My buddy Liem called me a few days ago and told me he had a new Ruger Scout rifle and wondered if I wanted to shoot it. I said, Sure!
Today we took it to the range. Here it is.
As many of you know, the Scout Rifle concept was developed by Jeff Cooper and was intended to be a light weight, handy rifle, capable of use for a variety of uses, from hunting to self-defense.
It is not as good as a "specialty rifle" for any one use, but is good for many uses.
Liem had it glass bedded and had the trigger tuned up a little, and installed a scope.
The rifle comes with a mount and rings, but you have to install the scope of your choice.
Liem installed a Burris pistol scope with long eye relief. It is a 4 power scope.
Some folks might want less power on a scope for a scout rifle, but we liked the 4 power scope for shooting best at 100 Yards.
Let's look at the rifle.
First it has a very unique muzzle brake.
You can also see the well-protected front sight.
The rear sight is high quality and could be used if you didn't want to use a scope.
It has a 10 round, removable magazine.
This magazine worked well, but we noticed that if you weren't careful, it was easy to insert a shell too far back and jam the mag.
Nothing too critical, but just something you need to learn to watch.
The bolt has a big extractor that works well.
(The red coloring is grease, not rust.)
The barrel is marked .308 Winchester.
The butt pad is nice and soft and has removable inserts to adjust length of pull.
The magazine release is in front of the trigger guard and is easy to operate.
Another view.
The bolt holding the action in the stock is at an angle, like some other Ruger rifles.
The Safety is in the rear of the bolt and works great.
Today we shot some National Match ammo.
And some handloads that Liem loaded.
Well, let's get to shooting.
First Liem wrings it out at 75 yards, to check scope zero.
Here are his three shots.
I tried my hand at it.
And here's my group.
We made some adjustments to the scope and shot more groups.
Then we moved the target to 100 yards and shot some groups.
Liem also shot it off-hand and we found it to be "fast" to the shoulder and easy to shoot at a man-sized target at 100 yards.
Here's my group from 100 yards
A nice group with two fliers, probably my fault, not the rifle's.
I told Liem that what I should have done is to cover the holes like this for the picture.
The Ruger Gunsite Scout is a fun rifle to shoot.
Not a real precision rifle, but plenty good enough to shoot "minute of deer" groups.
Conclusions:
If you want a Scout rifle, this is a good one.
