Not what I call "production" tho.  There are no off the shelf options.

See above ^^^

The Tromix 243 barrel mentioned above is running a Tromix SFAR barrel extension.  Not a a Ruger barrel extension.

Tony

Can I get this ?

Outstanding!

Its great news when a custom builder starts playing with a platform.

Here's a borescan of my SFAR barrel at about 100 rounds.

It's OK, the throat isn't perfect and has a spot that seems not as uniform as the rest, which isn't ideal.  I've seen much worse - but I've seen better too.  look at the 16 second mark.



and I switched my mount to this, for the 20MOA offset.  And the lower weight (it's very light)



(haven't shot it yet - but pretty happy with it during the install)
Empty rifle now down to 9# 20z.  Not bad for a 6.5 CM AR10 with a 20" semi-HBAR.

I will repeat one BEWARE item with the SFAR.  there's a curious failure mode that can cascade to issues.  When under-gassed and fail to eject, it's possible for the casing to wedge in a way that it impacts the tip of the gas-tube, and then the bolt slams into it, putting all that force forward onto the gas tube.  When it does that, it can push your entire gas-block forward, and off your gas port!   Annoyingly, this could have been easily mitigated if Ruger just milled in a dimple in the barrel where the gas block screws go in just a bit, which would stop forward movement.  In the meantime, your only real mitigation is to torque the shit out of the set-screws of the gas-block.  The good news is, as the gun breaks in and the entire gas-block carbon-locks in position the more rounds you fire, gluing it in place.  Also, as your gun breaks in (and you break in to what the gun settings are), the amount of undergassed jams falls quite fast.

Just a nuance to beware of though - if you get a new SFAR, and are breaking it in and get some jams.  BE SURE TO CHECK YOUR GASBLOCK and make sure it didn't get knocked forward or loose by the gas-tube slamming it forward.  

At least, I think that's what happened to mine on day 1.

The good news is on day 2, I was firing a spectrum of ammo, and some of it was so mild, Gas needed to be on 3, when it was actually still on 2.  That's not entirely the guns fault.  And in any event, this time my gas block held on the two casings that jammed up and maybe impacted the gas tube.  So that's good.

Had chance to run the now-cleaned and now-broken-in (mostly) SFAR again, at about 100 rounds down the gun now.  

TLDR (what we used to call "executive summary") Very happy with how it ran.  Reliability was excellent.  Accuracy was acceptable with nominally 1.5MOA of almost any ammo fed to it (that's actually pretty good).  POI Shift was mild between ammo as well.  this is also good - good on it's face, but also an indicator that it's not going to be so sensitive if a lot of ammo has a wider velocity spread as well.  

I'm really liking this rifle.  Recoil is milder than expected and it's pleasant to handle and fire - much moreso than most AR10s.  For example the bolt release has a positive, pleasant, and appropriate tension.  Most require an excess amount of force to trip.  The trigger is great.  

Intro:
Today's session had the goals:
-rezeroing the scope to a new mount (w/ a 20 MOA cant to it)
-Reliability testing and gas settings data
-Accuracy testing
-POI shift of different Ammo

Method:
Bench testing at 200 yards (on a windy day, alas).  Ran a bag under the rear stock and fired bipod / squeeze bag method.  Tried to preload bipod with a mild push forward.  Targets are paper at 200 yards, and scope is a PA 2.5-10X GLX Griffin reticle.  Ammo fired in MagPul 20 and 10 round PMags.

Results:
Pleased on all accounts.  Not blown-away, but let's also be realistic.   Testing showed this is a nominally a 1.5 MOA gun with most all ammo, and can shoot tighter with some ammo.  That's my acceptance criteria - 1.5 MOA (mostly) all day.  This gun should be able to hit every shot into a 20" steel gong at 1000 yards, if I do my part.  That's pretty good.  

140 gr HPBT 2500 FPS (still irked by that, that seems slow).


