The Ruger SFAR has eliminated many of the drawbacks people have about AR 10 rifles. SFAR stands for Small-Frame Autoloading Rifle and is living up to its name. Cost and weight of the rifle are a couple of those drawbacks that Ruger has taken head on. The company has produced a high quality AR 10 rifle at an affordable price with a lot of great features.
I’ve wanted an AR 10 rifle for years but was never able to find the exact one I was willing to spend money on. Guns can be expensive and I don’t like wasting money on something I don’t really like.
After doing a lot of research online about the Ruger SFAR and handling a couple of them in different gun stores, I finally decided to take the chance and get one. I was not disappointed in my decision after taking it to the range for the first time.
Ruger has not sacrificed durability when saving weight. Chambered in 7.62 NATO / .308 Win., the SFAR combines the ballistic advantages of .308 Winchester but is nearly identical in size to a traditional 5.56-caliber modern sporting rifle.
Most AR 10 rifles are much heavier when compared to an AR 15 with the exception of a very few and very high priced models. The SFAR is the lightest AR 10 rifle, weighing in at just over six pounds which is about the same as most AR 15s. If you compare the Ruger AR 10 to most AR 15 rifles, you will notice a lot of similarities.
The bolt carrier assembly is a chrome-lined 8620 steel bolt carrier and nitride-processed gas key staked in place. The titanium firing pin has been DLC-coated and the bolt includes dual ejectors and an optimized extractor. This helps to ensure positive extraction and ejection of the spent case through the enlarged ejection port.
The barrel of the Ruger SFAR is made from 4140 chrome-moly steel and is cold hammer-forged with ultra-precise 5R rifling. It is also a heavy profile barrel instead of being a lightweight pencil profile barrel. However, the Ruger SFAR is still lighter than most other AR 10 rifles that use the lighter barrel.
Ruger cut weight by shrinking down the upper and lower receivers as well as using a thin handguard. The parts like the barrel that need to be heavy are left heavy and they saved weight in other ways.