- Messages
- 1,293
- Reactions
- 4,798
Well, once again curiosity got the better of me a month or so ago. I'd seen a number of very positive reviews on the Ruger Hawkeye Long Range Target (LRT) and figured I'd give one a spin just to see if it was everything the shills made it out to be. So, I plopped down the cash at my LGS and told them to order me one in 300 Win Mag. Finally got around to picking it up today and gave it the once over. For anyone looking for a range report, you won't find it here, so move along folks, nothing here to see...
Anyone left? I'll pretend there is and keep typing away on this ridiculously tiny keyboard on my phone.
After the unboxing and requisite inspecting, fondling, cycling and dry firing I was left, oddly enough, both a little bit happy and a little bit sad at the same time.
The Happy:
It's got a Goldilocks recoil pad. Not too hard, not too soft but just right.
It comes with two stock extensions to adjust length of pull.
The stippling on the stock was another Goldilocks win. Not too smooth, not too rough but just right.
All of the parts that are supposed to be metal are in fact metal...no plastic where it doesn't belong.
All of the metal parts have a nice, uniform flat black/charcoal grey finish.
It has a nice section of M-Lock rail inletted into the bottom of the forend.
And so ends The Happy...
The Sad:
It comes equipped with an adjustable riser that is a mechanical mess. Looks simple enough, and in truth it is. It uses the friction generated by a cam/lever setup which isn't inherently a bad thing. Not great, but not bad either. Unfortunately, the way it's designed makes it reliant on the stock being of uniform thickness through the length of its travel. It's not. To adjust fore and aft requires opening the lever and then turning the cam lever in or out as much as 3/4 of a turn.
The action runs about as smoothly as my Ruger American Predator, but without the annoying "zzzzzzzzzzt" noise caused by sloppy machine work. I fully expect it will smooth out with repeated use.
The trigger is just as much a mechanical mess as the stock riser. It's supposedly a two stage target trigger. The first stage is flawless, easy take up to a nice solid wall. From there, it's all downhill. The second stage has some very noticeable creep and the break, which instead of being a nice crisp "Snap" is more of a mushy drawn out "thhhuuunk". All of the above is followed by an unadvertised third stage known as over travel. And in an amount that can only be described as excessive...very very excessive.
The plastic magazine... either it's slightly too wide or the magazine well is slightly too narrow. In either case, according to a very accurate load cell, it takes an average of 15.3 pounds of force to seat the magazine. They had to know this since the rifle shipped with the magazine inserted.
The inletting for the QD mounts and the bottom rail are sloppy, with fairly extensive gaps between metal and wood. Screws even come with some factory installed schmutz...
Like mounting a dime in a penny sized hole. I haven't worked up the guts to dismount the action to check on what's going on with the inletting inside the stock... yet.
Speaking of gaps, the wood laminate is visible along one side of those gaps on both sides of the stock. Looks like the base finish was sprayed on from only one direction.
The barrel channel. Hmmmm... everything I've read indicates that the barrel is free floating. And NOPE!. Approximately the first 2 inches from the receiver is free, then there is about 3/4 of an inch that has solid contact between the barrel and the barrel channel. There is no contact from that point on out to the end of the barrel channel.
And so ends The Sad.
Granted, a grand isn't a lot of money these days, it's a sample size of one, this may very well have been a Friday at 4:55 PM rifle, and YMMV...
With any luck it'll perform well enough to offset my initial disappointment.
Anyone left? I'll pretend there is and keep typing away on this ridiculously tiny keyboard on my phone.
After the unboxing and requisite inspecting, fondling, cycling and dry firing I was left, oddly enough, both a little bit happy and a little bit sad at the same time.
The Happy:
It's got a Goldilocks recoil pad. Not too hard, not too soft but just right.
It comes with two stock extensions to adjust length of pull.
The stippling on the stock was another Goldilocks win. Not too smooth, not too rough but just right.
All of the parts that are supposed to be metal are in fact metal...no plastic where it doesn't belong.
All of the metal parts have a nice, uniform flat black/charcoal grey finish.
It has a nice section of M-Lock rail inletted into the bottom of the forend.
And so ends The Happy...
The Sad:
It comes equipped with an adjustable riser that is a mechanical mess. Looks simple enough, and in truth it is. It uses the friction generated by a cam/lever setup which isn't inherently a bad thing. Not great, but not bad either. Unfortunately, the way it's designed makes it reliant on the stock being of uniform thickness through the length of its travel. It's not. To adjust fore and aft requires opening the lever and then turning the cam lever in or out as much as 3/4 of a turn.
The action runs about as smoothly as my Ruger American Predator, but without the annoying "zzzzzzzzzzt" noise caused by sloppy machine work. I fully expect it will smooth out with repeated use.
The trigger is just as much a mechanical mess as the stock riser. It's supposedly a two stage target trigger. The first stage is flawless, easy take up to a nice solid wall. From there, it's all downhill. The second stage has some very noticeable creep and the break, which instead of being a nice crisp "Snap" is more of a mushy drawn out "thhhuuunk". All of the above is followed by an unadvertised third stage known as over travel. And in an amount that can only be described as excessive...very very excessive.
The plastic magazine... either it's slightly too wide or the magazine well is slightly too narrow. In either case, according to a very accurate load cell, it takes an average of 15.3 pounds of force to seat the magazine. They had to know this since the rifle shipped with the magazine inserted.
The inletting for the QD mounts and the bottom rail are sloppy, with fairly extensive gaps between metal and wood. Screws even come with some factory installed schmutz...
Like mounting a dime in a penny sized hole. I haven't worked up the guts to dismount the action to check on what's going on with the inletting inside the stock... yet.
Speaking of gaps, the wood laminate is visible along one side of those gaps on both sides of the stock. Looks like the base finish was sprayed on from only one direction.
The barrel channel. Hmmmm... everything I've read indicates that the barrel is free floating. And NOPE!. Approximately the first 2 inches from the receiver is free, then there is about 3/4 of an inch that has solid contact between the barrel and the barrel channel. There is no contact from that point on out to the end of the barrel channel.
And so ends The Sad.
Granted, a grand isn't a lot of money these days, it's a sample size of one, this may very well have been a Friday at 4:55 PM rifle, and YMMV...
With any luck it'll perform well enough to offset my initial disappointment.
Last Edited: