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Just picked up a new Ruger Gen2 predator in of course 6.5 Grendel. Here's my observations so far.
22" medium heavy barrel (~0.740" at muzzle) with spiral grooves
burnt bronze cerakote well done.
supplied 10 round magazine claims to be stainless steel with black coating.
Picatinny rail from factory and installed with Torx cap screws.
more details:
rifle with supplied 10 round magazine but no ammo, sling, or optics weighed in at 6lbs and 12oz. balance point at front edge of receiver.
burnt bronze cerakote evenly applied on barreled action. Stock is injection moulded but stiffer in the forend than the first iterations due to a cross hatch webbing molded in. Still if you push you can get the stock to touch the barrel in any direction. as delivered barrel is free floated back to the action.
barreled action is similar to savage in that a barrel nut is used to set headspace and secure the barrel to the receiver. unlike savage this one is smooth. Not sure how one would get it off when the time comes to rebarrel, but I'm sure the gunsmiths will have it figured out soon.
caliber marking on the barrel is "6.5 Gren".
trigger pull measured 4lbs. 3oz from factory.
three position tang safety. works as you would expect.
trigger guard is part of the injection molded stock.
stock is finished in a medium dark flat green with burnt bronze and black splatter paint on it. decently grippy.
squishy recoil pad. LOP is adjustable by +/- spacers (not supplied in the box but available from Ruger)
height of comb is also adjustable by buying several height cheek pieces. no extra ones come in the box.
bolt is full diameter with 3 locking lugs. extractor is a post '64 Winchester model 70 style that browning is using now too, which is a sliding tab that sits in a milled out section on the front face of one of the bolt lugs.
ejector is a plunger type. bolt moved quite smoothly in the receiver with no magazine inserted. with an empty magazine inserted i could not close the bolt.
bolt has a lot of machined surfaces on it, and all of them seem to have had the sharp edges broken. everything seemed quite smooth.
magazine is AR style so I tried some E-Landers as well as the supplied one, and they all fit/functioned. feeding was ok for the limited trial, too soon to tell about long term feeding reliability yet. but you have to run the bolt like you mean it. you can run it slow but it takes a fair bit of effort to strip the round out of the magazine. so run it like you'd pushed the bolt
release on an AR.
the magazine release looks and functions just like the one on an AR.
The manual was nicely detailed for moderate disassembly and reassembly. gave torque readings and required wrenches for disassembly and reassembly.
the bolt shroud is plastic, but serves as nothing more than a dust cover. no applied forces on it at all throughout the bolt cycle. twin cocking ramps on the bolt. after I took the bolt shroud off per the instructions I used some black moly grease on the two cocking cam ramps and on the side of the striker firing pin back. then put the bolt shroud back on the bolt. greased the back of the recoil lugs. set bolt aside.
cleaned the barrel. about 10 patches to get all the crud out. barrel interior near the muzzle looked fairly smooth with few tool marks. crown was even. speaking of crown, I went to take off the muzzle brake as I have enough hearing loss already. I think Ruger put it on at a gazillion foot pounds of torque. I ended up putting the barrel up near the muzzle brake in a vise with thick rubber sheeting and tightening the vise quite a bit to keep the barrel from turning while trying to get the muzzle brake off. buggered up the cerakote finish on the muzzle brake getting it off. 19mm across the flats if you need to know. ended up using some KROIL and a rubber mallet on the 19mm combination wrench before I broke the threads loose on the muzzle brake.
no supplied thread protector. So I put on one of John's 3 pronged flash hiders (https://rexusoutfitters.com/rexus-ul...sh-suppressor/) and it fit nicely. the end of the barrel and the flash suppressor seemed to be identical in diameter, though I didn't measure them. the black of the flash suppressor went well with the black recoil pad and cheekpiece against the burnt bronze and green camo.
the v-blocks that are used instead of a recoil lug on the receiver seemed to be molded into the stock. Not sure if Brownells carries extra v-blocks in case one wants to go to a different stock. they come all the way through the stock and form a shoulder against which the action screws tighten, sort of like pillar bedding.
The manual also details how to adjust the weight of pull of the trigger. the allen set screw that gets turned to change the trigger pull weight is short, only 6 threads or so. The spring behind it is captured so there is a built in minimum that one can set. I was tempted just to take the set screw out, but figured I'd loose it so I put it back in for just 3 threads. the set screw quits touching the spring within about 1 turn anyway, and was the case here. the minimum adjusted pull weight on my rifle turns out to be 3lbs, 11oz. So the trigger pull weight is adjustable, but not by much.
when I loosened the action screws they "felt" like they were at about 30 inch lbs. the manual was nice enough to tell me what to tighten the action screws to. so when I put the action back into the stock, I had the barrel up with the recoil pad on the floor putting downward pressure on the barrel. this to seat the recoil v-blocks against the action and stock while I tightened the action screws. Manual said 60 to 80 inch lbs. i tightened to 65 inch lbs and called it good. the manual was complete in that it told you what hex key size for both the action screws and the trigger adjustment screw (3/16" and 3/32" respectively) would be needed. said tighten both action screws a little at a time. so I went 10inch lb increments to 60 and then added the 5 in/lb to end at 65 inch lb.
next items are to decide on scope and rings and go see how this thing shoots. and to decide on an aftermarket trigger or leave it at 3 3/4 lbs. wish it would have gone down to 2lbs or so. also wish Ruger wouldn't have put the muzzle brake on with such high torque. made it almost impossible to get off.
both Jard and TImney make a gen 2 replacement trigger. I'm thinking on these. I'll likely shoot it first before I decide to change the trigger assembly out or not.
hope you found this review worthwhile,
tdbru
22" medium heavy barrel (~0.740" at muzzle) with spiral grooves
burnt bronze cerakote well done.
supplied 10 round magazine claims to be stainless steel with black coating.
