Gun Review: Ruger Precision Rifle in .308 WIN

1. Is there anything inherent with .308 that makes it more difficult to lay down tight groups?

   • It’s not a .30-06 or a Magnum, for one. /sarcasm

   • It’s ballistic coefficient isn’t as good as 6.5, so it is more affected by wind.

   • At 100 yards, no. Further than that the higher BC of the 6.5 gives it more velocity, flatter trajectory, lower TOF, and less drift.

     • Since that was a ‘virgin’ bore, may lapping improve it’s performance?

       That model rifle earlier reviewed in 6.5 Creed. had about 1\2 min. angle accuracy, I’m just curious why the .308 is twice as worse in accuracy…

       • There’s no inherent difference in the accuracy of a .308 and a 6.5 Creedmoor other than what’s been pointed out about the Creedmoor being a little less prone to wind drift. I’m guessing the exterior dimensions of the barrels are the same, making the .308 a thinner barrel. Otherwise, not every barrel is going to come off the line with the same accuracy, especially before they’ve been worn in. It could have easily been the opposite with the .308 the more accurate one.

         Lapping would help, but it would shorten the life of the barrel. Shooting a thousand rounds would do the same thing. It’s just a matter of wearing down the bumps and filling in the pits with copper.

   • The barrel is 1×10 twist which I found shoots consistent groups with Fed 168 grain Open Tip Match ammo which performed well as did the Fed 175 grain Gold Match. Because of the barrel twist, I did not try anything lighter.

     • I forgot to say that I used 7.62 ammo. Surprised I didn’t get any flyers.

2. I’m a bit surprised at the lack of accuracy. Especially with the different ammo you fed it.
   Bummer.
   I wish I could shoot mine. ?

   • Send it my way Tom. I’ll take good care. Promise!

3. Tikka T3 Sporter, please.

4. Think they’d ever release a 20″ SR762 in a configuration like this?

   • My SR762 is surprisingly a bit more accurate than this rifle with 168 grain match ammo. I’m actually a bit shocked, because I’m able to pull 0.7MOA groups with a piston-driven semi auto, while this one cant even do that. Curious how that works out. Maybe this one is just a dud?

     • I have yet to shoot my SR762. It’s scoped & ready to go but having a 4 month old has kept me at bay for now. 🙂 I hope to get this kind of accuracy myself. If the RPR can’t get the same or better, it’s really not worth it.

5. TK, barrel will shoot-in over time, or shoot-out? You said it picked up pieces of the patch, is that something that’ll ‘fire-lap’ you think, or not.

   ‘Rattle-ee’ selector?

   • I meant safety

6. I still don’t understand why this is better/worth ~$300 more than a ~$900 DPMS AR-10 that can shoot ~1 moa.

   • I haven’t shot this Ruger, but I do own a 20″ DPMS AR-10… it’s definitely not a 1MOA rifle. Averages around 2-2.5 with the same loads that do .5-.7 in my Savage 10BA. I’ve tried various weights and loads, factory and handloads. 3MOA with 7.62 NATO surplus (acceptable), 2MOA with 175gr SMK handloads (not acceptable).

     • Wish I had saved it, but American Rifleman did a review of a 16″ with their 5×5 protocol and got ~1moa. I know most people around here are not fans of dead tree rags but I don’t think they lied about the results. I have seen plenty of reviews (in AR) where they may have tried to downplay bad results but they still printed the numbers.

     • I get the same accuracy with either of my Armalite AR10’s. I think I’m going to sell one and go with bolt action. I wish this Ruger would have rec’d a better review.

   • I would love to see that ar 10 get that kind of accuracy… I would never believe it I would have to see it… Be there you know what I mean!

7. Price for a RPR in .308 at Sportsmans Warehouse 1 week ago was $999.00 plus tax and they had 2 of them in stock in their Silverdale, WA store that day.

   • I’m guessing you bought both of them, no?

8. Match ammo might be competitively priced in the Creedmore but if someone new is getting into long range shooting they’d be better served with .308. There’s plenty of cheap ammo out there that’s accurate enough to brush up your skills to the point where you could use match ammo in .308, not so much in 6.5 Creedmore. For a serious shooter, barrels tend to be more accurate after a thousand rounds. So either way buying the .308 would probably save a few hundred dollars.

   • True that. .308 is easy and cheap to find, and has more energy inside about 350 yards – where most hunting occurs – than the 6.5.

