Ruger Precision Rifle

It’s a good feeling to be somewhere with the most striking woman in the place on your arm. It’s also fun to be at a gun show and have a gun everyone wants to look at and buy, even if that gun is not for sale. A few weeks back, I had that exact same experience. I always get a table at the Greensboro Gun Show, because it’s a great gun show and I always need more room in my safe. On Thursday, before the show, I picked up my “test and evaluation” Ruger Precision Rifle. I decided to put it on the table without a price tag to see what the reaction might be and I was amazed. I’m certain I could have sold that rifle ten times over.

Everything you need and nothing you don’t a full length 20 MOA rail, adjustable stock, AR 15 grip and front tube, and remarkable accuracy.

The left side of the RPR.

In recent years, there’s been a groundswell of interest in long range rifles with tactical features. Gun enthusiasts like the idea of shooting guns similar to what our military uses and our recent military operations in desert country have spawned some pretty interesting long range rifle concepts, like fully adjustable chassis stocks, threaded muzzles, large capacity box magazines, extended 20 MOA scope rails and use of common AR15 accessories to allow modularity and ease of customization.
Several companies have introduced their versions of this type of rifle with prices ranging from the price of a decent used car to about twice the price of the standard version of the base model rifle. I believe that Ruger has produced the best of this lot. Ruger has always built a quality gun. As a company that makes firearms that fit into almost every category, they probably enjoy more brand loyalty across a wider spectrum of shooters than any other brand. Having said this, brand loyalty had little to do with the attraction of the Precision Rifle at the gun show.

Specs for the three available models.

Simply put, the Ruger Precision Rifle is very well thought out, so well thought out that there are disassembly tools stored in the rear of the bolt body. Unlike many of the adjustable stocks currently available, the Ruger’s stock has a wide range of adjustment that doesn’t take a long time to adjust. Two major manufacturers have chassis rifles that use the Magpul PRS Precision stock which is heavy, slow to adjust and has minuscule amounts of movement.

The stock needs to fold to remove the bolt.

The idea of an adjustable stock on a tactical, long range rifle is to quickly adjust for a difficult position. The level of adjustment needs be generous and it needs to happen fast. The Ruger has almost an inch of cheek piece adjustment and three inches of length of pull. These adjustments can be accomplished lightning fast with a cammed lever that works like a bicycle seat adjustment.
The Ruger Precision Rifle (RPR) also uses a straight line stock with the bolt coming back into the stock when retracted. The stock folds to allow bolt removal and easier transport. When the stock locks into place, there’s zero movement, important in a precision rifle. The pistol grip is standard AR as is the Keymod 15 inch front float tube. Ruger supplies a section of Picatinny rail and a sling swivel attachment with the rifle. The trigger is the bladed type so many rifles use these days and it was both light and crisp enough for precision shooting.
More modularity comes from the variety of magazines that can be used. Most precision tactical rifles use single stack ten shot magazines that sell for well north of the $50.00 number. The Ruger has a new feature they call Multi Magazine Interface that allows use with both side and front latching magazines used in AR Platform .308, as well as M14 style front latch magazines.

One of the most impressive features is the ability to use different magazines. Standard M14 magazines as well as 7.62 AR magazines worked perfectly in my test gun. The three lug bolt strips the round off the magazine with the bottom lug.

While the company stipulates that some M14 magazines might not work, my test rifle worked just fine with my M14 magazines and this is important because PMags and steel M14 magazines are cheap and much more compact for their capacity.
While it has that kind of look, the Ruger RPR isn’t a chassis rifle, it uses an upper and lower receiver assembly, with the trigger and magazine housing comprising the lower receiver and the bolt, stock and barrel all assembled in line on the upper portion. This keeps the unscoped weight down under eleven pounds. The modularity extends into the design further, allowing the barrel to be changed as with AR platform rifles and using the same tools.
Of course, with any rifle, the proof is in the shooting. I chose the .243 Winchester chambering, and based on the gun show crowd, I made the wrong choice, but I don’t think I did. I come from an NRA High Power background. I’m a Distinguished Rifleman and former High Master. I had friends who experimented with the .243 and liked it. It’s not the current hot caliber at Camp Perry, but it’s easy to find, with a wide variety of loads and the numbers are almost as good as the 6.5 Creedmoor.

I tested the Ruger with three different loads. Hornady Superformance SST 85 grain, Remington 100 grain Corelokt, and Winchester Ballistic Silvertip 55 grain Fragmenting Polymer tip.

The other part I liked is that the .243 comes with a 1-8 twist 26 inch barrel and I’d suspect the extra two inches of length and good choice of load will put the .243 up to 6.5 Creedmoor numbers. Besides, should I decide the .243 was a bad choice, I can easily swap barrels to any barrel in the .308 family.
I scoped my test rifle with the excellent Leupold 6.5-20 and used the lowest BSquare rings that would clear the front rail. This put the adjustable cheek piece at just off the bottom setting. Accuracy testing was done from prone off a bipod. This is a tactical rifle, and I felt it should be shot like one. I used three different loadings for my testing, none of which were competitive match loads. While the shortcoming of the .243 is a lack of out of the box match loads, there are plenty of quality bullets that can easily make the .243 a fine long range performer. I used two 100 grain loads, the Hornady Superformance 95 grain SST boat tail, and I couldn’t resist using some good old Remington 100 grain Core-Lokt. I also had a couple of boxes of Winchester Ballistic Fragmenting Polymer Tip Silvertips and I thought it would be good to see if the Ruger RPR could handle a lightweight bullet.
Initial results were good, but not great with everything hanging right around MOA accuracy. Surprisingly, the best group came from the 55 grain Fragmenting Winchesters. I felt the Ruger should do better so I went over things, I cleaned the barrel again, since there are no guard screws to tighten, I checked the screws that hold the two halves of the lower receiver together and found the rear screw a bit looser than I thought it should be. Snugged up, with a clean bore, I returned to the range to the 200 yard line at Piedmont Handgunners Association, my local range.

The group from the Hornady 95 grain SST at 200 yards.

Resolving to hold hard, I managed five shot groups averaging a bit more than a half minute. The Hornady Superformance produced the best average, and the 55 grain Balistic Silvertips produced the best group, just .872” at 200 yards. The 100 grain Core-Lokt put in a great showing with one group at just 1.177”. Core-Lokt is still remarkably good ammunition even though it’s an almost 50 year old product line. I’m curious just how well this little rifle will shoot with a real match bullet and a bit more time on the barrel.
Accuracy Results at 200 yards off a bipod                                                     Best Group                            Average
Winchester 55 grain Ballistic Silvertip Fragmenting                                              .985”                                         1.587”
Remington 100 grain Core-Lokt Pointed soft point                                              1.177”                                          1.703”
Hornady Superformance 95 grain SST                                                                     1.009″                                        1.344″

The Ruger Precision Rifle performed will with every brand of ammunition I tried.

I’m convinced a good rifleman could slick up the bolt, install a good set of match sights, load some real match ammo and shoot a High Master score with this rifle at Camp Perry. The Ruger Precision Rifle strongly resembles and has many of the features that allowed the Tubb 2000 rifle to take Camp Perry by storm several years ago, except the Ruger has those features in a mass produced rifle at a fraction of the cost.
Ruger has done a great job on this one. It will serve well as a target gun, a tactical competition rifle, and for long range hunting applications. They’re so confident, they’ve introduced the Ruger Precision Rifle Challenge, a website where RPR owners can report their success and compete for the best shot at a wide range of distances from 100 yards for group size to 1,600 yards on a metal plate. It’s going to be interesting to see just how accurate the little Ruger is going to be.

A generous bolt handle makes operation easy and fast, the familiar bladed trigger breaks clean and light. Magazine release is M14 style and the gun will run my M14 magazines just fine in .243

Prone Accuracy testing was done prone with a bipod at 100 and 200 yards.

One of the best features was the fully adjustable stock. Both cheek piece height and length of pull were fast to adjust and had a wide range of movement.

The Keymod float tube forend comes with a section of rail and a swivel attachment point.

Muzzle Standard threads allow easy use of a suppressor or compensator.

I tested the Ruger with three different loads. Hornady Superformance SST 85 grain, Remington 100 grain Corelokt, and Winchester Ballistic Silvertip 55 grain Fragmenting Polymer tip. There wasn’t a load that performed badly.

During my testing, I used the Bullseye Camera AmmoCam to monitor groups. It is a remote camera that lets you see real time results on a laptop or tablet.