Ruger SFAR

Well, hit it a couple times over there. So we're shooting the new Ruger SF-AR over there at 330 yards, I believe it's a 15 inch plate. Not the best display of marksmanship, but I thought it might be fun to see the tracers zipping out there, 7.62 by 51, 308 of course. So we're gonna take a look at this rifle today and kinda talk about it a little bit, run through the specs and everything, and give you my opinion on it. And we're gonna walk down there and shoot, of course. But first, I wanna remind you to, all right, let's walk down there, put it on the table, and I'll shoot a few more of these tracers. All right, I think I have a few left in the magazine. Let's see, yeah, I got about four or five. Let's go ahead and take out that center block up there. Let's see, we're gonna put one on the, well, I'm gonna go ahead and shoot a two later. Maybe you'll still see the tracer, I don't know. The orange one on the left. Oops, hit a turkey down there. Oh well, lateral damage. All right, let's put one on the big square. All right, there we go. A few tracers to start us off. Figured I'd bring some tracers out since it just rained, so there's not as much of a risk of catching the woods on fire, which if you've not shot tracers before, they do tend to burn pretty hot and you can catch stuff on fire, so definitely be aware of that. There's a little PSA for you. All right, the SF, the Ruger SFAR AR-10. SFAR stands for small frame auto rifle. I was very disappointed when I found out it did not stand for special forces assault rifle. How are people gonna take me seriously with my small frame AR, you know? That'd be a much cooler name. But it's a pretty interesting concept from Ruger. Basically what they set out to do was make an AR-10, which are notoriously much larger, of course, than a standard AR-15, M16 style rifle, and they tried to scale it down and make it as small and light as possible, but really the most impressive thing to me is the price. Even if it wasn't lighter, I mean, 1,200 bucks for an AR-10, around about, that's pretty impressive. I mean, that's one thing that Ruger is famous for, making strong, robust firearms for an affordable price. So that's really, to me, the most impressive part about this thing. I mean, you can easily spend $3,000 on a nice AR-10, so that's pretty impressive. But as you see here, I may not show great on camera, but you have basically a standard AR-15 sized rail. It's not big and chunky like some AR-10s. You've got, of course, M-LOK there. Seems to be where everything is kinda going. Versus the Keymod, you obviously have the bigger Magwell because you have the bigger magazines. But as far as the thickness on the lower, the back of the lower receiver, and for the most part, even the upper receiver, you know, kinda has the same profile, basically, as your standard AR-15. This thing weighs in at 7.3 pounds, which, so when I first picked it up, now you still got the heavy barrel, of course, which you gotta kinda have to have for this cartridge, the 308, it didn't strike me as being that light. I was like, okay, it kinda feels heavy. But the more I've messed with it, it feels very barrel heavy for that reason. But technically, well not technically, it is lighter than an M16A1, which kinda messes with my head a little bit because I've messed with those, I have one, and you pick them up and they just feel like a toy almost. And this one doesn't, but I think it's partly just because of it being so barrel heavy, right? So it doesn't strike me as being super light. But it is, 7.3 pounds. I mean, an M16A1 is like 7.8 or something like that. So it's pretty light for an AR-10. I have to say, that part of it is pretty impressive. And you got this nice muzzle brake on there, which really helps to increase the tinnitus. And then also does have a added benefit of reducing recoil, which is also nice, you know? So you'll be, your shoulder will feel great, but your ears will not. All right, it's the trade-off that we have to, well, it's trade-offs that we have to accept in life. All right, and we've got a SIG Red Dot on here. Take a few more shots with it. Stuff up here, pretty sweet shooting gun, not a bad trigger. So it jumps around a little bit more than other AR-10s I've had experience with, but it's not enough to really outweigh the gains of it being lighter. I mean, it's not bad, it's really not bad at all. And you've got this four-position gas adjustment here, counting off, we've got three different positions. It's set up in three right now, which they say to leave it in until it gets broken in, and then you're supposed to put it down to two, and then one for if you're running it over there. Okay, so you've got the 110 twist. Like I said, the biggest thing you notice is that it's very barrel-heavy. And again, that's, again, part of the trade-off, right? You gotta have a big, chunky barrel on a .308. This is the 20-inch model, and it has the rifle-length gas system. Magpul furniture, grip, stock. You know, it seems like, I like that. I don't care if the company has their own whatever