If I saw one for 1k I would most likely buy it...

The RAR got the same uneducated reaction too.....at first.

Larry Weishuhn has become the face of Ruger--in print and on TV--these days. He recently used a stock Ruger American in .270 to take a desert ram in Mexico, basically a $60k hunt with a $300 rifle.

I guess we'll know the RPR has arrived when we see Larry--bad knees and all--lugging a RPR around the Bob Marshall on an elk hunt. So, he'll need a horse. Idle thought: imagine the RPR in a scabbard affixed to Larry's saddle horse. Or maybe they'll toss the scabbard and contrive a wheeled caisson or travois tied to the sawbuck of a packhorse?

NAH....eighty-six the elk hunt completely and pair Larry and the RPR together on a pronghorn or bison hunt....just be sure and edit out the pickup behind Larry.

Maybe a coues deer hunt? Yeah, a coues hunt! But another idle thought: How are we gonna get the RPR up the hill?

Definately some logisticals to think through....

LMAO. I got a pretty good chuckle out of this. I remember him using a pistol for several years and making some very poor shots.

27.4 pounds

That's what a Barrett M107 .50 BMG weighs before base, rings, optics, ammo. Afghanistan is full of mountains.

Dear God! A ten pound rifle must be unbearable to carry! How have I managed with 15+ pound rifles for so long?

Some is probably an understatement.

Yes, Larry's adventures as a pistolero have been fodder for more than one campfire laugh. Since he no longer represents T-C, we won't see him with a pistol or smoke pole either in the future.

But Weishuhn is good people.......not a braggart or loudmouth, and always willing to give of his time to charity and hunting organizations. He comes from old German stock in Colorado County and is distantly related to my wife.

I think he still uses a Blackhawk/Redhawk or something on occasion but definitely not as often. I don't watch his show but it's been on for background a time or two.

Some one please explain to me why the two piece lower is OK?

I want to like this rifle, put I don't want it to fall apart.

Thanks for the birthday wishes. I've already heard from 2 of my three daughters, and the wife wants me to take her to the afternoon matinee to see the new Mission Impossible flick, which opens today. Myself, I kinda like the idea of a nice long nap to bypass the afternoon's triple digit temps, but Karen usually gets her way, even on my birthday.

I guess that the proper weight of a gun is in the eye of the beholder. Just as a woman can't be too beautiful, or a cop too honest, or a preacher too righteous; a rifle can't also be too heavy, at least to some. But we reach a point--and that point is highly variable depending on who is on the soap box--that all of this begins to float to the level of complete absurdity. And it's not just the firearms. I never thought I'd see the day of a two-pound rifle scope; now shooters stand on waiting lists to shell out thousands of dollars for one that is well over three pounds! And the long picatinny rail(s) invites a guy to add an IR light, a bipod, and even a bayonet if he's so inclined. And so one day, our citizen suddenly realizes that his rifle looks like, carries like, and handles like a farm jack.

A guy earlier on this thread boasted that he owned NO rifle weighing LESS than 15 pounds. He further opined that anyone wishing for an outfit weighing less should instead hit the iron at the gym a little harder. I think he misses the point. Shotgunners have known for decades that a firearm should be a joy to carry. It should handle like an extension of your arm. And it should point as naturally and instinctively as a mother-in-law's accusing finger. Now, if in your mind your rifles meet those criteria, and if you're happy with a 15-lb rig, then all power to you. But it leaves me cold. And I've been a faithful gym rat every other day for over 22 years.

Now please understand that a benchrest gun or a rig for long range gong-ringing or prairie dog shooting need not adhere to anyone's notion of an ideal weight. After all, unless it weighs over a half-ton, your truck has no complaint whatsoever. But issues begin to arise when we take the ideal SHOOTING rifle and decide arbitrarily that we now have the ideal HUNTING rifle. This just isn't so, despite what we've been told on the Sportsman's Channel, or even here on the THF. The current propaganda would have us believe that, unless our rifle is tricked out with clicking scope turrets and VLD bullets, we aren't equipped for an elk hunt. And everyone knows that elk are always at least 1000 yards away! (Apparently, it has never occurred to these experts that when you spot a bull a half-mile away, you can simply stroll over and cut the distance by half or more).

