You may recognize the first part of this post, as I had it in another thread . . . but instead of thread-jacking even more, I'll consolidate it all here.
I already own a Mossberg MVP LR model in 5.56:
http://www.mossberg.com/product/mvp-lr-rifle-27696/I'm very happy with it. The adjustable comb makes it easy to shoot with a scope, it uses AR mags, and it's accurate; I've shot 5-shot groups as low as 0.4 MOA, and I can regularly do 0.5 MOA with it. The threaded barrel is nice if you have a suppressor. You can get it for $700+, and it's a bit tough to find. This is a nice rifle, and it's my go-to rifle for prairie dogs.
I wanted a backup gun for prairie dogs, so I recently ordered a Ruger American Predator model 26944, in .223 Remington:
https://ruger.com/products/americanRifl ... 26944.htmlIt has most of the same features as the MVP LR (threaded barrel, takes AR mags), just no adjustable comb, but it's cheaper (roughly $450).
I bought the rifle from
kellybachand, and I picked it up recently. My expectations were that it would be a decent rifle with good features, but I know it's a low-priced gun so I wasn't expecting perfection. And my expectations were met.
First, it had a light rub mark on top of the barrel, a few inches long:
Irritating yes, but not a big deal. I hit it with a cold blue pen, and you won't really notice it now. (You may not have noticed it originally if I didn't point it out, either.)
The thing that bothered me the most, though, was that the plastic stock was a bit warped. The barrel is supposed to be free-floated, but the stock was pushing against it on the left side. Notice how there's a nice gap on the right, but not on the left?
I did some internet surfing, and found that this is fairly common with these rifles. Some folks cut away the offending area inside the stock with a Dremel or knife, and some people use a heat gun to try to soften the plastic in that area to re-form it. I went with the heat gun route.
Here's the stock before I missed with it:
I used the heat gun (on low) to soften up the front left portion of the stock, a few inches at a time. Once I had an area softened, I laid a 3/4" socket on top and pushed it downward, and this moved the soft plastic on the left side. I did this in a few different areas, until the stock looked like this:
I then hit it with some oil and fine sandpaper, just to take some edges down.
And . . . success!
The trigger feels decent, not super-light but pretty clean. It has an adjustable trigger and I have it lightened all the way and it's still not as light as I'd like it, but it's okay for now.
Well, today I took it to the range for its maiden voyage:
That's a Vortex Viper 6.5-20x scope on it, which I moved over from an AR that I have. Once I got the rifle set up, I looked through the scope and the target looked pretty small to me. I looked at the zoom ring and sure enough, it was on 20x. I looked through the scope again and thought to myself, "damn, I've really gotten spoiled with my nicer high-magnification scopes, this 20x looks tiny." Well, I finally figured out that it wasn't REALLY on 20x . . . the zoom ring only works sporadically, most of the time you move it back and forth and nothing happens.
I finally got it on 20x so I could do my shooting, but I'll be contacting Vortex and I'm sure they'll take care of it.
So anyhow, I finally got to shooting. One thing I noticed is that the bolt was fairly hard to close, which I thought was odd because I religiously use a case gauge when I process my .223 brass, but all right, no big deal. I kept shooting. I tried a few different loads, and it was shooting decently, and I finally got to my tried-and-true prairie dog load which is 26 grains of Benchmark and a 50-grain Zmax bullet. This is a pretty hot load. Well, I took one shot and I saw smoke coming from the chamber area. Sure enough, the primer was pierced. I kept shooting; after ten rounds, I had two pierced primers and eight primers that cratered pretty good around the firing pin.
I finally got to my 77-grain loads, but before I fired the first one something tickled my brain . . . finally. I removed the bolt, pushed a loaded round into the chamber with my finger and tipped the muzzle up . . . and nothing happened. The round did not fall out of the chamber. I banged the butt of the rifle on the bench, and it still didn't come out. I finally put the bolt back in and used the bolt to remove the round. I repeated the process with a couple of different loads.
Bottom line: The bullets are pushing into the lands of the rifling, and they do this for EVERY one of my reload flavors, and both kinds of commercial ammo that I own. This explains why the pressure was so high with the loads that had pierced primers. This can happen when you load very long cartridges, but my reloads are all at 2.23-2.24" overall length, which isn't long at all.
I brought the gun home and cleaned it, and repeated the process; nothing changed. I did the same thing with an empty but sized case, and a cartridge where I pushed the bullet way in, and both chambered nicely and then fell freely out of the chamber when I tipped the muzzle up.
So, I think this needs to go back to Ruger. I'll be calling or emailing them soon.
I'm not sure that you can actually conclude much from these photos, but they're kind of cool so I'll post them. This is using my $10 eBay borescope, with a round chambered. There is no bolt in the rifle as I do this; the round is held in place by friction between the bullet and the rifling. The colored rings around the outside are a reflection from the colored bullet tips.
Here's a 50-grain Zmax:
And a 55-grain Hornady soft point:
And finally, a 50-grain Vmax:
Pretty, eh?
But after all that, the question remains . . . how did it shoot? Here's my target:
Not bad at all, especially considering that the rounds were jammed in there so tightly. Ignore the rounds that aren't marked; those were just screwing around getting it sighted in. All of these groups were shot with a suppressor.
Hornady flat-base soft points: These are pretty shitty bullets and I don't expect much from them. The 0.740 MOA and 0.758 MOA groups were a pleasant surprise, showing that the higher powder charges work better, which is what I saw with my MVP too.
Hornady 50gr Zmax: My old standby, I expect good groups from these. The Vmax should be similar. There are a couple of good groups there, the best being 0.685 MOA.
I'm satisfied with the groups, considering the price of the rifle. I just hope I can get the chamber/rifling fixed to make it safe, and hopefully that will make it shoot better too.