P1 First Person: My gear at the VTAC courses

By Andrew L. Butts
Supervisory Border Patrol Agent
U.S. Border Patrol Academy
Firearms Training Division

I recently had the chance to take Viking Tactics’ Carbine 1.5 course as well as the follow-on Street Fighter course taught by Kyle Lamb and held in Arizona. I used Ruger’s SR556 series for both classes and wanted to pass on my thoughts and experiences with the Ruger piston system.

Ruger entered the piston AR market about two years ago with the introduction of the SR556. The SR556 might look like a conventional AR on the outside but it uses a two-stage gas piston to cycle the bolt rather than the direct impingement gas tube found in a traditional AR. Ruger’s engineers did their homework and this piston design is solid and dependable. The gun comes essentially ready to run out of the box and includes three magazines as well as Troy sights. Upon its release, the SR556 was met with skepticism but has been a good seller for Ruger and was soon followed by the SR556C. The “C” is a slightly lighter variant with a fluted barrel and integral flash hider. Late in 2010, Ruger introduced the SR556 in 6.8 Remington SPC and no doubt has other caliber offerings in the works.

During the Carbine 1.5 class, I took in March of 2010, I ran an original SR556. The gun worked perfectly except for one fat round that wouldn’t chamber and a shooter-induced stovepipe. Given Ruger’s relative newness to the market at that time, I expected to be the only shooter using one and was surprised to see another Ruger in the course . I talked to this shooter briefly and he mentioned that his gun had been running properly once lubed. I kept my SR556 well greased with Brian Enos Slide Glide and wasn’t disappointed by my equipment, even when dusty and dirty.

During Street Fighter, I used Ruger’s SR556 in 6.8 Remington SPC. This gun had been on the market for about six months and generated quite a stir when it first hit. Most of the stir was negative — shooters and potential consumers grousing about Ruger’s choice to embrace the SAAMI chamber rather than the wildcat SPCII chamber. Once that fervor died down, I thought it’d be a good opportunity to run the 6.8 to see how it would stand on its own merits. I was also curious to see how the 6.8 would handle and feel based on my past training experiences with the .223 little brother.

I contacted Mark Gurney (Production Manager at Ruger) and told him what I wanted to do. He thought it was a good idea and contacted Hornady to see if they’d be interested in helping me out with some 6.8 ammo. Hornady agreed and sent nearly 1,000 rounds for me to use in the class. I topped the rifle off with Leupold’s MR/T 1.5-5x20mm scope with the new CM-R2 reticle.

The Leupold MR/T line has been around for awhile and is part of Leupold’s excellent Mark 4 series. Previously the 1.5-5x20mm was only available with the SPR reticle, which is a small center aiming dot surrounded by a large circle. While I like the SPR reticle and think it’s fast and intuitive, it doesn’t lend itself to easy range finding or shooting at known distances. The CM-R2 reticle features a .5 MOA center aiming dot surrounded by a horseshoe. The horseshoe has horizontal stadia lines extending left and right off the center horseshoe and one vertical line directly below the horseshoe. The vertical stadia lines have tic marks for quick aiming and reference out to 900 yards. This new reticle is also going to be available in the CQ/T 1-3x14mm and may be offered as a special option through Leupold’s custom shop. Eye relief is forgiving and I had no problems with parallax at 100 yards even when shooting from junkyard and broke back mountain prone. Both of these positions place the shooter’s head up and away from the comb of the stock and can make getting a consistent sight picture difficult.

During Street Fighter, I had several failures to feed with the 6.8 SPC and traced these to the C Products mags that Ruger ships with the gun. The C Products followers had become sluggish inside the tubes due to dirt and sand. The mags have too much contact between the magazine tubes and followers and the magazine springs seem relatively weak. After a few drops in the sand during reload drills the followers started sticking and dragging and caused a number of nosedive failures to feed. I replaced the 6.8 C Products mags with magazines from PRI and Barrett and haven’t had a problem since.

While the 6.8 is a pleasant little cartridge and is very easy on the shooter, I did note that the SR556 in this caliber has more muzzle flip than I’m used to. With my SR556 in .223, I can easily lean into the gun and “hose.” While the 6.8 doesn’t really push me off target, my splits felt slow and I did notice that I had to pull the muzzle back on target after each shot. But that slight increase in muzzle rise does have a payoff. In the Street Fighter course, we shot a number of the drills on steel targets from 20-25 yards or so. At these distances, the “whack factor” against the plates is substantially higher than that of the .223.

I know that’s a subjective statement, but a number of my classmates remarked at the impact of the 6.8’s heavier bullets. We also shot some car bodies and the penetration characteristics of the 6.8 impressed all of us. I believe the 6.8 deserves a look as a law enforcement cartridge. Hornady’s ammo proved to be accurate and clean burning and their TAP load would make an excellent choice for most patrol operations. Hornady has announced that they’re adding a new 120gr SST load to their 6.8 line and this will no doubt prove to be another good choice for duty use, especially where penetration against car bodies is a priority.

The only market not yet covered is that of practice ammo. There is currently no source that I know of for inexpensive training ammo. It’s my belief that this is what’s keeping the 6.8 from becoming a household word. Debates over SPCII versus SAAMI chambers aside, at the typical engagement distances in this class, minute details of chamber design were irrelevant; the 6.8 hit hard and the piston driven SR-556/6.8 proved to be an ideal carbine for the urban combat scenarios presented in VTAC’s Street Fighter.

After running two Ruger piston guns in two different VTAC classes, I’m impressed with Ruger’s AR platform. Both guns were reliable, durable, and accurate at the distances involved. I’m glad Ruger went with the extended forend as it allows plenty of room to mount a sling and flashlight and lets me get my support hand as far forward as possible. The gas system still gets dirty but, since it’s separate from the bolt, the fouling stays out of the upper receiver. The gas system vents under the forend which does make the external surfaces difficult to clean but it also keeps the vented gasses away from mounted accessories. On the negative side, the Ruger AR’s are slightly front heavy and don’t balance quite as well as I’d prefer. But that additional weight does help keep the muzzle on target during recoil. Ruger has addressed the weight issue with the SR556C and I’m hoping they’ll use fluted barrels on future models.

My thanks go to the fine folks at Ruger, Hornady, and Leupold for helping make this review possible. I’d also like to thank Kyle Lamb and his staff for the excellent job at organizing and instructing these courses. I am very much looking forward to attending more VTAC classes in the future.

Good guns, good ammo, good optics and good training. What more can a guy ask for?

More info on Kyle and his various classes can be found here.