I just got myself a Ruger Gunsite Scout Rifle – Rugers attempt to mass-produce what Jeff Cooper came up with in his attempt to design the perfect all-around rifle. I first noticed it on recent trip to my local firearms dealer and immediately fell in love with it, so after a few days of searching the web and reading about the pros and cons I decided to head back and pick it up.
During my usual initial cleaning and close inspection, I noticed the magazine looks kinda familiar. One thing many people criticized about the Ruger GSR was its use of proprietary magazines instead of using more commonly available M14 magazines. The magazine supplied with the rifle is actually a re-branded Accuracy-Mag, a very good and reliable magazine, but also quite expensive. They’re also in use with short-action AICS stocks and AE MK2 precision rifles. And apparently, also in my Savage 10 BA…
While the Savage magazine has no markings on it, it’s almost identical to the one supplied by Ruger. And sure enough, the magazines seem to be interchangeable, lock in place and feed perfectly as far as I can tell. You can switch the 10 round .308 short-action AICS box magazines from one rifle to the other without any modification being necessary. The Ruger magazine works with my Savage 10 BA and the Savage magazine works just as well in my Ruger Scout. At least that makes it a little easier for me justify shelling out 70-100 bucks per mag.
That said, the Ruger magazine was the out-of-the-box probably the dirtiest gun part I ever laid my hands on. Although it was supposed to be new, the inside was completely covered in what appeared to be some sort of oily black carbon, grime or something. The farther down the mag a round was, the dirtier it came back out, leaving the last 2-3 rounds almost completely unrecognizable and covered in black grease. I had to disassemble the magazine and rinse it with WD-40 before I could use it without leaving black fingerprints all over the place.
Can’t wait for Ruger to come out with the “low cost” 5 round polymer magazine they’re said to be working on. If they fit into my Savage as well, that would be kinda awesome.
Update: Since Google brings quite a few people to this site, searching for compatible magazines / equivalents – here’s what it boils down to: AICS .308 magazines should work with your Accuracy International .308 rifles, your Ruger Gunsite Scout and your Savage 10 BA rifle (and vice versa of course). They’re basically identical except for the markings.