proprietary stuff. I mean, I like the Magpul stuff. I've always thought the Magpul grips feel really nice. So that's cool to see, and obviously that's something you can change out without any problem. I know one of the, you know, if I owned this rifle, I think one of the first things I would do, they put a different charging handle on it, .308s. Now they say that the bolt, let's see, let's grab around and pull that out real quick. They say that the bolt carrier group and everything on this rifle is the same profile as a standard M16. It's hard to believe, but yeah, it more or less is. So it's pretty impressive. I don't mean to be like trying to sell this gun, but it is impressive. If an AR-10 is something that you've always been looking to get, but you're, you know, deterred by the weight. Now, I will say though, even though it's lighter, you still got the issue of the ammo, right? So, you know, with something like this, an AR-10 style rifle, I would assume that someone who buys this is thinking kind of like tactically, right? You know, it could be used for hunting, of course, but I would think that would be kind of like the number one use of something like this. So you're probably gonna, so carrying lots of ammo is something that would matter. So do you gain a ton by having the lightest AR-10 possible when you've got all this heavy ammo to carry? Maybe, maybe you do. I've never been in the military and carried a rifle for miles and miles and miles. So maybe you do, but that's something to think about. I feel like people forget that very important factor. Ammo is very heavy. That's one advantage of 5.56 ARs you can carry. I feel like so much ammo, so much easier. All right, well, let's do this thing a few more times. Let's go over there and try to pop some of these red steel plates over there. Start on the big one. The second most big one. Let's see, should we do the smallest one? Let's do the third most big one over there. Right now, let's try the little tiny one. But it's not even that much smaller than the other one. All right, I let it get in my head how small it was. Let's see, what else do we have over there? Kind of shot up everything. Oh, we got a couple things full of water here. So it's pretty nice for what it is. Like I said, of course, the muzzle brake helps with recoil and tinnitus. As always, it makes it, you know, it shoots kind of like the heavier ones, like the bigger, heavier AR-10s I've had don't necessarily shoot that much smoother than one of these. Do you think the muzzle brake probably plays a big role in that? It's a, yeah, I mean, it's a nice rifle. It's definitely worth looking at. You know, I feel like Kruger is a name that, you know, has a good reputation that I would kind of trust for the most part. Like if I saw this and it was a brand I'd never heard of for that price, you know, I'd want to be skeptical. You know, how do you make an AR-10 for, you know, around 1,000 bucks, especially one that's, you know, this much lighter and everything, you know, but Kruger is pretty good about pulling off stuff like that. So if anyone could do it, I would say they could. You know, there's not a lot to hate about this rifle. You know, again, it's just you have to decide how much does that matter to you that it is lighter? You know, what are you gonna be using it for? And keep in mind that the ammo is still very heavy, but nice trigger, pretty shootable. Again, this one has the 20 inch barrel. If the weight, of course, is a huge factor to you, you're probably gonna want to get the 16 inch barrel model, which I believe is 6.8 pounds instead of 7.3. So again, you know, it's a little bit lighter as you would expect with a shorter barrel. That's how it works, science and all that stuff. But there you go. Hope you enjoyed this little look at the SFAR Kruger AR-10 and see you guys next time. Oh yeah, that's better. This is a great gun for defense. Oh hey, didn't see you guys there. While I've got you here, I wanna remind you of our friends over at Talon Grips and Ballistol. Talon Grips makes grips, can you believe it, for all different types of firearms. You can get rough texture or more of a rubberized texture. Just sticks right on there. You know, really affordable, really cool option to improve the grip for your handguns or rifles. So please check them out at TalonGunGrips.com. You'll be glad you did. And also, Ballistol. Dad has been using Ballistol for many years. It's a cleaner and a lubricant and it's non-toxic. It works really great and we're happy to have them on board since it's been a part of our shooting endeavor for a very long time. So go to Ballistol.com, TalonGunGrips.com. And also, while you're out there, I'm juggling all these things here. Also, while you're on the internet, please do check out our other social media like Hickok45 on Facebook. There's also Hickok45 on Twitter. TheRealHickok45 on Instagram. There's a John underscore Hickok45 on Instagram where I do some things. There's Hickok45.com. You can find us also on Gunstreamer. So check out all that stuff and then watch more videos.