Bought my wife a Ruger American Compact in .243Win (she took a feral hog with it) and my son will use it to hunt feral hog over Thanksgiving. I have had a few observations.
1. Best of the budget "drilled out steel tube receiver + spring-loaded ejector and extractor" rifles on the market, after all is said and done. I compared them all value, fit, finish-wise, but only shot the Ruger.
2. Can be "balls-on dead accurate" if everything is done just right. Or, at least sub-MOA with the right ammo.
3. Synthetic stock will cause flyers if you touch the forend beyond magazine while shooting. The forend of the synth stock is so flimsy, even the weight of the rifle on a sand bag will turn it from a "free float" bbl to a "random upward pressure location from forearm" bbll, thoroughly harshing your mellow.
4. Synthetic stock makes the use of a sling as a shooting aid worthless/counterproductive. And makes the corpse of Jeff Cooper cry.
5. Many, MANY youtube videos showing ways to stiffen up the forearm. Do please avoid the one where they guy pours 2lbs of rockite in the forearm. I will use JB Weld or some such plus carbon fiber arrow shafts after the Thanksgiving hunt to modify the stock, as aftermarket wood stocks cost over 50% of what I paid for the rifle new.
6. Stock pre-installed weaver scope rail mounts work great.
7. The non-98mauser hollow steel tube action makes rifle administration a PITA, relative to a 98mauser action. The removable magazine is OK, but the teeny-tiny viewing/ejection port plus spring loaded extractor & ejector make for a cranky wife and lots of dropped ammo. Especially when she sees me doing no-drama administrative loading/unloading with my CZ550. Much harder to administer than a Rem700 action. If you don't drop the formerly chambered round, you end up doing the "rotate the rifle and shake to get the MF-ing round out of the receiver." So choose: dropped live rounds into dirt or play "rifle twister."
8. Very easy to short-stroke the action (given action feel), so make sure you slap the bolt back and forth like James Brown would his woman: good and hard, cause the b***h already done short-stroked twice at the range.
9. Can jam it up if you don't give it the James Brown treatment. Slow & gentle bolt travel will get you jammed up backtalk.
======================================
I will likely cure the forearm problem after Thanksgiving. My son already zeroed it and we will be shooting from a blind, so no sling aid needed for the upcoming hog hunt. The PITA (administrative-wise) action will never be fixable. I think that the action makes it less suitable for rifle newbies, given the extra care that must be taken to keep ammo out of the dirt and the muzzle pointed in a safe direction. And the tendency for newbies to be tentative with actions. Add in poor light due to twilight or pre-dawn conditions for added drama.
In the end, this will end up my son's or daughter's rifle and I will get my wife a rifle of a better quality/design. The two options (given her size) are the Browning Micro Midas X-bolt lefty in either .243Win or .308Win and a lefty Ruger Scout Rifle in .308Win. I can see where the decision will lie for her: lighter weight and handiness of the Browning vs the easier admin of the Ruger Scout.
The Ruger American Rifle is in no way an equivalent replacement for their Hawkeye/M77MkII line of rifles. Don't kid yourself. The action alone precludes it from being such. It is a lot of rifle for the money. "For the money," being a very significant modifier to "lot of rifle."
