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Ruger Scout

The History of Sturm, Ruger & Co.

Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc., more commonly known as Ruger, is an American firearm manufacturing company headquartered in Southport, Connecticut. Founded in 1949 by Alexander McCormick Sturm and William B. Ruger in a rented machine shop in Connecticut, the company has since become one of the largest firearm manufacturers in the world - shadowed only by Remington and perhaps Smith & Wesson.

Ruger is widely recognized for producing firearms that span a broad spectrum of uses such as bolt-action rifles and pistols, semi-automatic rifles, single-shot rifles, shotguns, and revolvers. As recognition of its quality products grew so did the public’s interest in investing in the company’s shares. Ruger went public in 1969 and grew exponentially since then, and it is on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:RGR) since 1990.

In 2020, Ruger made another big move with their acquisition of Marlin Firearms from Remington Outdoor Company.

For decades now both newbie and seasoned shooters have been consistently trusting Ruger’s guns for their excellent accuracy and superior long-term performance as evidenced by its continued success over all these years.

Today, Ruger’s most popular products include the Ruger 10/22 semiautomatic rifle, the .22 rimfire semi-automatic pistol Ruger MK IV, the bolt-action Ruger American rifle, the tried and tested Ruger No.1, and, of course, the timeless Ruger Security-Six revolvers.

Ruger Scout Rifle Review

Ruger Scout Rifle, chambered for .308 Win.

Figure 1: Synthetic stock Ruger Scout Rifle in .308 Winchester (Source: Ruger)

Ruger Scout Rifle “the one rifle to have if you could have only one”, as Ruger puts it, is your typical scout rifle with a touch of the Ruger M77 feel to it.

It has a forward-mounted Picatinny rail and a built-in sighting system with an adjustable ghost ring rear aperture. The latter can be removed if needed and the standard Ruger rings can be mounted instead.

The action is of the controlled feed style. It is based on the Mauser-type controlled round feed extractor, which seemingly remains some sort of an idol for Ruger rifles to this day. The stainless-steel bolt runs and operates smoothly. It has a rounded bolt handle and two opposing locking lugs.

As mentioned above, the standard Ruger rings can be mounted on the receiver since just like other Ruger rifles, Ruger Scout Rifle, too, has an integral scope mounting system machined directly on the solid-steel receiver. The rings are usually included when the rifle is purchased.

The barrel is free-floating and is cold hammer-forged. The length varies depending on the variant, and it ranges from 409 mm to 475 mm (16.10 and 18.70 inches, respectively). The stock material also depends on the variant. The base model of the rifle came with a durable laminate stock, but synthetic and even American walnut options soon followed. The rifle can also be fitted for different-sized shooters since three spacers are included to make the best use of the soft-rubber buttpad.

The safety of the rifle is ensured by the three-position winged safety on the right side of the action, behind the bolt handle. The safety wing is easy to operate, and its accessibility is especially welcome on the “all-purpose” rifle.

Of course, the box magazine is detachable and has a capacity for up to 10 rounds. It is detached with the push of the trigger guard-mounted mag release revel. As with the M77 model, the trigger of the Ruger Scout Rifle is also standard. The rifle doesn’t feature the Ruger Marksman Adjustable^TM trigger, which is a shame, but understandable for a scout rifle that must stay true to a certain level of pedigree, at least to some extent.

Ruger Scout Rifle Calibers

According to Colonel Jeff Cooper’s guidelines, a proper scout rifle should be chambered for a .308 Winchester. Well, as the years passed, manufacturers started increasingly interpreting these guidelines in their own way. Today, there are just as many different scout rifles as there are gun manufacturers, and one thing is for sure: Cooper’s .308 Winchester guideline is at least to some extent forgotten. While the majority of rifle manufacturers still offer scout rifles chambered in .308, they usually also offer variants that deviate from this rule.

The same goes for the Ruger Scout Rifle, which can be chambered for:

.308 Win.
.350 Legend
.450 Bushmaster

Ruger Scout Rifle Variants

There are several Ruger Scout Rifle variants available, usually differentiating only by stock material or chambering. As with the other Ruger rifles, these variants are only separated by different model numbers, except for the distributor exclusives, which are named after the distributors.

Ruger Scout Rifle receiver

Figure 2: The forward-mounted Picatinny rail on the Ruger Scout Rifle

Scope Mounts Interchangeable with Ruger Scout Rifle

Rifles That Have One-Piece Scope Mounts Interchangeable with Ruger Scout Rifle

The necessary condition for rifles to have one-piece scope mounts interchangeable is that the mounting surfaces of these rifles match in every dimension.

Therefore, all rifles that come with a Picatinny rail will have one-piece scope mounts interchangeable with Ruger Scout Rifle.

Rifles That Have Two-Piece Scope Mounts Interchangeable with Ruger Scout Rifle

There’s a similar situation with two-piece scope mounts. Any rifle that has a Picatinny rail mounted on its mounting surface will have two-piece scope mounts interchangeable with Ruger Scout Rifle, too.

