Gun-nut wrote:I'm a new member to this forum so I thought I'd try asking here to get a reply to my question. I'm looking at getting a Ruger american in 22lr as a rifle for hunting small game such as rabbits etc. I was just wondering what people thought about them in regards to reliability, quality, accuracy etc.
Your help will be greatly appreciated and thanks in advance
I have the synthetic American Compact in .22LR. Reliability and quality are outstanding as you'd expect, but reliability will be much more down to the ammo you use than the rifle you use it in. I didn't buy it expecting a tack driver and I have no complaints with its accuracy. Most stuff groups around 2" at 50 yards, a few group more like 4" at 50 yards, fewer still group under an inch at 50 yards.
But after putting the first 1000 rounds through it the accuracy seems to have improved. I've tried 24 types of ammo through it now and have found some stuff that it likes. I recently put ten rounds of Eley Match into 45mm at 100 yards - impressed the hell out of me. At $25 a box it's not the most expensive ammo I've tried, but it's the most accurate in this particular rifle. Match ammo tends to work best in match chambers I think.
I'm not a fan of shooting live targets with .22LR but I do take an occasional rabbit with Stingers.
Primarily though, .22's are just for putting a lot of cheap bullets down range to hone my skills for the centrefires.
Buy a brick of the cheapest stuff (I used Highland RX for $34) you can find to run the barrel in, and a box of every type of ammo you can get and try them all to determine what it works best with.