The Heritage Arms Rough Rider Carbine is a rimfire, revolver rifle. It comes in 22LR and is an odd little fellow. I picked this one up from Cabela’s/Bass Pro cause it was on sale and because, of my 500 reviews written so far, I haven’t reviewed any revolver rifles before.
Specifications:
- 16″ barrel
- “Tactical rancher” comes with a black stock and nylon sling (gross)
- Regular version comes with plain sights and walnut stock, no sling swivels
- Better version comes with buckhorn sights and leather sling (I’d suggest that they should call this one the “Deluxe” version or something)
I’ve got the slightly fancier version with buckhorn sights and leather sling. I’m pretty sure you could drop in the 6 shot 22 WMR cylinder as well if you wanted a bit more pep.
Shooting the Rancher Carbine in 22LR
To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of revolvers, single action even less so. While I have a Ruger Wrangler (review here), it’s far from my favorite gun to shoot.
Loading and unloading is tedious. Every round goes in one at a time, every empty case has to come out one at a time.
Cocking the hammer comes with a satisfying series of clicks. The Heritage Rough Rider action of the hammer is more authentic to the Colt Single Action Army that it mimics but then they ruin all that with a manual flag safety on the left hand side. I prefer how Ruger managed to get rid of the 2 half cock positions by using a firing pin transfer plate as their safety. It’s less intrusive and simpler though less true to the Single Action Army than the Heritage system.
But then there’s the reason why revolver rifles never got popular: the cylinder gap problem. On a revolver handgun, this is not an issue: your hands are back behind the gap so who cares? On a rifle, it’s kind of nice to support the forend with your support hand but that’s not possible with revolver rifles. Instead, there’s a little hook under the trigger guard that you’ve got to get used to hanging on to with your left hand and not supporting the gun up front. This will hurt any serious attempts at off-hand accuracy.
Not that you were going to be accurate anyways. For close-in or low accuracy shots, the rifle is fine but you’re not going to be sniping grouse heads easily with this rifle at further than 10 yards. The sights: either the gutter or buckhorn options are not great for accuracy either. Better than a handgun for sure but not as good as what you’d find on most 22 rifles these days. My rifle came with the buckhorn sights but they were bent off to one side from the factory and they don’t appear to be super durable.
The velocity loss on this revolver rifle was really shocking. I saw an average 300 fps loss of velocity on 2 different types of ammo compared to what they got out of a semi auto 22lr. That cylinder gap steals so much pressure.
If you’re going to get one of these, the version with sling studs and an included leather sling is worth the extra $50 in my opinion.
Is this a practical rifle for small game hunting?
No. A more modern semi auto 22LR will be lighter, easier to load, will have more accurate sight options, will have better velocity, and you can support the forend like a real rifle which will give you more stability when shooting off-hand.
CAN you use this rifle for small game hunting? Sure, anything’s possible.
Who’s this rifle for?
Someone who already has 20+ guns. Or cowboy re-enactors.
