stock flexes and applies pressure to the barrel.

A free-floating barrel needs to remain free-floating under common field conditions, so some minimal effort needs to be paid to insure that a stock that won't bend on various rests.

It is feasible to manufacture a cheap plastic stock from used grocery bags that is still stiff enough to work, but Ruger didn't do it.

Ruger screwed up!

Ruger's head of product development passed that info on to me at SHOT. Unfortunately, I didn't ask "when". The stock on the rifle I handled from their display was noticeably stiffer.

I don't shoot groups from field positions..
I just shoot what I am aiming at and so far no problems there..
So I am happy with mine..
Get it!
I don't use a bipod however..
Maybe that is what is giving you grief..

Having said that I agree with your statement that Ruger screwed up on the forearm design..
From my experience with 77's and No 1's Ruger screws up a lot, esp. when it come to chambering..

But the RAR STILL shoots great and it seems as per SAS that they are redesigning the forearm..

Nrut,

That was shot with the OEM stock with no mods.

I got numerous tight groups, sometimes with occasional flier, or an entire group printing in a different spot. I found that with all-the-stars-in-perfect-aligment... the RAR 223 shot lights out. BUT, my rest had to be the exact same for every shot. And consistent form was critical. These things are always important but the RAR was hyper-sensitive.

I think TopCat is correct in his comments... the stock flexes depending on rest and allows the barrel to make contact.

That's why I used the cookie dough in the fore-end. The rifle and load seem accurate, but the floppy stock is holding it back.

Jason

This past weekend I shot with the cookie dough in the fore-end, but also changed to a different rest, and used a CCI 400 instead of Rem 7-1/2.

Dug some targets out of the trash. Sorry about that first one... it already had part of it cut away above. But you can see how shot #3 was low. It might be the load, but given that the stock was contacting the barrel I'm focusing on the stock for now. I could always go back to the Rem 7-1/2.

Once the stock situation is fixed I suspect it'll be shooting great and the rifle will be much more forgiving.

For giggles one of you should tightly wrap the forearm and barrel together with electrical tap and see how that works for your groups.

I finally got to monkeying with my new RA compact mounted some Talley LWs and a vx2 3-9. I've had the stock off for a couple days theorizing and thunking a few ideas through. I did pop the recoil pad and there's a rectangular chunk of Styrofoam jammed in there and as we know a square peg..... I sprayed some foam in there to fill the voids. I'm going to shoot the thing this WE floppy stock and all as is. But I'm thinking of filling the forstock with same foam level to the criss cross struts letting that cure and then glassing on top of that with a couple few layers of biaxial cloth and epoxy tying it in to the edges to stiffen things up. That's the latest plan..

Sounds good to me. Keep us posted (with pics) of your work.

I was going to wrap layers of tape around the barrel to create a pressure point with the stock... but never did it.

That's great news SAS.

Jason

You get what you pay for!

Just sayin

Shod

IMHO with a Tikka you pay for more than you get. Tikkas are great rifles but share a lot of the materials of the Ruger American for instance. Yes the action is smoother I get that yes they are accurate but so are a lot of the entry level types these days

Yeah, that's kind of my point. The VALUE of the RAR is the winner, but feel free to buy, spend and shoot whatever you want.

Some have been paying $60+ on Ebay for the factory take-off stocks. One green one went for $130. So, if you can get the factory to send you one for $50, you aren't out much. Probably people are swapping short and long stock with the compact and standard guns. Or buying a second stock to use the same gun with both lengths.

As requested here's a little report and some pics of what I came up with. Cleaned up the inside well with ammonia based cleaner aka Windex as they recommend for polymer. I scuffed up the stock to give the epoxy a good surface to grip on.


I mixed up two part marine epoxy thickened with microbaloons and filled the forend bedding a layer of biaxial fiber glass cloth to add strength. Then I attached the barrel centered properly using tape on the barrel and let it cure


Looked like this when I took it apart after it cured. 'scuze the crappy pic and it is flat just weird glare here


Mine hugged the port side before now not so much


But I've got more work to do I shot a couple groups real quick on the way home and one was like before a couple contenders and the third flyer opening up to a couple inches. I'm using factory 150 ssts all I've tried yet. Then it sprayed 3 around 4 inches. WTF? Looking closely I think I know what happened I forced the barrel to the side a smidge for an uber perfect center fit then cranked on the bolts to cheat things a bit. After the schit show at the range it looks like it shifted a whisker. Thinking about that a V has to fit inside a V you can't cheat that so I'm going to take it apart open up the channel some (haven't touched it yet) to make good and GD sure that its free floated and its sucked in tight to the bedding blocks with no monkey business. Then start loading for the lil pecker and see.. Fun little project polishing this turd

The RAR I agree is the better value if one is looking for an entry level rifle so long as one doesn't start sinking $ into it.

From what I can tell so far is most are not happy with the RAR as is and the next thing you know you end up with a Tikka price tag

If I'm going to spend the $ anyway......and I would.....I'll take the rifle that has the glass smooth action, feeds like butter, has an exceptional trigger, and has a higher resale value than most rifles.

Shod

I don't think you do. For the money, the Tikka should have a metal magazine and bolt shroud. Also, it should have an actual recoil lug. There's more to a rifle than just shooting straight, IMO.

It's built much the same as the RAR for nearly double the price ETA: Sorry, 1.5X the price....I dont find the injection moulded stock all that much better on a Tikka anyways.

My Predator arrived last week, direct from Ruger, with the stiffer forend. It seems reasonably stiff to me, although it still needs some relief in the barrel channel at the front end.