I am getting old. Tired of getting kicked ... got a great idea to ease the pain, from the "general manager" of the largest gun store in Kentucky, Derrik Caraway.
www.whittakerguns.com

I was talking with him a couple of weeks ago about the recent and upcoming visits of John Barsness and wife Eileen Clarke to hunt turkey and deer with the Caraways.
The May edition of Rifle Loony News was about the latest Turkey hunt, Loonies may read about it here: www.riflesandrecipes.com

Speaking of the celebrity gunscribes, he mentioned that he was going to try to get an article published himself, in RIFLE magazine, the Wolfe publication:

Topic, the Ruger American Predator rifle chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor using Hornady factory ammo.
Working title: "Long Range on the Cheap" IIRC.

Of course he is a salesman, and he sold me a rifle that day, for $367 brand new in box, and they have more. And factory ammo too.

Here is what she looks like with the used scope I harvested from my 500 A-Square Ruger No. 1, an excellent 942-yard paper puncher,
proven in the "Creedmoor Cow Pasture Range" of Kentucky, not quite 1000 yards available.
This scope took a licking and kept on ticking, and clicking at 1/8" per click at 100 yards.
A Sightron 4-16X 40 mm AO with mildot reticle
on A Ruger American Predator 6.5 Creedmoor:





The rifle weighs 6.75 pounds bare.
The trigger is adjustable by me from 3 pounds to 5 pounds (might be made lighter by some spring work).
The barrel is only 22" long.
The muzzle diameter is about .750" with recessed crown and threading and monkey wrench removable cap for attachment of muzzle devices.
They must be saving the good barrels for the cheap rifles is all I can say.

My first 5 shots at 100 yards with this rig, after using 3 shots to zero at 25 yards:

5 shots into 0.554".
Three of those 5 went into 0.159" and one hole at 100 yards,
and I got giddy and wobbled on the bags for the other two, or I shot too fast in the 95-degree F heat, sweaty trigger finger ... insert other excuse here ...
With 16 X I could see it started off very well.
Hornady 140-grain A-Max factory load.
The 1:8" twist of the Ruger must be fast enough for this bullet.
The rifle shoots better than I do.



Or could it be the Hornady ammo spread on velocity, not bad but could be better? Here are those 5 shots that comprised the 100-yard 5-shot group:



OK, it was me, not the rifle or ammo at fault.

2700 fps in a 24" barrel is the Hornady spec, and that would be right-on for about 2640 fps in my 22" barrel.
Supposed to be with 41.2 grains of H4350 and a Federal 210 primer, 2.800" COAL.
Pressure less than 60,000 PSI, long barrel life.

I will handload for this rifle and go for "longer range on the even cheaper with handloads,"
using Hornady bullets and brass of course, what a pleasure shooting can be.

I'm liking the 6.5 Creedmore a bit more each day.

An AR-15 so chambered would be sorely tempting too ...

After I user my new reamer to cut 2 bolt gun barrels I am going to build one on a Mega Maten

quote:

Originally posted by 7mmfreak:
After I user my new reamer to cut 2 bolt gun barrels I am going to build one on a Mega Maten

Cool.

American Rifleman, August 2015 cover story is "An 'Interesting' Development, The Ruger Precision Rifle."
It is a bolt action that looks like an AR-15 with "all the modularity of the uber-customizable AR-15 platform."
Chamberings so far: 6.5 Creedmoor (tested for the story), .243 Win., .308 Win.

http://www.ruger.com/micros/rpr/models.html

Those new Ruger Americans are some fine little rifles, especially for the money.

quote:

Originally posted by MS Hitman:
Those new Ruger Americans are some fine little rifles, especially for the money.

Amazing but true.
Such an accurizable (is that a word?) action that it is used in the Ruger Precision Rifle.

They showed up at www.whittakerguns.com in the past week, only .308 and .243 Win. so far, and they have all disappeared before they hit the store shelf,
except for one .243 Win. that lasted at least 2 days on the shelf ...
Still waiting for the 6.5 Creedmoor to show up. 10% over wholesale at WG.

And 17 Hummer for even less kick. Darrik is a bad influence.....

This reminds me how Bill Ruger snookered everyone with the angle screw on the M77 - all the gunwriters of the day thought it was a stroke of genius.

If it was so great, how come the Ruger American doesn't use it? For that matter, the patent is long expired but no one has copied the "ingenious" design.

Very interesting and very tempting to get one.
What John Barsness pointed out in his Handloader article a few years ago is the 6.5 Creedmoor is nothing more than a 6.5/250 Savage Ackley Improved, which means cases can be easily made from readily available 22/250 brass.

quote:

Originally posted by steyrsteve:
Very interesting and very tempting to get one.
What John Barsness pointed out in his Handloader article a few years ago is the 6.5 Creedmoor is nothing more than a 6.5/250 Savage Ackley Improved, which means cases can be easily made from readily available 22/250 brass.

Right on.

And Barsness has emerged as my favorite gunscribe of late.
I like the humor and literary flare he brings to all the education he provides, even for me.
Smart guy, and funny too, John that is.

Yes, I am a Rifle Loony, subscriber and colletor of his books, and Eileen's too.
And a certified Riflecarank:
Riflecrank Internationale Permanente (RIP).
Now: RIP-RL

My Dakota Longbow .338 LM with S&B PMII might be as good as that Savage, if only I were as good as AnotherAZWriter.

Hey, John says that now we can all be gunwriters, on the internet.
Yesterday I couldn't even spell gunwriter.
Now I are one.

RIP-RL