A couple key items of note.  
Gun started cold, freshly cleaned, and with a new scope mount freshly installed.
1) Starting top left, was first group.  Grouping was good, at 1.3 MOA and decently centered on target.  
2) Second group is top right, warmer gun but not a lot, gas block started at 118 F, and finished at 128 F, so not that hot.  while grouping was again good at 1.46 MOA, it slightly opened up, with a flyer (of note, that was the 1st shot of that group, and impact is closer in line, with prior group).    Then the other 4 shots all impacted lower.  For an overall POI shift down over 2.5" (or about 1.3 MOA) lower than the prior group.  That's a notable shift.  Was that shift due to heat, or was it due to something "settling"?    

Let's keep going

3) Third group on the gun that's warming up a little.  Biggest group at 2.16 MOA, but POI is about the same as the prior group.  Maybe down a bit further, maybe not.

So, let's see if this is heat.  Let the gun cool for 15 minutes while shooting something else for a bit.  Come back to now-cool gun, and fire":

4) Fourth group on the cold (but fouled) gun.  Good group at 1.35 MOA.  Note POI did NOT change (materially).  Suggesting that the POI shift noted going from Group 1 to Group 2, very probably was not heat induced, but may have been something settling - I suspect with the scope/scope-mount fresh install.  

I also fired some 143 gr Hot ammo and mild 129 gr ammo. The 129 short-stroked at gas=2, but otherwise ran good when adjusted.  Both gave about 1.5 MOA groups, with decently consistent POI at 200 yards.  So I'm pretty happy.

I ran out of time before getting to the 140 gr fusions, which gave me 1 MOA performance last time.  So that's for next time.

Conclusion on the goals:
-rezeroing the scope to a new mount (w/ a 20 MOA cant to it)
- Got my zero', will adjust mechanical zero of scope to match.  Mechanically looks good, but it may have settled; after which I think it is good now.

-Reliability testing and gas settings data
Went well, runs on gas 2 for most full power ammo.  Needs to be on 3 for weak ammo.  As stated.
-Accuracy testing
Pleased.  It passed my 1.5 MOA performance test criteria with basically all ammo brought today.
-POI shift of different ammo
Acceptable.  Passed

I took mine to my local Smith, he double dimpled my factory gas block and shimmed the barrel into the receiver. Cost was 30.00

Maybe try to get it dimpled?

I can probably just dimple it myself, using the depressions from the set-screws as a start, and just grind down a bit.   But as you say, for $30... wow, that's a good price, I might just pay that.

I'm more interested in the barrel shimming.  What's that?  And did it impact your accuracy?  What kind of groups are you getting?  In my case, 1.5 MOA, which actually, I'm pretty happy with.  But now I'm curious - can I do even better?

In my case the gas block was canted. So I couldn't use the factory marks. Shimming is supposed to tighten the groups, but I just got it back, and have not made it to the range yet.

Check out post #12

https://www.ar15.com/forums/Precision-Rifles/Hellbender-s-a-k-a-Lostinthewoods-Guide-to-the-Ultimate-AR-fixed-/4-6919/



I shimmed my barrel when I first got my SFAR. I have shot .7" groups with my handloads. FGMM shoots under an inch as well.  And the "bad" groups are like 1.25"  
But cheap ball ammo is still like 2-3"

But I replaced my gas block and handguard and put a suppressor on before I ever shot my SFAR so can't really compare.

Ruger barrels shoot pretty well.  They are CHF and they make the American rifles too which shoot well.

Any one here put any M118LR factory loads through a 20 inch with any luck?

20" 6.5 Creedmoor

Data dump:
Load test and development with the SFAR.  Running two American Reloading salvage gunpowders:
MP610 (similar to Stabal 6.5)
MP580 (similar to 4166 - in my case; note that typically their salvaged lots of MP580 are more similar to slower powders - so use this particular data with caution - it's particular to my own lot)

Bullets:
Sierra 85 gr Varminters
Nosler 100gr HPBT
Nosler 123gr HPBT

Primers were SB LR; and brass was 4 fired RP (with some other mixed in - see below)

TLDR:
-Gun gave many sub MOA groups
-Gun reliability was very good, when the correct gas setting was used - and light bullets like bigger gas in the 20"
-Nosler 100 gr bullets did terrible (ah Nosler)
-Nosler 123 gr bullets did better
-Factory Federal Fusion and Hornady ammo did good.
-When under-gassed, the jam pretty much goes right up into the gas-tube and then slammed by the bolt, damaging the brass mouth enough to just toss it..  Thank goodness my gas block is torqued down extra good and carbon-locked into position by now, or it likely would be getting knocked forward from that.
-FC brass continues to be soft crap.  In my batch of RP brass, an FC snuck in, and proceeded to get it's rim ripped off at gas set at 3.  
-It seems to prefer milder to hotter, in some cases.  But at times, it runs just fine hot.  
-Brass headstamp matters in 6.5CM.  Unlike 5.56 where it mostly doesn't matter, flyers and velocity excursions show up with "oh it'll be fine" random casings that were in the batch (there were known to be in there, and identified, but ran anyway thinking it doesn't matter).
-As you can tell by the photo, some of those case-heads are starting to show pressure sign.  Which answers the question, can the SFAR take a hot 6.5CM round - I guess.
-Published velocities once again are higher than actual real-world velocities, and this barrel is a bit slow for a 20"..  For example, all factory ammo data of every type of factory ammo I've run in this gun, is slower than that same ammo was in a Factory PSA 20" BBL and in a Faxon 20" BBL.  It's just a slower barrel.  in some cases, by 100 fps even. In other cases, not by much - just depends.

Gun is basically 1.5MOA all day, and can get sub MOA with the right loads.
As power level goes up, POI seems to shift down a little - maybe.




















Lowest SD I've ever seen.  1.5FPS.  Pity the group isn't a little better, but wow.



(To monolog: There is a skill to shooting a light weight gun with heavier recoiling behavior from the bench, that I'm still working on.  I wouldn't take these groupings as the mechanical best that gun and ammo can do, and once you get down to the 1.5 MOA level, shooter consistency of running the gun definitely can start to show up; even amongst "pretty good" shooters, IMHO.  I'm good, actually I'm really good - with a 14# .223 national match HBar from a sling.  That's also a very very forgiving system where the sling forces you to address the gun the same every shot, and at that 14# weight and thick HBAR configuration, there is no barrel whip and the gun doesn't move under recoil much.  A 9.3# 6.5CM running loads that are hot enough to show pressure sign in the case-head, from a bouncy bipod on a cement surface, from a bench where maybe your head and hold is the same every shot, maybe not - is a different matter.  Still working on my skill level on that setting  )


Not all groups shown.  In tabulated manner:
you'll figure out what columns are velocity, energy, sd and %sd.

I used the Hornady factory 129 as my zero check before/after.  It doesn't look like the zero moved beyond the error of the group size, and I'm just going to call that "held zero".  

Anyone who swapped handguards have a factory barrel nut they’d be willing to part with? Bought and received the HBI to try out but can’t find my factory handguard anywhere since I swapped it out for an SLR.

So a couple nuances.   I've cleaned it a couple times now.  The gun is great, the cleaning and maintenance is MOSTLY fine.   But I find it absurd that apparently you are supposed to remove the handguard in order to access the gas block, so you can remove the gas regulator for cleaning.  And apparently you're supposed to do that often - I guess.


Their official video.  

Is everyone actually taking off their handguard after every outing and pulling out their gas regulator?  I will say, I replaced the handguard with one that gives me direct access to the very end of the regulator (go-go rifle-length), so I can, in theory, pull out the regulator every outing easily, without the PITA of removing the handguard.




But here's the problem, removing that regulator is a BITCH.  It carbon locks and doesn't want to come out at all.  It rotates OK, the wrench gives pretty good leverage on that, to rotate it.   But pulling out to clean it and the inside kind of sucks.  After doing the tiny-pin plunger and alignment thing (which isn't smooth btw, as plunger hole is tiny, yet spring tension is high - but OK, I can make it work), I then have to somehow pull the regulator out.   and it doesn't wanna come out.   I basically have to wedge a screwdriver blade in there and twist with a good bit of force, wedge twist, wedge twist.  Thank God malonite is a tough finish, because if that were blued this would be marring the shit out of that.   Once it comes out a little bit, it doesn't get any easier - and I basically have to beat it out with a brass hammer and punch at a 50 degree angle, on the flange.  

This sucks.  Please tell me I'm doing this completely wrong.  i can't find squat for instructions or tips on this aspect.  How are most people handling this?  

TBH, do we even need to actually do this at all anyway?  

