Looking for opinions on this rifle and how well it works with AR mags.  I am not looking for a high end bolt gun, but I do want one in 5.56, that is affordable and comes with iron sights.  I have also considered the Ruger American but it does not come with sights.  I have seen a couple of reviews that had feeding issues with the mags but I am not sure if that gets better with use.  Thanks for your help.

Nodak Spud now offers sights for the Ruger American Ranch 5.56, if that helps.


ETA: Not trying to steer you away from the Mossberg. I have the MVP patrol in .308 and it's been 100% great. I just don't have any experience with the 5.56 version.

I'd opt for the Ruger, and get a set of the NDS sights.....

god how many times .... bolded the important parts.

They are a gimmick rifle of pretty sad build quality apart from the receiver and bolt. The factory barrel was like 5 miles of dirt road, took forever to copper in after cleaning. Factory barrel didn't last long either and was finicky about ammo. With the right stuff it'd group nuts tight. With anything else it'd play shotgun games. It also spit out extractors like it was on sale. After the 4th one they suddenly stopped breaking. I think all the steel case ammo was not good for it since it was on the 4th extractor that I stopped using steel case/steel jacketed garbage ammo in it and went to running purely brass cased handloads.

I got mine (originally a 24" MVP Varmint .223) just to kill huge numbers of Belding's ground squirrels because of the AR-15 mags. It did ok at that as long as range wasn't too long. The factory stock on the varmint model is good laminated wood but the bedding block was a shit pile of plastic that really wounded the consistency and lead to a lot of flyers. After I burned out the factory barrel (hard to do on a .223 without effort but I used a ton of copper washed steel jacketed bullets and those just ATE the rifling out of it) I replaced the 9-twist with a 7-twist that's 26 inch instead of the factory 24 inch. I also replaced the recoil lug with a flat ground unit and the factory round barrel nut with a 12-point barrel nut. Then I replaced the stock with a MDT LSS and XLR butt stock and a PSG-1 type grip. I don't like blade triggers so I replaced that too. Now it's a totally shootable rifle which I quite like other than the mag length limitation makes it effectively impossible to get the most out of a .223 since you can't load long and feed from the mag.

I have the LR-T model that came with the OD green vertical gripped stock with adjustable cheek piece.  I never had any issues loading rounds out of the provided PMAG or with aluminum Colt 20 rounders.  I don't like the center flapper type triggers so that was a must change for me.  That's the only MUST change thing about the rifle that I saw.

I ended up modifying mine a lot more because that's what I do.
Factory after I SBR'd it.


How it sits now with the same chopped factory barrel.


CHRIS

Thanks for the help.  I kinda figured that the ruger might be a better rifle.  Sorry if this question has been asked a million times before.  

The MVP Predator 223 that I had shot way better than the Ruger American Ranch that I had.  I ended up selling both of them and building a Remage setup.

The only thing I liked better on the Ruger was the action.  The stock on the Mossberg was much nicer and accuracy was well under MOA while the Ruger wouldn't get close to MOA, even with match ammo.

If you are just going out to have fun, either will do, but I would get a Tikka Varmint for precision.

I have the MVP Patrol rifle in both 5.56 and 7.62 and love them.  I actually took a bear last year with the 7.62.  Great gun, no issues with the mags at all and very accurate with the right loads.  I had a Ruger American 308 and sold it because the MVP out shot it all day long.

Having had both I sold the Ruger and still have the mvp. Nice little gun I had the barrel chopped to 16.5 and threaded for the kids.