     • It takes every bit of 500 yards to for the Creedmore to catch up with the .308 energy wise, but there’s two ways to look at that. First, the .308 is a more powerful round until well beyond what could be considered an ethical hunting range. Second, the Creedmore is just as powerful as the harder recoiling .308 downrange due to it’s higher BC. For most game and most hunters the performance of either round is just fine. It will just cost more to practice with the Creedmore.

9. Have yet to see a review on the 308 or 6.5 version of this gun where someone took the time (and money) to try and find a handload that shot 1/2MOA or better in either. It’s obvious that the bbls dont totally suck or they wouldnt shoot as good as they did with factory fodder. Given that, its just bullet weight, powder charge and COL to tune a load for max accuracy. Also, I think I read vs dreamed that these guns use AR bbls and bbl nuts/bbl extsn to mount the bbls. If so, bbl swap out should be a breeze for someone with the right tools.

   • Couple threads over at snipers hide where they did just that. It also seemed that several guys had bad bores, and some noted that they had .5 MOA cold, but broke down as barrel heated (and some posters were able to get consistent .5 MOA from the get-go). I recall that some posters had custom heavy barrels installed and found .5 MOA or better.

     • Like I told the owner of 2 of these guns who bought them for rentals at his range, he said they wouldnt shoot MOA, I said call Ruger, raise hell and send them back. Also, I havent seen anyone publish a review on the 308 who shot 168 or 175 Federal Gold Metal Match ammo or BLack Hills Match ammo. If a 308 wont shoot those to sub MOA, there is something bad wrong and should go back to the mfr. Ruger’s have never been known for their accuracy, especially their old bolt guns with that cockamamey combination action screw/recoil lug.

       • Had my 308 out last weekend doing a barrel break in. Later in the day I shot 3 rounds of 168gr SMK hand loads (that’s all I had with me ) that are meant for my 308 ruger American, and it was about 1/8″ off from putting two of the rounds in the exact same hole. Round #3 was 2″ higher, but I attribute that to the guy shooting next to me kicking my mat that the bi pod was standing on as I pulled the trigger.

10. Nice review. I just picked one up “used” in 308 for $1000 as an impulse buy even though I was impatiently waiting for one in 6.5. I am fully stocked and geared for 308 and was hoping to expand my horizons with the RPR in 6.5 Creedmor. I pulled the scope off of my son’s (sorry Buddy!) R700 “as is” just to get some rounds down range for my hasty and unplanned range trip. I spent some time on the living room floor before hitting the range getting the stock setup for me but still struggled with it while shooting partially because the rings were too low for the RPR setup. This is not a surprise since the R700 is contoured and the RPR has the flat AR fore end. BTW, cold bore it shot dead center and 1.5″ high with the R700 setup at 100 yards. Not sure what the tells you but getting sighted in was 2 shots and I was in business.

    The rifle was very solid (save the safety), smooth and very comfortable to shoot ergonomically even with the too low rings. The trigger was very good and reminded me of the accutrigger on a Savage 10P I regret selling. By appearance and feel they pretty much ripped off the Savage design best I can tell. As noted, the safety was a bit sloppy but worked well. I tried the supplied 2 10 rd pmags and a DPMS 4 rounder that I have bouncing around in my range kit. All mags worked fine. Accuracy Disclaimer: I’ve rung steel man size steel at 1000 Y but have NEVER been a super sniper precision rifle guy. From prone off the ground with a bipod (Atlas) the RPR shot roughly moa for me with Factory 168g SMK and slightly worse with some Hornady 165g Interlok handloads with Varget that are designed to mimic 165 SGK loads. Those hunting handloads are easily moa out of my R-25 and also out of a 16″ custom barreled rifle I recently built. I was slightly disappointed in the groups but I was a bit rushed and it was cold/windy with well over 15 mph gusts. I was also dealing with every Tom, Dick, and Harry that was sighting in his muzzle loader that wanted to chat about the rifle or look over my shoulder when I was shooting it.

    I would love to own a GA Precision or Surgeon rifle someday but this will have to do for now. Overall, I was very pleased and expect to get the accuracy sorted out on this rifle. I am getting my Viper HS-T properly mounted this week and will hit it again this weekend. More to follow.

11. So…in short Ruger will make a killing selling this silly looking thing that shoots about as good as a $400 pawn shop deer rifle.

