Huntsman22... thanks for the info. You did your paint job with enough style to win a Ruger of the year award... very sweet.
OK... SO... to the rest of this thread: (I finally got a chance to read it in it's entirety after getting home from work)
Hammer Forged Accuracy - Hate to be a naysayer for all those that think hammer forged barrels "Walk"... but my Tikka is still in the safe where I left her a month ago. She might sneak out at night when I'm not looking, but she's always back in there when I go to get her, so I'm not too concerned. In all candor, Tikka uses hammer forged barrels. My Tikka Tactical will shoot .7" to .8" groups all day long at 200 yards. She'll do 10 shot groups at 600 that fit into a 2.5x3.75" rectangle all day long... no cooling required. I'm sure that some hammer forged barrels do walk... had a Ruger No. 1 that strung shots fiercely (.270) and I got rid of it, but I think that had more to do with the way the forearm attached to the barrel and the design of the scope mount (the way it absorbs heat from the barrel), more than the fact that the barrel was hammer forged.
As not to trading a Remy for a Ruger: Hmm... well I'm selling a Savage, a Remington 700 and a Tikka so that I could grab the RPR. I love all 3, but they are all virtually clones of one another (diff method of doing thier actions, etc), in that they all look like.... well.... a standard bolt action rifle. None of them came with a 20 MOA picatinny (I had to buy them myself), have a universal mag (I have to either upgrade my bottom metal and/or find proprietary mags), have adjustable comb and buttstock (get out the strap-on (LOL) cheek riser or buy a stock that costs more than the original rifle costs), have a buttstock that I can adjust the cant (unless I literally tilt left or right to get truly vertical), have the abiltity to change out the grip, buttstock and foregrip with the numerous parts out there for AR15s, come with a folding stock (nuff said), or have the word Precision in the name (THAT'S RIGHT!!!) For Ruger to literally put the word "PRECISION" into the name of one of their rifles goes a long ways to show how confident they are that these guns will be accurate. It's an incredible risk when mass producing a product such as this, because if they aren't accurate, the blowback on Ruger would be fierce and comical for many years to come. It would make them a joke in the industry (I can imagine videos of a dude shooting a target at 10 paces with the RPR.... dirt and dust kicking up in all directions and when the smoke clears... not a single bullet on paper. The guy turns to the camera with a bigazz grin, gives a thumbs up and says, "Now THAT'S PRECISION!!").
So... all that being said... if you like wood... buy it. If you like Remington or Savage.. show them the love and buy their products. If you yearn for button forged barrels... do it man! But this guy here... thinks the engineers at Ruger got their act together and did something right... something that the rest of the industry was clueless about... and many consumers (such as myself) want... An affordable product that has had a lot of thought put into it, is designed for long range, has out of the box ammenties that would cost a fortune to upgrade if you had to do it piece by piece, and whose amenties provide function for the task at hand... shooting accurately. Even the picatinny for a monopod on the adjustable buttstock is something they didn't need to put there, but they did.
To all the naysayers out there... nobody on this thread is telling you to buy one. HELL>> DON"T BUY ONE!! These rifles are hard enough to come by as it is. People are reselling them for $500-700 more than they bought them for right out of the box brand new. Please... find a rifle in production right now that you can buy today new, and flip for an extra $500 the following week. Leave these crappy guns to those of us who want them... PLEASE!!