Back around the 1980s I guess, a gunsmith in Tucson named David Miller who loved hunting coues deer, started building heavy rifles--often in .300 Weatherby--with long bull barrels, heavy scopes, and Jewell triggers and began marketing them as the ideal outfit for the desert mountains favored by these little deer. A lot of people bought into the concept of the Miller notion that coues deer had changed, and that a buck could no longer be taken with a sporter-weight rifle. I signed on too and soon cooked up a .300 WinMag with a 25" Krieger heavy barrel on a trued Remington action with a Jewell trigger (of course). And with an old Burris Signature 6.5x24 scope, I thought I was in business. Never mind that it weighed over 13 lbs....I had a coues rifle at last. And so I went coues hunting in Mexico and shot a nice coues buck. At 360 yards +/-. With one shot. I could have made the same shot with my 7-lb .25-06.

I've hunted all my life, and pretty much world-wide. Outside of PDs, hogs, coyotes, and other vermin, I've never shot a big game animal at even 400 yards. I know that I can always get closer, and since I'm toting a light rifle, there's no excess burden to bear. So, when someone who has never climbed a mountain any higher than Flagpole Hill tells me with conviction that we must have a heavy ponderous rifle in order to hunt some game animal that he's never even seen in the wild, then naturally my eye gets jaundiced pretty quickly.

.....because my own experience has taught me differently. And eventually his will too....with experience, of course. Meanwhile, we're all free to behave as the spirit moves us.

Just one man's opinion....mine.

EDIT: This is not a direct shot at you, FJG. I know you've been elk hunting, and I enjoyed your sharing the story with all of us here. It just seems that the white noise out there over big guns and long range shooting and tacti-cool weaponry has reached such a loud crescendo that it has drowned out all reasonable thought, at least to me. Carry on.

^^Good post^^

And I agree with most of it. People kill elk at 20 yards with bows every year. Could a .458 Win Mag in a lever gun wearing irons kill an elk? Well of course.

I teach guys how to shoot smaller and more consistently. Everyone has wanted to learn to stretch tje distance to 800 yards. Once they have I tell them 400 doesn't seem so tough anymore does it? They all say no. I also tell them that making a long range shot on an elk would give me pause. For the last few months I have done my cold bore drill at 700 yards two to four days a week. With two rifles I am running about 80% hit rate. Pretty good, but it's not 100%, therefore the pause of I am looking at an elk. Hog or coyote? If the laser will tell me how far it is, I am going to dial up for it as long as the shot is safe. But back to the students. Every time a guy comes out and is shooting all over the place at 100 yard paper, by the end of the day he is stacking bullets touching each other. Several guys have asked me to shoot their rifles to see if the equipment can do it. When I can make their rigs shoot small they quickly realize they are the problem, not the rifle/ scope/ ammo. That's the advantage to learning how to hold small enough to consistenly hit far targets, driving home the fundamentals. I then tell them to treat every shot equally important, be it 100 yards or 800 yards. Paper, steel, or hide.

This Ruger is built to be a shooter. If a guy wants to also hunt with it, that's his business. I do not call a ten pound rifle that heavy. Some guys will, different strokes for different folks.

Murica

Sorry to get your dander up. No "boasting" it was simply a statement of fact. Built them myself, and that is what they weigh. Thankfully you don't have to like it, I do.

I never made any claim that it is "ideal" for anything. I have no issue with hunting or target shooting with what I have. It's not like I'm treking up a mountain after goats or chasing elk. I'm in Texas, hogs deer and varmints (when the opportunity arises). Is it ideal for everything? no of course not. Firearms are like golf clubs, each does something better than the other.

The RPR seems like it will do everything that I like, while weighing less and costing allot less than what I have. Sounds like a winner. Is it heavier than a sporter yes but by just (+/-) 3 pounds. I look forward to seeing how these shake out with those that pony up and get one.

That said, if someone is going to whine about 15lbs opposed to 8lbs then something is not right.

PS: I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't attribute something to me that was not said or implied. Some might call a person that does that a liar.