    Why? It appeals to the mall ninja in all of us.

    • This rifle can be competitive with $3K-$7K rifles with a custom barrel & more rigid handguard for less than $1K more.
      That’s a benefit, e.g.:http://www.scout.com/military/snipers-hide/story/1616372-sniper-s-hide-complete-ruger-upgrade-review. Few people are going to compete in F target class with a deer rifle. That requires 5.56/223 or .308 anyway. ’06s are out now. I picked up an RPR .308 from Fin Feather Fur, in Ohio, for $999.99, they’re offering the 6.5 for the same money. These are the base models, not the newer “enhanced” models Ruger’s also offering now, which are about $300 more.

12. B0ught mine for 950.00 plus tx

13. I think that gun looks really ugly, but you’re opinion may vary. I think a bolt gun shouldn’t look like an AR clone, but that is just me.

14. What ever happened to Josh Wayner? That guy did more for barrel length arguments than anyone ever. Every big gun magazine is copying his experiments! I just think he deserves more credit for what he did to influence the industry.

15. Have a look over at http://www.rifleshooter.com they have done velocity vs barrel length for 223/556, 308, and 300winmag I believe. They cut the barrel down with a chop saw so no groups were shot for accuracy but they did measure ES and SD with their chronograph which is a good measure of potential accuracy.

    • Ballistics by the inch is also a nice resource.

      • “That’s what she said…”

        (I apologize in advance.)

16. So the 24″ barrel 6.5mm is more accurate than the 20″ barrel .308? Could it be that longer barrels produce better real-world results, especially past 100 yards? Just something to think on.

    I know the theory and experiments behind short barrels. I also know competitive shooters still use long barrels, and the real tack driver rifles always still seem to have long barrels.

    • My guess is that the exterior diameter of both barrels are the same. Jeff Quinn over at Gunblast described the Creedmore barrel as ‘about 7/8 inch at the muzzle’. If that’s so, the thickness of the barrel walls are ‘about’ 0.3055″ for the Creedmore and ‘about’ 0.2835″ for the .308 at the muzzles.

      Long barrels are fine if they come with a corresponding increase in girth. When the bullet hits the rifling grooves it rings the barrel like a tuning fork. Those vibrations run down the barrel ahead of the bullet. If every bullet leaves the barrel at exactly the same speed it doesn’t really matter how much the muzzle whips around because every bullet will be thrown off in the same direction. No ammunition is perfect though. I’d guess that there’s a small advantage to a long barrel in consistent velocities, but only if the girth is thickened to retain the same degree of rigidity. If carrying a 15 pound rifle to the range is not an issue it would make sense to have a 26″ barrel.

17. C’mon Tyler…recoil gripes? In a 10lb 308? Really?

    Otherwise, thanks for taking the time to do two write-ups showing that a similar product in a similar box isn’t necessarily similar in the important aspects.

18. WRT the RPR’s rattling safety selector, Ruger now has a free fix for it — a spring that takes about a minute to install and solves the problem. Call Ruger’s customer support with the serial number of your RPR and they’ll send to you.

19. I find the criticisms about length and weight to be odd, as well as the dismissal of the velocity loss that a shorter barrel brings. The RPR is not a tactical carbine. Neither is it brush rifle or a truck gun. Its intended use is as a long range precision rifle, primarily aimed at those who want to get into competitions. Weight and length don’t matter so much when you’re going to tote it to the firing line in a cart. Velocity loss is a problem in long range shooting. You don’t want a short, handy barrel when you’re trying to connect at 1000 yards.

    I get it: each person can use their guns for whatever application they want. But if you’re looking for a gun that maneuvers well in a truck or perches easily on barriers, there are better options than a long range competition rifle.

    • The problem with this is….it doesn’t shoot good enough to be a long range precision rifle.

      You could get an F-class Savage for about the same price. Would be like a Corvette vs. a riced out Honda Civic. Not a bad analogy.

      • Ok, but would you expect that F-class Savage to be as light and handy as your tactical carbine or truck gun?

        Ruger may have some problems to work out with this rifle. Or the author may have gotten a bad example. If the rifle doesn’t perform it’s intended job, that is a legitimate criticism. It still does not translate into criticizing the rifle for not being something that it was never intended to be. It’s like buying a safari rifle and faulting it because it has too much recoil to shoot prairie dogs all day.

      • But an F-class Savage doesn’t look as tacticool, so it can’t be as good.

20. OK, I need to get up on my hind legs here and issue forth a rant.

    First, let’s use some common sense here: Unless you’re in a situation where you need to exit a vehicle fast, under fire, and you “have to dance with thems that brought you,” there’s no reason to use un-assing yourself from a car as a criterion for barrel length on a bolt action rifle. If I’m in a situation where I have an issue exiting a vehicle fast with a bolt gun, I’ve screwed up, big time, starting a long, long, loooong ways back up a decision chain, starting right around the point where I said “I’m going to involve myself in something that requires I exit a vehicle quickly with a bolt gun, because it sounds like fun!.”

    Then there’s the weight issue. Here, I’m almost to a point of demanding you turn in your Man Card. Why? Well, TTAG has had the very capable and adorable Ms. Kirsten Joy Weiss on these pages, doing all manner of trick shots that require shooting with accuracy. Many of Ms. Weiss’ shots have been made off-hand with her Anschuetz .22LR rifle. I don’t hear Ms. Weiss complain about weight or barrel length – ever. Ms. Weiss appears to me to have been born a girl (if Ms. KJW would argue with this, I will stand corrected), so I think we can exclude the possibility that she’s a “trans” female who was originally endowed with the upper body strength of a male. Apparently, today this makes me guilty of several micro-aggressions which cause various feminists to erupt in paroxysms of mortal cranial flatulence, but I won’t delve into the rathole of intellectual onanism surrounding trans vs. cis women just now.

    Why don’t you ask this young lady how much her Anschuetz weighs? To save you the humiliation of asking a girl how much rifle she’s hefting while she out-shoots you, I’ll give you the answer: Same as my Annie – over 10 pounds. The barrel length on a competition .22, which has to be shot standing off-hand (as well as sitting, kneeling and prone) is over 24 inches. That’s a short barrel for shooting off-hand, BTW. My Winchester 52B has a barrel length of 28 inches. It shoots marvelously well off-hand. The Win 52B/C/D was the target .22 for decades in the US, with some of the heaviest variants running upwards of 12.5 lbs. Apparently, that was back when men still made noises of large hardened steel bearings bouncing off each other whilst they walked to the firing line.

    What you’re also sacrificing when you shorten a barrel is your sight radius. Longer barrels aren’t so much inherently more or less accurate than long barrels, but the reduction in sight radius is a for-real issue when you’re using iron sights. A shorter sight radius magnifies small sighting errors. You whippersnappers, who still have good, capable vision, should be using iron sights, but I’m going to guess that you slapped a scope (the details of which you didn’t specify in the review) onto this rifle.

    First we had people whinging about the recoil on .223’s/5.56’s and seeking out muzzle brakes to tame this “recoil.” The very notion still makes my brain ponder “WTF are they talking about?” Now we have more whinging about recoil on a rifle where most of us “old guys” usually ask “what recoil?” when said rifle weighs more than 7 lbs. A .30-06 in a 1903 Springfield recoils more than a .308, it has a steel buttplate, and that’s still a “what recoil?” for this old man and many men much older than I.

    In the review above, you claim to have put a brake on this rifle – but you didn’t specify whether the groups were shot with or without the brake, or whether you tested for any effect of the brake on group size.

    Lapping: The fact that you’re seeing the barrel snag bits of the patch on the way down the bore is not good. That should not be happening. If you wish to lap out rough spots in a barrel after it has been cut and chambered, there’s really only one way to do it that that’s fire-lapping. David Tubb, a shootist who is as inhumanly accurate as Jerry Miculek is fast, sells a fire-lapping kit as do others. BTW, Mr. Tubb shoots better off-hand than most people shoot off a bench, and he has the awards to show for it. Firelapping will require that you load up the abrasive bullets with starting loads for the .308, and follow the instructions. I don’t want to distract from my harrumphing here to detail why you cannot hand-lap a barrel that’s already chambered and fit to length, but I shall if people are really curious.

    Backing way up to the start of this whole process, we have the issue of how the barrels were treated on break-in. Well, it’s not my rifle, but I sure as heck don’t treat new barrels like that. Getting a barrel so hot that you can’t touch it with your bare hand is how you start eroding the throat. I clean extensively within the first 50 rounds or so, and subject the barrel to only slow-fire.

