July 17, 2022 – It takes about 6 months to put a bracket race car/engine together… after approximately two years of prior research and planning. One and one half years to grow the project plan out of control, six months trimming to get back in touch with reality before the cash begins to flow and late night build days commence.

What does all of this have to do with firearms? Plenty.. Bub! You close a deer season, miss many easy shots, catch cold, wear out your boots, and swear you will fix the obvious problem before the next deer season; you obviously need a more gun.

In pursuit of things that go fast, or things that go bang, reality can be fleeting.

Is the 577 H&H really enough gun for whitetail?

Rifle hunting deer, for me, began with a 30-30 WCF Marlin, but migrated… emigrated? to the 243 Winchester. The 243 Winchester lasted as cartridge of choice for what seemed like an eternity. In musical terms, roughly the time span between the British Invasion to the onset of Eminem.

From then on it was magnums. If a cartridge held a lot of powder and shot heavy bullets, I was there. I was not cognoscente of my overkill cartridge addiction until I caught myself assembling 300 grain bullets into 375 Ruger rounds for use in my light deer rifle, a 21″ barrel, bolt action carbine, in preparation for the season.

Was it an effective deer rifle? I maintain that it was. Not only did it stop a deer in what was left of its tracks, but I could shoot through 24″ diameter oak trees and take deer trying to hide behind them. Still, something did not seem quite right.

On becoming the Saint Francis of firearms

I divested myself of all heavy rifles and began a search for THE deer rifle/cartridge combination. Naturally, the first choice was a nifty little lightweight rifle, chambered for the 243 Winchester (61 factory loads) and went hog hunting.

One shot kills, but not as clean as I would like. In fact, I did better with my old 30-30 WCF Marlin (35 factory loads), punching holes through hogs, but with too much meat damage and too large exit wounds. So I tried the 260 Remington cartridge (19 factory loads). Unfortunately, it was a snooze. Good round, good performance, but virtually no entertainment value.

The next move was the 6.5×55 Swede (19 factory loads), followed by the 7×57 Mauser (9 factory loads) on the road to becoming a Euro Snob.

L-R 243 Winchester, 7mm-08 Remington, 7×57 Mauser. I hit reverse and found the 7mm-08 Remington (33 factory loads). While its association with the 308 Winchester suggest it should be labeled a moderate, it actually has a lot of scoot. Yes, that is a technical ballistic term. Try to keep up.

Stand too close and you get put to work…

My eldest son Joe, his wife Estrella and daughter Bella have been visiting. So I spent twenty minutes showing her how to operate the tractor and she drove and helped me pulls cut trees out of the woods and used the grapple to take them to the back lot pile for future processing. She is fourteen years old.

Bella has been shooting for a long time, rimfire and centerfire firearms of numerous types, so I enlisted her assistance in shooting and data logging for this article.

True of the firearms’ industry, as it is in most industries, firearms receive detail coverage when first introduced and then only general coverage. Unfortunate, as everyone does not read those initial articles, so they miss out on the specifics of how a firearm differs from others.

As an example, the Ruger American Compact has a short length of pull to accommodate smaller shooters, but also to accommodate heavy winter wear. The barrel at 18″ is compact, but not so compact as to significantly impede performance.

The tri-lug American bolt has 70° lift. I do not know why manufacturers have been using the nomenclature “throw” recently as that is not throw. Throw is the entire motion of bolt cycling, a combination of bolt lift, stroke travel in both directions, open to close.

The American also features dual cocking cams which reduces cocking effort for easy cycling with the rifle shouldered.

The American employs Ruger Power Bedding, which anchors the action, floats the barrel and delivers a high level of accuracy.

Can you prove that photographically? Absolutely. Maybe.

The Ruger American Rifle is push feed. I understand there may be an associated risk when attempting to discharge the firearm from an upside down, on horseback, while underwater, but under any other circumstance “push” makes for a very slick and reliable feed.

The American Rifle’s bolt body is full diameter, which means it is as larger, or larger in diameter than the span across the virtual circumference of the three locking lugs. Subsequently, the surface inside of the receiver that supports the bolt body is a full bearing surface, unbroken by locking lug key ways.

The Ruger bolt body diameter is 0.850″, the diameter formed by the three locking lugs is approximately the same. By comparison, a Remington Model 700 bolt diameter is 0.696″ and the two lug span is 0.993″. Both use a plunger type ejector and a claw type extractor. Yes, I do know that Remington is no more and I am not holding my breath for a rise from the ashes.

The American has two cocking cams which reduces the effort required to cock the assembly; increased bearing surface, greater mechanical advantage and balanced loading on adjacent contact surfaces. No, I have no idea what that means either, but the use of the term “adjacent contact surfaces” is pretty exciting. Substance is greatly overrated.

The American Rifle trigger, foreground, is adjustable for pull weight and is not the same adjustable trigger found on the Target and Predator models. The American Rifle’s trigger is adjustable from three to five pounds in half turn increments, over six complete turns. Additionally, a trigger release lever, hinged into the face of the trigger, effectively blocks the trigger unless the shooter has completely depressed the release lever.

Ruger Power Bedding

Inserts bonded into the stock are “V” blocks and the locators on the receiver are “V” locators and the barrel is floating on air? The inside of the stock is reinforced with radial ribbing and egg crate making the whole assembly very rigid.

It needs a 50 round detachable magazine… AR 15 compatible

Nope.  The 4 round magazine is flush to the bottom side of the stock so it can be held properly while providing more than sufficient capacity. No cantilevered elbow on an arm that is supposed to provide support.

The magazine is rotary type which makes for a low profile and sure feed. Yes, as a detachable magazine design there are magazines of other capacity available and/or more of the same for folks who carry extra and/or different ammo types on their person.

A closer look at the tang and trigger blade safety. As another indication of the action being cocked, the stainless cocking piece protrudes from the bolt shroud.

Wow! Will you get to the shooting part! OK, OK. I’m getting there…

Above, five factory 7mm-08 Remington loads. They appear on the table as above left to right.

Guns that out shoot their owners

I always get a kick out of relatively new shooters who are concerned with group sizes at 300 yards. Three football fields is a long ways off and there are not a lot of people who can consistently drop a deer size animal at that distance.

The short barreled 7mm-08 Ruger can easily cover that distance and carry enough KE, penetrate and properly expand to be effective. With a 3″ ordinate, this rifle-cartridge combination has a 250 yard point blank range and can handle another 50 yards with, literally, a couple inches of hold over.

Wrap it up. OK, I’m getting there

I believe I am more of a curiosity to my granddaughter than anything else. This is her reaction either to discovering I am bald, or wondering how I stretched 5 minutes of tractor training into 20 minutes.

Shortly after this documentary was shot by her mother, she took off with the tractor  to work while I was mid explaining what a pedal is and why John Deere tractors won their positive image during the Great Depression. I believe, to a fifteen year old, I was saying something like “blah, blah, blah-blah-blah….”

Both Bella and I felt the Ruger handles well, shoots better than hunting accuracy and is reasonably priced. I light rifle, the 7mmm-08 Remington round can produce moderate recoil. The short barrel made for barky report.

We also felt the Ruger American Compact is well made, has a very good recoil pad and the Picatinny rail gave the little rifle a good deal of flexibility in sight selection and positioning. Great rifle and cartridge combination. Both the old guy and the young lady had no problem putting up sub MOA groups.