He also says you should wear eye pro when cleaning the gun. I don't think I will do that either.

You don't need to clean it.  The only thing I would do if you plan on changing settings ever again is move it to a different setting every few hundred rounds.

Thanks - that's the direction I was leaning on just going.  Sounds like that's what most people are just doing.

Right, so - picked up a good price on a $90 hard plastic case, that's not bad.  




It's pluck&pull, which we all know by now is a mixed bag.  Easy to configure to your exact gun.  And poor durability and generally doesn't age well.  





The trick to help with that, is to use spray adhesive to glue the foam down and then coat it in 5-10 layers of plasticoat, and then it will last decent.  (not yet applied, doing that step now)

So, this should about do it.  Gun, tool-kit into the glasses case, a sling, a 25 round, 10 round, and couple 20 round, and the quick-remove bipod.  Also have a data-book that I'll keep my dope and scores in.

I got my 16" SFAR today, and from what I see, I'm happy so far. I wanted one of these since the day they came out. The very first thing I did was take it all apart and inspect everything. It seems they assembled my rifle well, I did not find any issues. Everything was tight and lined up like it should be. I put the borescope down the barrel, and most of it actually looks pretty good. Right at the throat it appears 3 of the lands have some kind of burr on the right side. I checked again after firing a few rounds and they look the same. Hopefully those wear in, or don't effect accuracy much.

I had my gas setting to 2, and fired 10 rounds. Every single round ejected and landed right where I expected them to, and the bolt locked back. The brass looks pretty good to me, it's not tearing them up bad or anything. This was with factory Federal 175gr SMK ammo. Hopefully Saturday I can sit down and do some accuracy testing with some different handloads.

My handguard is perfectly centered, but there's no way that's enough clearance to the gas block on the sides. If I get at least acceptable accuracy as is, I think what I'm going to do is trim that one support piece, then grind/file it flat so the sides of the gas block are 100% free. There's plenty of clearance to the top of the gas block. I like this handguard, I don't want to replace if if I don't have to.

This is the burr. This is the only fault I can find on he rifle, I'm happy I didn't seem to get any of the problems others have had. I guess I haven't shot it for groups yet either though. It's really amazing what they have done. Such a light rifle, and it shoots so soft.

Mine's broken:)
Attached File


I like to have it smaller when transporting.

I had some mixed feelings today with the SFAR. On one hand it sure seems to be a shooter, on the other it ripped a rim off a case and had to be knocked out with a rod. It happened somewhere around the 50-60 round mark, and did not happen again. It was with a reload with Federal brass, so maybe it was a brass problem. I did fire a box of Federal 175gr GM without issue. I'm going to try loading a bunch in Lake City brass and see if it happens again. Other than that, function has been really good. I tried the gas on setting 3 without much change, but it works on 2. I did try setting 1, but it will not eject a case there.

As for accuracy, it sure seems like a shooter. It is already rivaling my accurized M1A, and I haven't even done anything yet. The burrs in the throat are wearing in, so that shouldn't be a problem much longer. This rifle really liked that Federal 175gr GM ammo. I only shot 15 rounds of it today, but the groups were 1 7/8", 1 3/8", and 1 1/8". That's even with the wind that was not helping me at all. The load that had a ripped rim also shot quite good, it was a 180gr Hornady, it was too windy to really shoot for groups at that point, but it was maintaining under 2 1/2" even with my reticle moving around from the wind. Overall, I am fully happy with the accuracy.

One problem I ran into is the new P-Mags the SFAR come with are not the same as the old P-Mags. They really only hold a cartridge at SAMMI maximim 2.800", and nothing more. They also fit kind of loose in the mag well, but they work fine. I bought a handful of metal magazines from Duramag that seemed decent online. They will take a full 2.875" and fit in the mag well like I think they should, and still drop free easily. The problem is they seem to have some problem on the back side, as my bolt release will not work with a Duramag at all. There's something catching it. I emailed Duramag and I'll see what they say. That's such a shame because the KAC magazines people talk about are $113. Screw that, I'll just load my ammo to 2.800" instead of that highway robbery.

Same - Federal (known soft) at gas =3 on a warm reload, and you get this.



Just run at gas =2 , or don't run soft-head Federal, and it's fine.  

