I've seen a good bit of coverage over the last week or so about the new Ruger Precision Rifle. While the concept is interesting, many of the blog posts I've seen borrow heavily from Ruger's press release, which is drenched in marketing hype. Here's the GunsAmerica post I caught sight of, which seems to be a direct copy-paste of a press release. I consider myself pretty well read on the subject of guns, but here are a few of things that stuck out as baffling to me.

  • "Minimum headspace" - Since the rifle is built on the American receiver pattern, can we safely assume this means "headspaced like a Savage"?
  • "Centralized chamber" - Even Google can't find any references to this that aren't about the Precision Rifle. I am stumped.
  • "In-line recoil path" - I think I get this. The back of the receiver abuts the buttstock footing. Is that new or just new for a factory rifle? Considering how uncommon it seems to be, does it really confer that great of an advantage?


I also see they tout the easily replaced barrel as a feature, but since the American has a fairly unique shank thread, I would suggest the ease of removing the barrel nut would be overshadowed by the need to have a custom barrel made.