New Ruger American Competition

[Jim Watson]

Guns are durable goods, you have to have something longer, lower, wider, with tail fins and four headlights to sell. Oh, wait, that was 1950s cars; but the same thing applies. Ruger revolvers, .22s, and pocket pistols have a good market, their 1911 mutant seems to be doing OK, but they haven't got much in the full size "modern" automatic field. They are looking for a niche in a crowded business just like everybody else. I don't think they have found it here.

The barrel is actually rifled at a 1:16-inch rate, rather than the faster 1:10-inch 9 mm rate. Ruger did this to tune the Competition to lighter, competition-style bullet profiles.

There is more gunboard and gunzine nonsense on rifling twist than anything else I can think of at the moment.
If Smith and Wesson found they could stabilize a 158 grain bullet with an 18.75" twist 120 years ago, there isn't much "tuning" being done with a 16" twist.
I am not sure why the Germans originated a 10" twist for a 124 grain bullet 117 years ago but it wasn't to "stabilize" it. I suspect they just went with what they were using in 8mm rifles so they didn't have to think about it much.

Yes, if you are a Master class competitor you might eke out that last point to stay in the lead by tinkering with twist rate, but it is way outside what is being done in mass production. Mr Schuemann will cheerfully sell you a 32 twist barrel for a light bullet at high velocity. The late Jerry Keefer was working down in the 12 twist range for low velocity wadcutters. Clark offers a 10 twist Model 52 barrel, I don't know if it is derived from Keefer's work or if it was a parallel development.

[Tokarev]

Guns are durable goods, you have to have something longer, lower, wider, with tail fins and four headlights to sell. Oh, wait, that was 1950s cars; but the same thing applies. Ruger revolvers, .22s, and pocket pistols have a good market, their 1911 mutant seems to be doing OK, but they haven't got much in the full size "modern" automatic field. They are looking for a niche in a crowded business just like everybody else. I don't think they have found it here.



There is more gunboard and gunzine nonsense on rifling twist than anything else I can think of at the moment.
If Smith and Wesson found they could stabilize a 158 grain bullet with an 18.75" twist 120 years ago, there isn't much "tuning" being done with a 16" twist.
I am not sure why the Germans originated a 10" twist for a 124 grain bullet 117 years ago but it wasn't to "stabilize" it. I suspect they just went with what they were using in 8mm rifles so they didn't have to think about it much.

Yes, if you are a Master class competitor you might eke out that last point to stay in the lead by tinkering with twist rate, but it is way outside what is being done in mass production. Mr Schuemann will cheerfully sell you a 32 twist barrel for a light bullet at high velocity. The late Jerry Keefer was working down in the 12 twist range for low velocity wadcutters. Clark offers a 10 twist Model 52 barrel, I don't know if it is derived from Keefer's work or if it was a parallel development.

I think, terminally at least, 1x10 has been found to be the better twist rate.

Not that a 1x12 or whatever wouldn't work equally as well but it seems 1x16 can be lacking especially when shooting heavier bullets that may have to pass through some type of barrier.



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[pangloss]

I don't have any hands on experience with current or recent Ruger autoloaders, but from what I could tell, the SR9 borrowed heavily from Glock. It's a puzzle to me why they discontinued it. I took one of Dave Spaulding's pistol classes a couple of years ago, and he was pretty critical of the American. He said that Ruger engineered extra parts into the design that were unnecessary. I wish I remembered the details of the conversation, but then again, there is zero chance of me buying a Ruger American, so what's the point.

[BigT]

As I recall HK advertised the USP to have a 20k service life when they launched them.

That was a minimum not a maximum Based on a thousand rounds a year for a 20 year career. I think I'm remembering right but it was more than 25 years ago.

I don't know if this applies to the American but I wouldn't panic based on just that.

[Dave T]

He said with tongue planted firmly in cheek after viewing the above posted picture: a Glock by any other name would be just as...ugly, and maybe not as good! (lol)

Dave

[Tokarev]

I took one of Dave Spaulding's pistol classes a couple of years ago, and he was pretty critical of the American. He said that Ruger engineered extra parts into the design that were unnecessary.

When I took the armorer course 3+ years ago our instructor stated that Ruger had hired several new engineers as part of the American project. My table mate told me they should have hired one more to unf**k the design the others had come up with.

What's unique about the American is that the sear also serves as the firing pin block. There's a square gate-type deal in the frame that fully blocks the sear from moving (and keeps the striker from going forward) without the trigger being pressed.

As I recall HK advertised the USP to have a 20k service life when they launched them.

That was a minimum not a maximum Based on a thousand rounds a year for a 20 year career. I think I'm remembering right but it was more than 25 years ago.

I don't know if this applies to the American but I wouldn't panic based on just that.

Yep. I'm not saying that the American will self-destruct at round number 20,001.

The gun was built to what Ruger interpreted as the MHS requirements but it was not submitted.

This doesn't make much sense to me. Why spend all the R&D work and then not submit the gun? Maybe the most obvious answer is that Ruger knows the gun wouldn't have passed.


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