    Sigh. Damn kids. I’d go outside and yell at clouds, but today in Wyoming it is a low overcast, so it would be a pointless diatribe on my part in all directions.

    Harrumph.

    • You my friend, need to seriously write a book! I haven’t read prose like that since Ruark, and I miss it greatly. Thanks for the laugh…it was needed!

    • Good rant. I get frustrated with the “every rifle must be short and light and look as much like an AR as possible” crowd. I think most of these folks have not shot a variety of full-powered rifles extensively. I believe their opinions are formed largely by following the current trend versus first-hand experience. Weight is your friend with target rifles.

      As for this particular rifle, I do not know why anyone would be surprised that Ruger is turning out rifles with inconsistent accuracy. It’s kind of Ruger’s thing.

    • “The fact that you’re seeing the barrel snag bits of the patch on the way down the bore is not good. That should not be happening.”

      OMG, agree completely, and couldn’t frankly believe such a thing was possible. Been shooting for more than 40 years and never heard of such a thing. There is no way to break in or lap such a thing. Send it back and ask the manufacturer if they’ve lost their minds.

      There is a reason why “custom” barrels cost more than factory ones, and there is a reason why serious competitors shoot them exclusively. Actually there are many reasons. Having said that, there is a lot of appeal to the new Ruger, including the overall modularity plus the adjustability of the stock. An entry-level tactical bolt rifle at a decent price point, DBM, and receiver rail. Can’t really believe it doesn’t come with a bipod spud, which wouldn’t have cost much, because I can’t really believe people are going to put vertical grips, flashlights and other such nonsense on a rifle like this. But the M4 crowd is fond of stuff like that.

      A precision rifle needs to shoot sub MOA, period, and not just some of the time. I will be interested to see what results are obtained with decent barrels. Beginners can buy one of these and do the range time they need to gain some measure of proficiency while shooting out the factory barrel. But they shouldn’t be too disappointed in their results, if the thing will only shoot 1.5MOA with good ammo.

    • Very well said. I always preferred iron sights until I had to accept the fact that I was in need of readers. I still try to shoot with iron sights to keep my consistency intact. I was awarded best marksman in the military shooting the fn-c1 in 7.62 nato, rear peep, front blade. When I first got to basic, that rifle did to me what it did to everybody else, at first, and that would be giving every one first shooting it a massive goose-egg on their cheek, we all lived to shoot another day. After a short while it was like you said, ‘what recoil?’ Nuff said! One more thing, we were all putting rounds on center of mass at the 600 yard range with those open sights. I can’t believe some of these range puffs, my daughter loves shooting my 1953 vintage marlin 30-30 lever, and consistently groups at 1″ or less at 50 yards, buckhorn sights to boot. A little over 2-2.5″ off-hand. Pretty good for a girl who stands not quite 5’10” and weighs in at 120 lb.

    • Dyspeptic Gunsmith,
      Great observations (rant) on recoil management and other topics. I thoroughly enjoyed your review and agree. For my part, I am amazed on the number of ‘growed -up’ men who reluctantly approach my ’03 Springfield like it was a Safari rifle. (How did we ever win wars with metal butt plates? I suppose they served their purpose in hand to hand encounters).
      I have a Remington model 600 350 Rem Mag that I would not want to shoot a few boxes of ammo at the range for the sake of my shoulder (or wallet ) but, it was not intended for plinking. It reminds me of the feminization of the pickup truck; carpets and power windows, air conditioning and most won’t see anything dirty or ‘scratchy’ in the bed. If they have 4 wheel drive many will never use it. We live in a land of plenty. Plenty of choices. Guess I’m just older than most and have an appreciation for the past. Happy Hunting…. and Smithing.

21. I’ve read a lot of 6.5 and .308 reviews, any comments on the .243 version of this rifle?

22. Oh, BTW, my first time reading TTAG, I like it. I’ll stick around and read more reviews.

    • We appreciate it!

