Ruger American .22 LR

[Redthies]

As part of my switcheroo to be off the radar of our guvmint, I sold my semi-auto .22 before it goes the way of the dodo. In its place, I picked up a stainless / synthetic Ruger American Rimfire in .22 LR. It’s a pretty sweet little rifle, with a lot of features. In case you’re not familiar with them, it has an 18” threaded barrel, (perfect for that suppressor I can’t have), an adjustable target trigger, and adjustable LOP and comb height via replaceable stock pieces. My particular model is set up for my Nikon
4-12x40 scope, so it came with a factory Picatinny rail instead of sights.

It will primarily be used as a turkey, grouse and rabbit gun. I would have liked .17 HMR for turkey, but that is literal overkill for grouse and rabbit, so I went with .22 LR. I’ll have to find the ammo it likes best for head shots on birds and bunnies.

My only plans right now, are to do some sort of camo type paint on the stock, and get it dialed in with the scope. Otherwise, it’s pretty much as good as I will need. Ruger does make the same rifle with a bronze cerakoted barrel, and factory camo’d stock, but of course it was “unavailable” at this time. So I’ll have some fun doing my own stock, and wrap the barrel with the camo co-ban tape during turkey season. If it is an amazing shooter, I may consider having cerkote done at some point, but I kind of doubt I’ll bother. The only other mod I’ll do is shortening the extended mag release lever. It sticks way down, and when you are carrying the rifle in the woods, it’s quite common to accidentally drop your mag out. Why Ruger felt the need to change what had been working for 35 years or more is beyond me.

Pic with scope on before I start my paint project:

[RetiredSeabee]

I have one with the blued barrel non threaded. They started threading them about a year later. I see what you mean about the mag release. A better solution I think would have been to make the opening to actuate it slightly larger and beveled.
Hope to see some results in the hunting small game forum.

[Redthies]

I have one with the blued barrel non threaded. They started threading them about a year later. I see what you mean about the mag release. A better solution I think would have been to make the opening to actuate it slightly larger and beveled.
Hope to see some results in the hunting small game forum.

How is yours as a shooter? Pretty accurate? Does it have a favorite ammo? Is it a no sight model that you’ve scoped, or are you using open sights? I like the extended mag release in a bench shooter, but even when I’m in cold weather I have gloves or mits with the flip open trigger finger end so I should have no issues shortening that release.

[BigAl52]

Thought about one myself as the have some other models of it. I wondered how they shoot.

[Hatchdog]

My wife has one in the compact model as she’s pretty small and I HAD one in 22 wmr. Both were/are great shooters and hers really likes CCI mini-mag HP’s and my magnum liked Winchester Varmint HP’s. We used them on ground squirrels with her shooting out to 40 -50 yards and my magnum out to 75 or so. I sold mine as we were not getting out much and now use my Marlin 39-A instead. We have/had Nikon 3-9x40 Rimfire scopes on both which worked out great. Really like the stock attachment to add a cheek piece for scope use.

3E8736B2-38D2-4855-A17B-66F954F44EEE.jpeg

[Redthies]

I wondered how they shoot.

All the reviews I’ve seen say they are great shooters, but I figured I’d ask the locals here, as I don’t necessarily trust the reviews of random YouTube folk. The people here are like family, so they get a bit more cred. As for models, I there are 39 models currently available if you count “distributor exclusive” versions and consider .17, .22 LR and .22 WMR in each style to be 3 different versions. That is a LOT of choice!

[roddy]

Let us know how it shoots for you. One of my local shops has the wood stocked model with iron sights at a decent price. I'm tempted. It would be nice if I could hunt turkey here with a 22. Alas, shotgun only in this part of Ontario.
I had heard that centerfire semis (and anything remotely Black) may soon be in jeopardy, but if Mr PM has rimfires on his radar too, this could get ugly...

[RetiredSeabee]

How is yours as a shooter? Pretty accurate? Does it have a favorite ammo? Is it a no sight model that you’ve scoped, or are you using open sights? I like the extended mag release in a bench shooter, but even when I’m in cold weather I have gloves or mits with the flip open trigger finger end so I should have no issues shortening that release.
[/quote]

It has been at least three years since I took it to the range. When I brought it home it had a semi buckhorn rear sight and a red fiber optic front. The first day while shooting the front sight got really hard to see. The red tube fell out. I called Ruger customer service and asked them to replace it with a green one. I have a hard time seeing the red ones. They sent me a new front sight with a green tube. At my local very poorly lit 25 yard indoor range I was very pleased with it. Can’t remember what ammo I was using but possibly CCI mini mags or Federal auto match. I tended to buy a bunch of those back when 22lr was hard to find.
I have never shot it beyond 25 yards. But was impressed that it always hit exactly where I pointed it. Even when where I pointed it wasn’t where I intended to.
It currently wears a Redfield Tac.22 2-7x34 mm scope that is incredibly clear and bright. And way back when I shot it last I was very pleased that I was able to shoot ten round jagged holes seated but not bench rested. I want to take this very affordable very accurate black beauty to a good outdoor range to see what it will do bench rested at 100 yards.
Wish I could be more help. But my range time has been very limited for the last few years. That pesky day job thing was trying to kill me.
Thanks for reminding me that I have neglected a very good rifle for too long. It will be going to the range on the next trip.

[Redthies]

Let us know how it shoots for you. One of my local shops has the wood stocked model with iron sights at a decent price. I'm tempted. It would be nice if I could hunt turkey here with a 22. Alas, shotgun only in this part of Ontario.
I had heard that centerfire semis (and anything remotely Black) may soon be in jeopardy, but if Mr PM has rimfires on his radar too, this could get ugly...

Hey Roddy, I sure hope they come to their senses, but I fear they won’t. Apparently the petition is well over 100,000 signatures at this point but JT is known to ignore input he doesn’t want to hear... You have to think/hope the Ruger .44 Carbine I sold you would be off the list? It only holds 4 rounds! I doubt logic will prevail though, hence my decision to move away from semi autos, aside from my shotgun, which I’m hoping will be ok. 10/22s are apparently under some sort of restrictions in Washington state already, which I find bizarre.

I hope to get some range time in the next few weeks, as I have the new 336BL and the .22 to get dialed in. We can hunt turkey with either rimfire, or shot, but not centerfire. Some areas are shot only in the fall. The ranch I hunt turkey on often requires a longer shot due to neighboring properties zigzagging, so I hope this little beauty is a shooter.

I trimmed the mag release down, and painted the stock a light forest green. It looks exactly like one of the distributor exclusive models now, except stainless. I may do some khaki overlay and make it a camo stock at some time in the future, but I think for now I’m going to leave it green. I like the look.

[Redthies]

The one I got the green idea from: