Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Rugers frontier rifle

Anybody have one yet? What caliber? How's it handle? Killed anything yet? Let's here about it!! thanks CD

I haven't shot the Frontier, but I have shot the Compact 77 in .243. It handled well, just fooling around, it was hard to shoot off the bench, of course. And, it was LOUD! It wasn't a bench rifle, obviously, and didn't shoot like one, but that's not what they are for, anyway. It should make a perfectly adequate 200 yard deer rifle.

I mean no disrespect to RUGER or their fans, but Ruger has gone overboard to fii niches in the marketplace. I may be very wrong but they may have overestimated the size of the market, Sincerely, Essex

My wife has a 7mm-08 in the Ruger compact and its the perfect rifle for her. Couldnt be happier.
Turning into a scout rifle....... I dont know about that.

Cannot friggin' stand the "scout rifle" set-up. If someone gave me one, the first thing I'd do would be to chop it up into a donor action and build a rifle out of the action.

Interesting that people like those 16 1/2" barrels so much. I had a Model 7 .308 with an 18 1/2" barrel and found the muzzle blast very objectionable.

So, just how loud are these rifles anyway?

as much as I like ruger, I see no use for these particular rifles. my kids have a 20" barrel on their 250 and that's about as short as I can tolerate.

I held one at Scheels this weekend and was amazed at how quick you can sight it. Then I looked at the 300 WSM chambering and the short barrel and cringed.
Cool idea - bad combination.
h

...have you tried one yet? I have four right now and one in the works. For the woods I hunt where shots are rarely over 75 yards and often on moving game they are very fast.

My friend had a Savage Scout and just traded for a Ruger Frontier. I have shot the gun and can hardly wait till they bring one out in stainless and hopefully with their nice front sight and fold down rear sight like on the #1 A.

Bob

Bob,

Yet, I've tried a couple, and shot them. They are quick, but so is a good, light carbine set up right in the first place (i.e. proper size/weight low-power scope, in rings of the correct height for the shooter, eye relief centered for shooter head placement). I hunt in similar areas sometimes as well, and have not had a problem getting onto game that I want to get onto in the first place. Practice, which I am sure you do a lot, makes the most difference.

The "scout rifles" really lack, IMHO, if/when you get out of the brush and to an open field - then you've got three choices: get closer and have the deer run so the scout design comes into play; try a long shot with a low-power scope; or crank the power on that pistol scope and hope the eye relief doesn't change too much. Oh, and the field of view IMHO sucks.

I can never figure why if someone hunts in the areas where the "scout design" is supposedly so much better than a standard bolt action, why they didn't just go with a light, quick, lever-action carbine in the first place. IMHO, the levers, like the Marlin 336/1894/1895s and the Win. 94s are proven in those conditions and the calibers they are chambered for flat-out work there. Not to mention that a lever-action IS faster on repeat shots than a bolt. I just don't get it...

IMHO, the scout design is a solution looking for a problem. Either set up a light bolt action carbine well the first time (like a Rem. Model 7 .308 with a Leupie 1-4x20 or 2-7x32 Compact), or go with a lever action carbine with similar scope configuration or perhaps even a good peep sight (esp. if you're ALWAYs in the brush). The "scout design," to me, is an attempt to combine the two that doesn't quite do what either of the two designs combined will do alone, and gives up too much in the attempt.

I just don't flat-out like them; of course, YMMV.

The other reason for the scout design, i.e. putting the scope way ahead of the action, is to allow the use of stripper clips to quickly reload.

Yep - that's important to me - the ability to charge 5 more rounds into the mag after I've used them up in deer combat.

Jeff Cooper makes an interesting argument for the rifle for a military scout, but as a hunting rifle there are better choices IMHO.

i cannot imagine shooting a short mag with a 16" barrel. i cant believe the factory would do such a thing.

the concept obviously has merit as they are selling. i guess they ran out of super cartridges to sell so now the big guys are gonna' build different guns around them......

woofer

Jim,
Your funny, stripper clips in deer combat.

VA...I think you 100% correct. I hunt mainly with Remington 600 carbines that have 18.5" barrels and beautifully designed stocks. They are the best balanced bolt gun I have ever used. The guns are set up several ways:

.350 RM....conventional 1.5-5 Leupold

6.5 RM....conventional 3.5-10 Shepherd P310

.223 Mohawk....conventional 10 power Bushnell 3200 to be replaced by a 4.5-14 Leupold

.308...Leupold Scout Mount with 2 power Redfield IER scope (one of the OLD real scout scopes not a pistol scope)

The field of view is best on the 1.5-5 Leupold even set at 3 power compared to any one of the scout scopes I have. I killed a running deer last year at 30 yards with the .350 and the scope set on 3 power. This is the first year I have had the .308 scout and plan on trying it instead. As to long distance shots I will let you know how it works once I get the ammo loaded and drag my butt down to the range.

The fastest first shot rifle I have so far tested is a Marlin 1894 .41 Magnum with a XS scout mount and 2 power Redfield IER scope. At 10 yards I can drop a shot on a paperplate in .8 seconds from the port arms position. At 50 yards I think it was 1.2...have to check that to be sure. When I have time I want to try the bolt guns against the lever guns to see which is faster for one and two shots.

Below is one of the other scout setups...an LTD in .41 Magnum...the scout mount and scope actually inproved the balance of this rife as it was too butt heavy with the short 16.5" barrel.

