Ruger American ranch 16”

[Stinky Coyote]

Just picked up the new Grendel (first bolt Grendel for me) I wanted a 16” bolt gun to use for hunting suppressed. I have hunted with my 16” AA incursion suppressed on Kodiak island and killed 3 deer on that one trip. The gas guns just start having cycling issues when you put the can on and it make the gun and magazine extremely dirty! Cycling issues is not something you want when solo hunting Kodiak Island due to the largest brown bears on the planet. So I’m going simpler and hopefully lighter.
The American set up with optics, bipod, full mag and suppressor is a full pound lighter than the ultra light AA incursion with optics and a full mag. The American has its own problems that I need to work through, rough cycling, magazine play, feed ramp, not balanced, and I dislike the stock very much. But for a 500$ gun I’ll give it a shot. The rifle all dressed weighs 9.5# the same as my tikka superlite creedmoor so it’s Packable on sheep/goat/deer hunts. Any input On fixing my problems would be appreciated!I will post pics and data as soon as I shoot

well i'm putting a MDT-LSS XL-Gen2 chassis on my ranch, running the magpul moe-k grip and ctr butt stock, a few ergo m-lok rubberized rail covers, it already wears a leupold fxII 6x36 i added a cds-zl turret to for dialing up anything longer than mbpr and using the 10 round c-products mags, i'm going to build two more for my boys, only difference being will be scopes, they will wear leupold vx3i 2.5-8x36 that i'll add cds-zl turrets to also, dimensionally these scopes are identical but the fixed 6x is a couple ounces lighter than the variable 2.5-8's, they will be 8.5 lbs with 10 rounds of ammo on board

these are our 'do all' rigs, including defense work, easy to slap a light/laser or two point sling, they are short enough, and nice you can adjust length of pull on the fly for running a pack or to fit anyone, you can even add folding stock adapter if you want a rig that's about 28" overall for strapping to pack or throwing right inside it, if we can't kill what we need out to 400 yards with these then we are bad hunters

sure the factory stock is lighter, i'm adding about 1 lb to go this way as i'm about 7.5 all up with factory stock but the added versatility of chassis is worth it and the weight is still totally acceptable as an athletic do all that can still go up mountains etc.

hope that helps

p.s. other thoughts are holosun 407/507c reflex sight, solar/battery, set up like AR guys do using a 1-6x scope and then do the 45 degree can't to a leupold deltapoint pro or the one i'd choose are the holosun green dots for the close range fast stuff 0-50 yards etc...options go up with the pistol grip/AR type chassis modularity