23. I can’t wait to get my hands on this rifle. I’m that lost soul that is heavily invested in .308 winchester.
    My current .308 bolt gun is a 13 pound target rifle. I’m not humping a 13 pound rifle to chase deer and pigs, so this new Ruger is a welcome sight. This new Ruger RPR will pair very nicely with my 20 inch .308 AR. The fact that they also will feed from the same magazine is a major bonus. I’ll swap the Ruger butt stock for a PRS so it feels as close to identical to my AR as it can. I’m not so concerned about this one’s accuracy “issues”. A good hand load will cure fix that “issue”. I already have a great 155 grain load for my AR. I’ll just turn up the wick a bit and I’ll have this Ruger singing a sub moa song every time it thumps dinner. I’m not a competitive shooter so I don’t worry about shooting of barricades and that sort of thing. This new Ruger precision rifle has my name all over it. When I finish moving back to North Carolina from California, its getting surpassed. I’m already saving for the rifle, suppressor, and that silly 200 dollar tax. As far as the loose safety lever, Swap it for an ambidextrous from CMMG and its not an issue any more.

24. I have been reading and watching on youtube all the reviews I can find about this rifle in 308 this the first one I have found that has anything negative to say about the accuracy of this rifle !
    Is everybody else lying or is somthing else going on here ?

25. RPRNation.com has a nice list of upgrades and parts for this rifle.

26. I don’t know about everyone else on this blog but 3 different rifle calibers of the same rifle with THREE different barrel lengths!? Just about every rifle I know of that guarantees 1/2 moa 5 shots at 100 yards have barrels longer that a measly 20″ for example; Sako TRG 42, Remington 40X, any of Don Fraley builds (Advanced Weapons Technology) etc. Maybe that explains why the 20″ .308 will only shot well under 100 yards and the Creedmore with a 24′ barrel would stand to reason that it would shoot better and a 26″ barrel for a .243? Why didn’t they just make them ALL 26″ and be done with it? I agree with TT and Dyspeptic Gunsmith!

27. I consider myself an average or novice shooter. Out of the box, 90 minutes on the range with a $109 scope. 100 yard 3 group @ .625, 200 yard 5 group @ 1.3 and 300 yard 10 group (in 56 seconds) @ 2.8. Most pleasurable day on the range ever for me. Makes me consider competition.

28. Well for me I bought the 6.5 creedmoor…. With in 5 shots I was zeroed ( out of the box ). Shot 1/2 moa at a hundred and two hundred yds…. I am not a comp shooter just a guy learning how to shoot… But everyone at the range was impressed… I was impressed that’s the best I have ever shot…. My ar15 and ar10 both shoot 3/4 moa at 100 yds but I hand load those rounds….. The 6.5 creedmoor were factory rounds…. I would buy another 6.5 just to have…. Hats off to ruger

29. My 20 inch AR10 pushes my 155 grain hornaday OTM load at 2811 FPS and consistently holds 1.5 MOA. All I need my bolt gun to do is the same thing and feed from the same mags.
    1.5 MOA at 300 yards is around 4.5 inches. That’s a tight enough group to kill anything worth putting in my freezer.

    I’ll take one in 308 and put the money I save toward a suppressor.

30. With the 6.5 CM you should expect no worse than .65-.75 MOA at any range up to 500 yards with minimal wind gusts. I am an average shooter and I have never shot worse than .75 with the 6.5 RPR.

    • I’d love to see a review on this rifle that can substantiate the 1/2 MOA (out of the box) comments I have seen on so many other sites. But from what I can tell, the authors ~0.9 MOA seems to be fairly consistent among reviewers. Was hoping to hear good things about this rifle as it has so many features I like, but it looks as though a heavy barreled Savage or Weatherby will out shine what is otherwise an impressive rifle.

      • It’s all about the ammo. With the 6.5 cm with 130 Berger hybrid, 42.5 gn of H4350, .015 of the lands you will shoot between .1 MOA to .3 MOA. all day long. Before I struggled to get consistently below .5 with factory ammo. The best was copper creek 142 and winchester 140 match. Both shot better than the 120 and 140 A Max and ELD.

31. I’d love to see a review on this rifle that can substantiate the 1/2 MOA (out of the box) comments I have seen on so many other sites. But from what I can tell, the authors ~0.9 MOA seems to be fairly consistent among reviewers. Was hoping to hear good things about this rifle as it has so many features I like, but it looks as though a heavy barreled Savage or Weatherby will out shine what is otherwise an impressive rifle.

32. I have one of the earlier .308 RPRs… S/N 4XXX. I’ve had it since late June of 2015. I’m still trying to get decent accuracy from it. I’ve loaded some of the new Hornady ELD Match bullets (208 gr). I’m hoping these will be decent.. My original goal was to try to use this for 1000 yd. target shooting, but with the 20″ barrel I don’t think I’ll ever get there. It certainly won’t using Sierra 168 gr. Match Kings. They are OK up at 800 yds. but at 900 and 1000 they definitely go subsonic and fly every which way. I was holding about a 12″ group at 800 yds. and 900 it took me 15 rounds to get 2 on paper (barely) and that is a 6 ft. target! Fired 15 or 20 at 1000 yds. with zero on the paper! So much for long range shooting. However… I’m not giving up yet. These new ELD bullets have MUCH better physical characteristics than the 168 gr. SMKs. They are considerably longer than the SMKs… more like a Creedmore bullet. In the meantime, I decided to get another gun in case this one doesn’t work out. I got a Remington 700 LTR, which also has a 20″ barrel, but I’m guessing it will probably be a better 800 yrd. shooter. We’ll see.. Its all part of the fun, attempting the impossible. If I had to grab one of these and run though, I think I’d still go for my late 70’s Ruger M77 in 7mm Mag. it is and always has been a super accurate rifle, as long as you don’t fire more than 3 or 4 rounds and heat up the barrel… it goes south pretty fast when it gets hot.

    I’m hoping by the end of summer I will have answered my question as to whether the RPR stays or goes. In retrospect I probably should have gotten the 6.5 Creedmore. Its more suited for what I want to do. Accuracy at long ranges. Maybe by then I can find a replacement Creedmore match barrel without having to mortgage my house to pay for it.

33. Not sure where you are getting your factory ammo if it’s the same price at 6.5. You can’t really get 6.5 in bulk.
    here in Canada. 20rounds of 6.5( highest number per box) is around $20-25.

    I can get $1000rounds of 308 for about $480-550 any day.

34. I disagree

35. I’m not sure if you got a dud, had equipment (scope, mount) failure, it was operator error or maybe the barrel was badly fouled. I have a RPR in 308 Win and it’s accuracy amazes me everytime I shoot it. Every commercial match load I’ve tried is sub-MOA. Federal Gold Metal shoots 5-shot 0.6 MOA groups all day long. My hand loads shoot 5-shot 0.5 MOA groups all day long. 10%-20% of the 5-shot groups with my hand loads get down to 0.25 MOA.

    My only complaint is with the magazine/magazine well. It’s awesome they use standard mags but they are too short to handloads the bullets to an O.A.L. which puts the ogive 0.020″ or closer to the rifling. To me, that’s a must for a true precision rifle. So I would have rather have had a proprietary magazine that allowed hand loading to a proper overall length.

    • I suggest you buy a Bob-sled from Brownells & fire singles, or stop using olives in your RPR. 😉

36. My .308 Ruger Precision Rifle w/Vortex PST optics shoots 2.5 MOA with168 Berger VLD. My Rock River LAR-8 shoots the same bullet .75 MOA. I have not yet loaded custom rounds for the Ruger Precision Rifle to see if it can be tightened up; However, the .308 win has been around a while and there is no doubt that a rifle marketed to be precision should shoot 1.5 MOA or better. “ENOUGH SAID”

    • I use 45.0 gr. of Varget powder and 175 SMKs, seat the bullet for a COL right at SAAMI spec. It will shoot sub MOA all day long… probably around .75 or so. That being said… it won’t shoot (accurately) past about 850 yards. Its all over the place at that range. 800 yds. and I’m OK, 900 yds. I can hit the target (not the bullseye…) about half the time. Can’t even hit a 4′ x 6′ target at 1000 yds. At 1000 yds. its like dropping in a mortar round there is so much bullet drop. Its just not a 1000 yrd. gun. Consequently, I have ordered a 6.5 Creedmoor barrel from Snipe Arms. In about 3 months I’ll be able to update on how its working out. Only mod for the new barrel was a custom cut of the barrel down to 21 3/4″ from 22″ to achieve the best barrel harmonics. Hopefully I’ll now be able to compete with the rest of the long range shooters at our club. http://www.tcsa.org Tri-Cities Shootiing Association. Check out their 1000 yrd. range..

37. Having just purchased this RPR in .308WIN I find all these comments quite depressing. Paid $1079.00. Have topped it with a Vortex Viper PST 4-16×50 on a LaRue mount. I have not fired a round through it yet and may not get to until Spring as winters are deep here in the Bridger Mountains of SW Montana. My usual shooting spot already has over 30″ of snow and it isn’t yet Thanksgiving. Our local deluxe range is a 50 mile drive one way so I rarely use the place nowadays.
    I expect sub MOA accuracy because my Ruger SR762 and SIG716(both 16″) shoot that with M80 and .5MOA with Nosler hunting loads that I haven’t totally dialed in to perfection yet. I use IMR 4895 exclusively in my ARs and intend to stick with it for simplicity and because I have 10lbs. of it. This will get feed same as my ARs with a bit of individual fine tuning; Hornady 155gr A-Max bulk for fun & break-in, Sierra 175gr TMKs for target work, and Nosler 180gr AccuBonds for wapiti. Before anyone complains this isn’t a hunting rifle I want to set the record straight… Every rifle in the collection has to earn its keep the first year by dropping an elk or two. I’ve only to put on my slippers and step out my shop door on select days to harvest my elk(<115yrds so there'll be no humping it.(Believe me, I know I am spoiled). I'm hoping for the best with this new RPR. I never intended it to be a 1000yrd shooter. If it can fill next year's elk tags and provide entertainment out to 500-800yrds(which in 60+ years I've never done) I'll be content. Wish me luck. And good luck to you with yours.

38. I had a RPR in 308 and did not like it. Sold it and got a mossberg MPV LC in 308, much better gun.

39. I’ve had my RPR in 308 for about a year now. Accuracy was so bad after I bought it I sent it back to Ruger. They sent it back with a 50 yard test target (useless) and called it good. It’s still a dog with fleas and I’m only keeping it because I plan on buying an after market barrel and converting it to 6.5CM. I’ve tested all sorts of handloads and factory loads. I’ve done more OCW tests than I can recall and never came close to 1MOA consistently. It’s a 2+ MOA rifle.

    One thing I noticed is that this rifle is slow. It shoots the same ammo 100-150 fps slower than a Savage model 10 I have with the same length barrel. I picket up that Savage used for $450 and it out-shoots the $1,200 RPR all day long with sub MOA performance.

    • Interesting, does your model 10 have the 5R bbl. I own both rifles. I’ll have to run a comparison test myself, with Federal Gold 168, NATO 147 gr 7.62 & some Atomic match.

      BTW, both of mine are sub MOA with commercial match 168 gr.

      • The Savage Model 10 is a 5R barrel if I recall correctly. Something definitely is wrong with this Gen 2 RPR in 308, but it appears I’m not alone in my frustration. I expect it will improve with a new 6.5CM barrel from Patriot Valley Arms.

        • My .308 RPR turned in a .443″ with Federal Gold 168 gr. Two nearly completely in the same hole.

    • I believe that I got lucky with my first 6.5 RPR, a gen 1. It averaged about a .55 MOA with match grade factory ammo for the first 800 rounds through it. After I started reloading and found the magic round, it averaged for the next 2000 rounds (before I burned it out) a .34 MOA all targets good bad and ugly between 100 to 800 yards. I have since re-barreled it(26″LRI) and can only get it down to a .42 MOA with an average of about .6. The two Gen 2 RPR 6 CMs I bought running side by side tests averaged about the same. The best also being about a .4 MOA. I am not personally familiar with the 308s as far as what they are capable of, but I’ve never heard of anyone unable to get them to shoot easily under 1 MOA average with around .5 bests. Something is wrong.

      • Mine, in .308, comes in at .443 with match 168gr.

40. tried my 308 with Creedmore 308 remade

    seems they are Hornady 150 grain SP
    IMR 4064 powder
    3 shot touching at 75 yards

    rounds made with IMR 3031 did not do as well

    I plan to test more rounds made with 4064

41. Either I have an exceptional barrel or You didn’t find what it likes. with my hand load M118 clone and a 175 gr Sierra match king my RPR in 308 shoots .5 moa @100 my next mission is to take the berger 200.20x and see if it can shrink the group size or do I need to rebarrel to compete F t/r anybody know where I can find vhitavhori n150

42. I have an RPR Gen 3. Best group at 100 yards was .2 inches measuring from center of each hole. Best 5 shot group rapid fire was. 3 inches measured from center of each shot. I load my own using Sierra Match King. .75″ groups at 200 yards on a regular basis. Still working at longer distances of 350, 550 and 750 yards. It is not 100% stock. Many parts changed. I am anticipating 4″ or less at 350 yards. I am close to that now.

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