Bob

I like the compact idea, it would be nice to have the rifle with an 18 inch barrel in 7mm-08 or .308 but have the scope in the regular place. I find myself when climbing trees wanting something more than my .44 Mag marlin but something less than my 24 inch barreled 30-06! I had a model 7 in .308 but I bought is used and the prior owner had sold it for the same reason that I did, it just would not shoot better than 3 inches at 100 yds, still it accounted for 8 deer. Jimmy P

RJM, Please let us know how that long range shooting goes. I'm mostly interested how it dose to 300 yds. 300 is a long shot. I'd love to know how it groups at longer ranges. I'm interested because I've jumped to many big bucks at close range and thick cover. I'm looking for an edge!! I hunt blacktails in sw wash. It's very thick country! But there are always those 200-300 yd shots in the clearcuts.

Nice day here today...about 60 and sunny...with 20-40 mph winds...but I shot anyway so I would have a clue what this would be like under adverse field conditions.

Brought two rifles with me. A Remington 600 .308 with the 2 Power Refield IER scope mounted in Leupold Detacho mounts on the rib. Load was 46 grains of WW748 and a Hornady 165 SST with CCI Benchrest Primer that has clocked 2710 from a 20" barreled M700 LTR and is good for .35" at 100. The second rifle was also a M600 but in 6.5 Remington Magnum with a Shepherd 3.5-10x40 shooting factory 120s. I have fired both guns less than a box each.

Shooting position...instead of sandbagging the guns off the bench I used the Uncle Mikes Mountain sling and rested the forend over my shooting bag for more of a supported field position.

Sighting....the .308 was sighted in 2.5" high at 100 yards. The 6.5 was sighted in at 100 yards but the Shepherd scope has ranging rings that allow dead on hold at whatever range you are shooting. I ended up bumping it up 1 MOA and that ended up putting me 1" high at 100, 1" high at 200 and dead on at 300.

Targets....9" white paper plates with a 1" square black paster in the middle.

At 200 yards The .308 shot a group 2"Wx5"H the center of the group being 2" above the dot. The 6.5 ran a 2.5"Wx0"H group...three shots dead in a row...can you spell wind.

300 yards...the crosshair covered the plate with the .308. Group was 11"Wx2.75"H....again the wind. The group was 6.5" below the dot. The 6.5 ran a 9"Wx3.5"H. One of the three shots was just off the plate by 1/2"..still a dead deer.

Back to 100 yards sitting with the sling.... .308 put two rounds 2.5" over the dot about 2" apart...the 6.5 was in the same area but a 2.5" group.

So can the lower power scout scope put rounds on target at long range...appears so. But of course there are going to be a lot of other factors like light conditions, color of the animal compared to the background...but I got lucky.

At the range was one of the other instructors who has been to Cooper's Scout Rifle course not just once but twice and hunts with his Scouts. The last time he took the course was two years ago using a Styer Scout. He took first in the "skeet shoot" breaking 7 out of 25 thrown birds. He has the Styer .308 and .376 as well as a Savage .308 that he says is more accurate than the Styer but he also is not pleased with the feeding system as it is not well made.

I asked him about his hunting experience and he said that he had killed two elk with the .376. One was a quartering away shot on a cow at about 125 yards. Put her down but she needed a finishing shot. The second was a bull standing at about 225 yards. He said it was a very difficult shot to make with that low a power scope and he didn't make a good first shot. He was able to get a second shot into the bull that killed him.

So we shall see what happens in three weeks when I go hunting..

Bob

I couldn't agree with Humdinger more. I think it's possible, (but not likely) that I could learn to live with the design if I had to, but some of the caliber choices for a short light rifle like that simply mystify me. What in the world is Ruger thinking? A .243, .308 and 7-08, yeah, a 300WSM, well I'm not particularly recoil sensative, but I ain't that stupid.

Can't imagine what a .300 SAUM is doing in a 16 inch barrel... Can't possibly be burning all the powder. You ought to see the fireworks in the dark with my "Stub"!

I've posted this several times before in various places, but here goes again.

I beat Ruger to it by at least 10 years. Picked up on a busy day a standard .30-06 RU77 in pretty bad shape (rode hard, put away wet) for $80. Figured the stock and receiver were salvagable anyway, for a "boat gun". Outside of barrel pretty badly rusted, bore didn't look too terribly bad after a ran a few swbs thru it- you'd be surprised how well some pitted bores shoot! And at 20 yards or less, they don't have to shoot all that well. Didn't even notice the bulge in the end of the barrel til several weeks later, when I had a chance to work on it.

Whacked the barrel to 17 inches (tking almost all the inside pitting with it) and test fired it with a 2X7 Loopie VII (still wearing it after about 15 years) Cloverleafed first 3 rounds, 5 rnds went to 5" Two subsequent groupings were similar, tho not quite as good. Had to think about that, so I took it sheep hunting. Whacked a ram at 330 yards, 4 days later nice bull moose at 70 yards. Couple months later, after sufficient cogitation, glass bedded and free floated the barrel (now shoots as many as you want into 1.5 or there-abouts), whacked a couple inches off forend and buttstock to pull the conformity back into eye, and made it into a "wife's gun". Basically a carbine, or "Frontier rifle". I've been using it quite a lot ever since, with a 1" slip on pad over the mounted Decelerator to better fit me.

Killed several moose, caribou, black bear with it. Last year I took a nice bull caribou at 360 yards, this year my son whacked just as good a one at 180 yards. Long as you know the range and bullet drop, no problem.

I'm pretty sure I'm getting about .308 ballistics (or less?) out of that short-barreled '06, but who cares??? The sum-bitch kills!

And is very handy to carry. If I was buying a Frontier Rifle, I'd likely get it in .308 and never look back. Never cared for those forward mounted scopes myself. They look funny too.