As to magazines there are lots of different magazines to choose from



I think the red follower M118 (I think?) PMAGS are what you seek (do I remember that right?)

What I would prefer is a metal magazine that can handle an OAL of at least 2.860". But I'm not willing to pay $113 for a single magazine to get that. Anything over $50 is completely out of the question. Do you have any suggestions? I would be fine with a plastic mag too if it could handle the longer OAL.

Otherwise Pmags work, it's just annoying.

It's too bad they didn't design these to take m14 magazines, those are a better design.

Gunmagwarehouse has a few metal mags under 30 bucks...

Which would you recommend? I see a Ruger SR-762, ASC, Promag, and Duramag. Based on what I've seen in handguns, I don't know if I can trust Promag. I've never seen such a horseshit follower design in my life. I didn't even know Ruger made magazines, never heard of them.

So reading through the reviews, it sounds like Ruger SR-762 magazines are just Duramags. So how do ASC magazines perform?

I've had good luck with the D&H metal mags, not in the SFAR though. Not sure what the loaded round max length is with them.

I've only used lancer mags in my sfar.
I merely gave a source of cheap(er) magazines.

If anyone knows of a source for ALUMINUM ar10 mags, let me know!

It seems I may have been too quick to blame the Duramag's. I took the upper off and looked at the bolt catch, and I did not see any reason why it should not work perfectly. I put the upper back on and again it seemed like it would not budge. I then just gave it some grunt and sure enough it released. I did it a few times, and it seemed to get easier. I took the upper back off, and looked to see where it might be rubbing. I then put the Pmag in and could see the problem. The problem is the slot for the bolt release has a ton of play in it, and with the bolt pushing forward, it is jammed up against the back of the magazine. With the Pmag, it has just enough room, or at least the plastic is slippery enough that it works fine. They fit pretty loose in the mag well, and they have some more cutout in the top backside. With the Duramag they are a much better fit for the magwell, but this also puts them closer to the bolt catch. There are a couple small ribs on the back that it is catching on.

So I guess there is more than one way of looking at this. The Pmag, which the SFAR comes with works fine, so maybe the Duramag is too big. Another way of looking at it is the SFAR is out of spec and it is the problem. I don't know what the spec is, but there is a decent amount of slop in that catch, using a feeler gauge a .008" is pretty tight, a .007" would fit. That's only on the pivot side pin, there's not much I can do about the groove the catch rides in.

I guess I have a few options.

#1 do nothing and hope the magazines break in. Maybe use a little grease.

#2 shim the bolt catch at the pivot, which may or may not help

#3 file down the ridge of the magazine on the back.

#4 file the front of the bolt catch a little on the spots it rubs.

#5 replace the bolt catch. I'd probably call Ruger first.


After writing that all out, what I think I'm going to do is nothing. Ignore my problems as usual. If they don't break in a little, I'm going to call Ruger and ask for another bolt catch. If that doesn't fit better, I'm going to file the bolt catch a little. It's not like it is way off, I bet .005" off the face of that thing and it would clear the magazine. I'm sure it will be fine.

So as of now I'm going to stick with Duramag's. It's not a promising start, but the magazines do seem quality, and they offer a really good OAL. I tried all 5 Duramag's I got, and all seem identical. One I ran the release on a dozen times and it sure seems to be getting easier.

Larue mags have the exact same issue.  I just don't use those in my SFAR.  Pretty simple fix.

Tony

Duramags operate fine in my SFAR

I sent an email to Ruger today asking if they would send me a new bolt catch.

I did some more shooting today with the SFAR. I used mostly 175gr SMK, some Reloader 15, some IMR 4895. I also shot the rest of the 180gr with AR Comp. I did not have enough Lake City cases prepped to load all of it, so about half was LC, half was more Federal.

I had zero issues with extraction, no rims ripped off. The ones with IMR 4895 were fairly light loads, and they required setting 3 to lock open the bolt. All the rest worked great on setting 2. Unfortunately it still seems to be hard on brass even though I must be close to 150 rounds fired through the rifle. It should be as broke in as it needs by now. I'm not seeing any improvement with Lake City brass, they look identical to the Federal brass. Some are acceptable, but enough cases come out with what appears to be slightly bent rims that basically ruins them for reloading. I think I'm going to try some real fast powder like Accurate 2200 just to see if there is any change that way. Either way, it's starting to look like I'm going to be sending this into Ruger.