Picatinny rail from factory and installed with Torx cap screws.
more details:
rifle with supplied 10 round magazine but no ammo, sling, or optics weighed in at 6lbs and 12oz. balance point at front edge of receiver.
burnt bronze cerakote evenly applied on barreled action. Stock is injection moulded but stiffer in the forend than the first iterations due to a cross hatch webbing molded in. Still if you push you can get the stock to touch the barrel in any direction. as delivered barrel is free floated back to the action.
barreled action is similar to savage in that a barrel nut is used to set headspace and secure the barrel to the receiver. unlike savage this one is smooth. Not sure how one would get it off when the time comes to rebarrel, but I'm sure the gunsmiths will have it figured out soon.
caliber marking on the barrel is "6.5 Gren".
trigger pull measured 4lbs. 3oz from factory.
three position tang safety. works as you would expect.
trigger guard is part of the injection molded stock.
stock is finished in a medium dark flat green with burnt bronze and black splatter paint on it. decently grippy.
squishy recoil pad. LOP is adjustable by +/- spacers (not supplied in the box but available from Ruger)
height of comb is also adjustable by buying several height cheek pieces. no extra ones come in the box.
bolt is full diameter with 3 locking lugs. extractor is a post '64 Winchester model 70 style that browning is using now too, which is a sliding tab that sits in a milled out section on the front face of one of the bolt lugs.
ejector is a plunger type. bolt moved quite smoothly in the receiver with no magazine inserted. with an empty magazine inserted i could not close the bolt.
bolt has a lot of machined surfaces on it, and all of them seem to have had the sharp edges broken. everything seemed quite smooth.
magazine is AR style so I tried some E-Landers as well as the supplied one, and they all fit/functioned. feeding was ok for the limited trial, too soon to tell about long term feeding reliability yet. but you have to run the bolt like you mean it. you can run it slow but it takes a fair bit of effort to strip the round out of the magazine. so run it like you'd pushed the bolt
release on an AR.
the magazine release looks and functions just like the one on an AR.
The manual was nicely detailed for moderate disassembly and reassembly. gave torque readings and required wrenches for disassembly and reassembly.
the bolt shroud is plastic, but serves as nothing more than a dust cover. no applied forces on it at all throughout the bolt cycle. twin cocking ramps on the bolt. after I took the bolt shroud off per the instructions I used some black moly grease on the two cocking cam ramps and on the side of the striker firing pin back. then put the bolt shroud back on the bolt. greased the back of the recoil lugs. set bolt aside.
cleaned the barrel. about 10 patches to get all the crud out. barrel interior near the muzzle looked fairly smooth with few tool marks. crown was even. speaking of crown, I went to take off the muzzle brake as I have enough hearing loss already. I think Ruger put it on at a gazillion foot pounds of torque. I ended up putting the barrel up near the muzzle brake in a vise with thick rubber sheeting and tightening the vise quite a bit to keep the barrel from turning while trying to get the muzzle brake off. buggered up the cerakote finish on the muzzle brake getting it off. 19mm across the flats if you need to know. ended up using some KROIL and a rubber mallet on the 19mm combination wrench before I broke the threads loose on the muzzle brake.
no supplied thread protector. So I put on one of John's 3 pronged flash hiders (https://rexusoutfitters.com/rexus-ul...sh-suppressor/) and it fit nicely. the end of the barrel and the flash suppressor seemed to be identical in diameter, though I didn't measure them. the black of the flash suppressor went well with the black recoil pad and cheekpiece against the burnt bronze and green camo.
the v-blocks that are used instead of a recoil lug on the receiver seemed to be molded into the stock. Not sure if Brownells carries extra v-blocks in case one wants to go to a different stock. they come all the way through the stock and form a shoulder against which the action screws tighten, sort of like pillar bedding.
The manual also details how to adjust the weight of pull of the trigger. the allen set screw that gets turned to change the trigger pull weight is short, only 6 threads or so. The spring behind it is captured so there is a built in minimum that one can set. I was tempted just to take the set screw out, but figured I'd loose it so I put it back in for just 3 threads. the set screw quits touching the spring within about 1 turn anyway, and was the case here. the minimum adjusted pull weight on my rifle turns out to be 3lbs, 11oz. So the trigger pull weight is adjustable, but not by much.
when I loosened the action screws they "felt" like they were at about 30 inch lbs. the manual was nice enough to tell me what to tighten the action screws to. so when I put the action back into the stock, I had the barrel up with the recoil pad on the floor putting downward pressure on the barrel. this to seat the recoil v-blocks against the action and stock while I tightened the action screws. Manual said 60 to 80 inch lbs. i tightened to 65 inch lbs and called it good. the manual was complete in that it told you what hex key size for both the action screws and the trigger adjustment screw (3/16" and 3/32" respectively) would be needed. said tighten both action screws a little at a time. so I went 10inch lb increments to 60 and then added the 5 in/lb to end at 65 inch lb.
next items are to decide on scope and rings and go see how this thing shoots. and to decide on an aftermarket trigger or leave it at 3 3/4 lbs. wish it would have gone down to 2lbs or so. also wish Ruger wouldn't have put the muzzle brake on with such high torque. made it almost impossible to get off.
both Jard and TImney make a gen 2 replacement trigger. I'm thinking on these. I'll likely shoot it first before I decide to change the trigger assembly out or not.
hope you found this review worthwhile,
tdbru
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