Best Scope Mounts for Ruger Scout Rifle

Fixed Scope Mounts for Ruger Scout Rifle

We would recommend these 30 mm Optik Arms rings if you are looking for a quality fixed scope-mounting solution. They are made of steel and come with a 10-year warranty:

Detachable Repeatable Scope Mounts for Ruger Scout Rifle

The great thing about detachable repeatable scope mounts is that you can easily detach and re-attach your optics without any tools while retaining zero the whole time. This is why some rifle owners are prepared to pay top dollar for these mounts.

We recommend the EAW QD Roll-off Mount for Picatinny, 30 mm for your Ruger Scout Rifle. It is made of still, is manufactured in Germany, and has a 30-year warranty:

Scope Mounts for the Ruger Integral Scope Mounting System

As mentioned above, you can choose to ignore the forward-mounted Picatinny rail and instead mount a more standard scope mount on the Ruger Scout Rifle, since it also has the Ruger system machined into the receiver.

If you are looking for scope mounts to mount on the Ruger integral receiver, you can view Scope Mounts for Ruger M77 (SA). These mounts will fit on the Ruger Scout Rifle.

Help Us Build Our Riflescope Mounts Database

If you happen to own this or any other rifle, we would appreciate it if you could help us expand our database by sending us some photos of the rifle receiver (the bare mounting surface of the rifle without the mounts installed). For your help, our company offers a fair return in terms of practical rewards.

Please send us an email for more information. You can contact us here: info@optics-trade.eu

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VIDEO

Introduction

In recent years we can observe that a trend of Picatinny rail has become widespread and global. It is driven by the NATO standardized rails, more commonly known as the Picatinny rail standard. Picatinny rail being the New Jersey Arsenal that developed it in 1995.

These mounting options are revolutionary. The biggest and best advantage being that the Picatinny rail can be used its entire length and not bordered to a few pre-designed slots like for example the Weaver rail standard was before.

The other main advantage is the ease of use and interchangeability. If a product is meant for a Picatinny rail design it will fit all Picatinny-rails, no matter the manufacturer or date of production.

Picatinny/Weaver Rail

Picatinny Rail and Weaver rail profile

Design

The Picatinny rail is almost exclusively crafted from a single piece of metal (in some cases aluminum). In this manner, the axis of the Picatinny rail is perfectly straight and aligned with the axis of the firearm. Therefore the rifle scope which is mounted onto this kind of configuration is certainly aligned with the rifle / gun and the trajectory of the ammunition.

Weaver rail design on the other hand is usually manufactured in two separate pieces, greatly increasing the possibilities for the axis to be crooked, overlapping, and out of line.

It is always harder to align two separate pieces to a third line than it is to align one piece to another. In this way, the lapping of two mounting rings on a single-piece Picatinny rail is no longer required.

The single-piece rail will assure that both rings are perfectly aligned to each other and that no unwished stress is transferred to the riflescope.

Picatinny compare to Weaver Rail

The Picatinny rail itself is an evolutionary step forward from the older Weaver rail. The main difference between Picatinny rail and Weaver rail is the spacing of the slots. Picatinny rail design has them evenly placed exactly 5.23 mm from one slot to the other, 3 mm deep. For this reason, the mounting options are repeatable and the same as other firearms using the Picatinny rail standard.

Interchangeability was a major driving force in the development of the new standard as different NATO armies need to be compatible with each other.

Weaver rail has 3.8mm wide slots and these slots can be placed anywhere on the Weaver rail and in any number that the producer wished.

Advantages of Picatinny design

A big advantage for using the Picatinny rail design is the ever-present recoil stop. Furthermore, the manufacturing of the rail is not very technically demanding and can be done without the use of state-of-the-art machines which greatly reduces the cost of the finished product, making it very affordable.

The Picatinny rail is easy to mount and usually, this type of configuration does not transfer negative stresses and forces from the fired weapon to the rifle scope.

In addition, the Picatinny rail with its very long useable surface works well for mounting longer rifle scopes or to achieve optimum eye relief.

The durability and toughness are other big pluses for this solution.

Manufacturers of Popular Models

A majority of the Picatinny rings are fixed, but a number of best rated European manufacturers (EAW, MAK,..) have, in recent years, put a lot of effort into the development of detachable ring with100% repeatability, with which it becomes easy to remove the scope from the weapon without the use of tools.

No re-zeroing is needed with such mount options, but these models tend to be expensive.

Weaver and Picatinny Rings

Picatinny rail and weaver rail share one more thing. It is possible to use the Weaver ring and the Picatinny ring on the Picatinny-rails, but it is usually impossible to use the Picatinny ring on the Weaver base. The reason being the above-mentioned positioning and spacing of the slots.

Picatinny mounts have a 5mm recoil stop that goes into the rail slot and since
Weaver rail only has 3.8mm wide slots such rings do not fit on Weaver rails.

Due to this reason, the Picatinny-rails are popular and prevailing on the market in recent years and eventually, these options will completely oust the Weaver rail from the market.

Ruger Scout

The History of Sturm, Ruger & Co.