Bubba,
I bought the Ranch 7.62x39 for cheap ammo practice and a compact lite recoiling deer rifle. If you want to try brass cased ammo, the best deal I've found was Norma 124gr. FMJ Tactical. I was able to get a 500 ct. case of it for $9.25 box. You can easily find it for less the $11.00 box.
My Ranch rifle shoots the factory fmj into about 1.5 inch groups and loading the once fired brass with 123gr. Hornady SP and RL 7 I've been able to get 1 inch groups.
As, you said, it's not the smoothest or well finished rifle out there. For what it is, I'm happy with it.
The russian is the worst. I would bash it against a tree if I were deer hunting and it cycled that poorly on a followup shot. Like I said, the chinese isn't as bad. I need to break down and get some Norma and maybe some PPU. They don't allow fmj where I hunt but I would still like to try the Norma. One thing I did do to improve it was I installed the ruger american trigger spring kit from mcarbo. It has made a difference and is well worth the $12.95 it costs. Pretty easy to install. It works on all ruger americans.
https://www.mcarbo.com/ruger-american-rifle-trigger-spring-kit.aspx