The accuracy is prenominal for what it is. I have not done a single thing to the rifle yet, just tried a few random loads. From what I'm seeing, this is capable of 10 shot groups under 1.5" at 100 yards.

The Duramags ran fine, zero issues.

You should contact Ruger about it chewing the crap out of LC brass. Mine does not do this. I use 8208 powder with no issues. Can you post a picture of the LC brass that got chewed up?

I wouldn't say it is chewing it up. It's not like some pictures online where it's shaving brass or doing anything like that. It's just pulling really hard on the rim and bending them. Some you can hardly see, some are more noticeable. One time it even ripped the rim off and stuck in the chamber. That case pushed out super easy with a rod, so it wasn't the ammo's fault. I'm not seeing any difference between Federal or LC brass, and the gas settings aren't fixing it. I've got some ideas, but I'm just going to let Ruger work it out.

Are the 20" guns w/ more gas dwell time chewing up less gas brass?

My 20" 6.5CM seems OK

The brass from my 16" looks pretty much identical to the picture above. I'll post pictures soon.

I have a suspicion my issue is a rough chamber. If you look at my first post you will see a borescope of my throat, and it has burrs. My guess is their chamber reamer was beyond it's last legs when they made mine.

Here are some brass pictures. These are all mixed together, so I have no idea what cases were used with what loads. The only exception is the Federal cases with blue primer sealant were factory Federal 175gr SMK ammo.

On the left is Federal brass, and on the right is Lake City brass. I can't tell one bit of difference between them. They all look fine from the top, just some shiny spots from the ejectors, but nothing out of the ordinary.




Here's the issue I have, it is bending a lot of the rims. This is a Federal case.



This is a Lake City case.




I went through and tried to find the worst one I had, and it turned out to be a Lake City case.



Although this is worse, this is the case that sheared off and had to be knocked out. This was a Federal case.




While digging through the brass I did find some that had some burrs from either the ejector or extractor. Nothing too crazy, and nothing I would worry about. It seems rare, maybe 1 in 50 cases.





I'm not seeing any pattern to the brass brand, or load. It just seems to be similar for all of them. I believe it to be a rifle issue.

I took some pictures as I was cleaning the barrel. Here's how the burr's are looking in the throat after about 150 rounds and 3 cleanings. They are wearing away, but not super fast.







I looked at my chamber closer, and yep, she's pretty rough in some spots. The bottom 3/4 looks great. The last 1/4 before the shoulder looks mildly rough, but not horrible. The shoulder looks horrendous. And the neck looks good again. I'm going to give the chamber a good cleaning so I can see better, then send the pictures to Ruger to see what they want to do.

Here is the last bit right before the shoulder.



Here is the shoulder.

I do get those burrs decently common, as well.  Doesn't appear to affect anything, and at first I though it might be pressure sign - but now I'm not so sure, and it might just be over vigorous extraction rotation- maybe.  But I do see that.  So far, no issue with my rims, unless overgassed. LC doesn't make 6.5CM brass, so no data on that brand - and as noted FC is a known soft-head brass.

You might try polishing your chamber.  

Tony

I'm not going to start down that path. There sure seem to be three kinds of SFAR owners right now.

Those who got a perfect one and are happy.

Those who got one with problems, and sent them into be fixed and are happy.

Those who tried to outsmart the engineer and put in different buffers, and moved the gas port and other nonsense, and are pissed their Frankenstein doesn't work.



If nothing else, Ruger needs to see and work on these problems so they are not problems in the future.

I can agree with that.   I'll probably return to the SFAR when Ruger has had some time to work out its issues.   Gen7 or so, I'm guessing.

Has anyone successfully cutdown their Creedmoor barrel yet?

I'm wanting to do a 16" - got a spare FF RAS Long and a riflespeed gas block.

Local guy is selling a 308 for 750 bucks, allegedly fixed by Ruger at least once. I just refuse to buy a brand new gun to mod the crap out of so might rework the barrel extension or wait for more unhappy SFAR owners to show up.

Tromix is making barrels.