At any rate, I'm going to watch and see. The rifle looks to have a LOT going for the money. I love my sporters
and nice solid sporter type rifles. The RPR may be more rifle than I will ever utilize, then again it may show me a direction to go in that I hadn't looked at before. That's why there's so many different types of rifles out there. If there was only one type, it'd be a BORING world. Personally I'd like to see them come out with a RPR chambered in 7mm-08, simply because I love the cartridge and I am set up to load for it.

We'll see.

Rockfish Dave,

When writing stories on general topics or ideas, it is my nature to sprinkle specific, targeted examples here and there in the story in order to clarify a broad concept. And I try whenever possible to dedicate one paragraph--no more or less--to each targeted example, and when the next paragraph begins, I revert back to general ideas. This I learned in eleventh-grade creative writing, and I've more or less stuck with this M.O. all my life when putting a pen to paper.

Even in my rambling post to which you refer, there are at least two such paragraphs. One of them is the snippet about my custom .300 WinMag I had built on the David Miller idea of the ideal coues deer rifle. The other specific example was the paragraph in which I quoted you. I couldn't remember your name from when you posted it, but I recalled the meat of your post fairly accurately, I believe. I probably should have taken 5 minutes or so to retrieve your name from your post so I could have mentioned you by name. But I was too lazy to do so and now, sadly, that is all water under the bridge.

The paragraph that targeted you begins with "A guy..." and ends with "...22 years." Conveniently in your rebuttal post, you also dedicate just one paragraph of your own, and that dovetails nicely with mine. It is in your second rebuttal paragraph that things go awry. Here, you cut and paste snippets ("snips") from other paragraphs in my post and seemingly believe that these additional statements are directed specifically at you, when of course they're not. I didn't write anything that could even myopically be construed as "a guy", or "Rockfish", or even "Dave". I didn't say it, suggest it, imply it, nor dream it. So, outside of the snippets you refer to in your first rebuttal paragraph (and I DO believe you were boasting), all the others (the IDEAL rifle, long range elk shooting, etc) are directed to no one in particular. I even went the extra mile in making this point in that I specifically EDITED TO ADD a disclaimer to FiremanJG. I perhaps should have mentioned you in the disclaimer as well, but as I said earlier, I had forgotten your name and was too lazy to retrieve it.

FiremanJG and I disagree on occasional specific points here on the THF from time to time, but we agree with each other far more often than not. He is a nuts and bolts rifleman of considerable experience, and it shows in his posts as well as in his "giving back" to our hobby via his shooting seminars. I'm sure that once we get past some of the myopic minutiae, you and I will also find that we agree far more often than we disagree.

I now see why you are "retired". Stick to your soft foods, yelling at the kids to "stay off your lawn" and medications "gym rat" (laughs).

I however will admit I was wrong to engage you. It is clear by your previous post(s) what sort of person you are.

Are we still talking about the Ruger Precision Rifle?

Guys just went out last week to the range just northwest of San Antonio with the Ruger boys. They put the New Swarokski X5's on the Precision in 6.5. Let's just say my neighbor came back ready to order one! It sure isn't a traditional hunting rifle due to the weight, but he said it is accurate as heck with the 140 Amax (I am pretty sure that is the round he said they shot).

A Ruger American with lipstick on it.

And?

Does the Ruger American move a cartridge from the magazine to the chamber, hold the trigger group, fire the cartridge with a decent trigger, then eject the spent brass free of the rifle? Does the barrel shoot consistenly? If the answer is yes, then the Ruger American is a pretty good barreled action. I don't even own one single Ruger bolt gun and I am fine with them trying to give more options to the shooting community.

The trick is that this system most likely provides a platform that affords good trigger control due to the vertical grip. It most likely well marries the action to the chassis, and clearly maintains a free-floated barrel no matter where the rifle is supported on the chassis during the shot. Add to that the ability to adjust the rifle into a more ergonomic platform for a large variety of shooters' body types. All coming in at less money and weighing less than what the best shooters in the country are employing.

I don't see the problem.

I know the action is based off the American, regardless, it is very accurate. My neighbor has never shot longe distance before and he was hitting steel out to 1000. Sure has me intrigued

I've got two on order, I'm going to take one for a test drive.

My range is about 50 minutes from McKinney.

Just sayin...

I wonder how long it will take before these show up on store shelves in any significant number.

I'll hit you up on that once it arrives