375 ruger Patriot Delivered

[stagpanther]

After FedEx lost contact with my rifle last Friday--I was pleased to hear my selected FFL transfer shop had just accepted delivery--so here she is!



Of course--these are just first glance impressions--but I can say--wow! I paid $455 all up for the rifle--including packing taxes and shipping. I've never handled a rifle that looked this well-made at that price point, I would expect a price at around twice that if I came across it in a shop without knowing beforehand what the price was. Stock looks great, bolt is easy to work though it takes a bit of force to lock up (why wouldn't it, right?). Finish looks very good--though the nickle plated barrel and receiver work--while it strongly resembles matte finished stainless--is not that. My first dry-fire pull felt factory set at roughly 3 to 3.5 lbs--perhaps a bit light for hunting though perfect for initial bench testing I hope. The iron sights look very good and strike me as being fast-acquiring similar to what I've used on a shotgun--that's how I'll use the rifle in my first test firing.

Cleaning the bore required about a dozen patches to get rid of the powder residue--not sure if that's typical of firing this kind of cartridge, maybe not an optimal burn rate in what they tested with.

About the only real "cheapo" component I see at first glance, and a potential vulnerability--is the magazine retaining tab which--unlike say Savage's axis models--is integral to the receiver, not the magazine. I haven't heard of them breaking yet--but it still sends up a small red flag in my mind. Other than that, I'm left wondering "How can they possibly offer a rifle with these features at such a low price?"

One last thing, the rifle is listed as weighing about 7.5 or 7.75 lbs according the information I've seen. My bathroom scale says 6.5 lbs; and while that may be off--the FedEx weigh-in for shipping charges was 7.1 lbs--and that included box, manual, lock, padding etc. The rifle feels a lot like bringing a handy light lever gun into action--which while I'm pleasantly surprised about I'm wondering what that means in terms of felt recoil when firing a 5000 ftlb elephant hammer load. The buttpad looks like a Pachmeyer decelerator type pad--that should help.

Lastly, while driving back I was forced to a sudden stop on the road as a group of about 15 turkeys walked across the road.



Appropriately, the name of the road is "Turkey Path Rd."

[Blindstitch]

Looks good to me.