Disillusioned with Ruger MarkII

U

Upjohn

Inactive
Does anybody else have with the Ruger MarkII jamming. Mine has fired less than 500 rounds and seems to be getting worse at jamming with an empty shell wedging under the recoil rod which extends into the port on the left side when the bolt is back.

This is happening every two to four shots. I have several magazines and it seems to make no difference which mags or what brand ammo is used. I have used Remington, Winchester, Federal CCI and they all seem to do the same way.

Could this be an ejection problem? Shouldn't the empty shell be out of the gun before the bolt comes forward to load another?

Do any of you have any suggestions other than shipping it to Ruger. People keep telling me that it is not broken in yet. With it jamming continually, it would be hard to shoot it enough to break it in.

Thanks
Upjohn
 
Gretings Upjohn, As with ANY autoloader, they
must be kept clean. Take an old toothbrush with you to the range, and keep the breech
clean. A small build up of debris will jam a
new weapon to death!!! :eek: I own a Ruger MK-II KMK-512, and it is absolutely a fine
firearm. :D There is the remote possibility
that you may have gotten a "lemon" from the
factory; but that would be a rare circumstance. :)

Regards,
Ala Dan, N.R.A. Life Member
 
Have you tried changing brands of ammo?Go to something witrh higher velocities and see if that helps.

------------------
beemerb
We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world;
and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men
every day who don't know anything and can't read.
-Mark Twain
 
I have to say that you probably did get a lemon, and would send it back to the factory for a look see. Check to see if your extractor is ok, and clean it again, but I have never had a semi-auto pistol jam on me right out of the box. I have a ruger 22/44, as I understand it basically the same gun, and did not experience the need for a brake in period with it either. And yes, as soon as the slide hits full recoil, the empty should have been, or in the process of being ejected.
 
I think you may have gotten a bad one. The one I use all the time is great, but it does tend to not feed the 2nd round in the magazine, but thats because of the shape of the .22lr. But other than that I have not had that problem that you are talking about. You should drop Ruger a line.
 
The only misfeed problem that I ever had with my Mark II was when I used PMC .22 ammo and kept firing more and more ammo when I should have cleaned the pistol. After a good cleaning and subsequent cleanings, I have never had another problem.

------------------
NRA Life Member
Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners(MCRGO)
 
A Mk II should work like a clock with no break-in period required. So, like the others have said, it also sounds to me like you got a lemon. But, what makes a lemon? Usually a broken, misadjusted, or missing part. If you can figure it out yourself, you'll save a lot of hassle by not having to send it back for repair.

Does the bolt slide back and forth with no binding at all? Remove all oil and grease from everywhere in and around the bolt and see if that helps. You can use a spray degreaser to do this.

Is the ejector in place and not broken or bent?

Does the extractor function with no binding? It doesn't have a strong spring, but it should be able to pull the shell out of the chamber reliably every time. If you retract the bolt slowly with a shell in the chamber, the extractor should pull it all the way out. The shell will probably fall out once it clears the chamber, but that's normal. Obviously, you want to this with the utmost of safety in mind. Use a spent shell if possible or use a live round only in a safe location such as at a range.

If the extractor does seem to be binding, you can easily take the bolt out and remove the extractor to check for burrs or binds. It's a simple operation, but you might need to get a friend who is familiar with it for the first time.

In general the Mk II is a reliable gun, so I know how frustrating it is to have problems lkie you have. Good luck.
 
I currently own 4 Mark II's in different configurations and have owned several others . I have never had 1 jam with any of them and I have abused a couple of them . I would send it back to the factory if you are sure it is clean and you are using good standard or high velocity ammo [subsonic will sometimes not cycle the action] . Good luck , Mike...
 
Upjohn, I own a really, really old Mk II Government Target Model. So old that the serial number prefix is not even listed at the Ruger website! They begin their listings at 211 or 212 as I recall and my prefix is 210. This Mk II is so old that the folks at Ruger are not even willing to admit that they ever manufactured it! That said, I can tell you that they do jam on occasion and that they are sensitive to magazines, lead bullets, and to accumulated dirt. The more you fall off the wagon in any of these three areas, the more frequently it will jam. The jam is most likely to occur in my Mk II with the second round, which is the first one that is "automatically" fed. When you load your magazines, play particular attention to the second-to-the-last one (the first to be fired in what I called the automatic load). Make sure it is fed properly. Hope this helps.
 
There are many threads on what makes a Ruger MkII jam in the archives. One frequently mentioned hint is to make sure all the rounds in the mag are tilted "up" by momentarily easing the pressure on the mag follower.

Also, you pretty much have to use high pressure ammo, and my gun dealer told me so when I bought my S/S Govt. Target 6 7/8" slabside.

YMMV

Ledbetter
 
UpJohn,

It's a trend. Recent production Ruger MKIIs
just plain suck. I got 1 MK II of 1994, which
was perfect in every respect, and 1 MK II of
1998, which jammed a lot too...and also, was put together in kind of a rough way (I drop details for now, but obviously they are not watching tolerances on some parts). I traced the problem to stronger than necessary recoil spring and fixed the problem. I wrote
Ruger a letter about the problem, but they said everything is fine and they never heard
of such problem, although their springs may be indeed 15-25% stronger according to spring specs deviation. Anyway, after I cut
some length from the spring, MKII started to be totally reliable.

It seems that their quality control just dropped to pretty low level, 'cause I hear a lot of stories recently about new Rugers jamming exactly in one and the same manner...
 
I don't think their quality is falling off. I have a recent MK II Govt. Model and it has worked great out of the box. So far about 1000 rounds through it and only one malfunction which was probably ammo related. Take the grips off and spray a bunch of cleaner in the action or better yet take the thing apart and thoroughly clean everything then oil and reassemble. I use brake cleaner to clean everything then spray with Brakfree CLP. You may have to send it back if problems persist.

Good Luck.
 
The only time I have ever had a problem with mine is when it was really really very very dirty. :eek: And a good cleaning always solved the problems :)

------------------
We preserve our freedoms by using four boxes: soap,ballot,jury, and cartridge.
Anonymous

[This message has been edited by loknload (edited July 07, 2000).]
 
I started out with a 6" std in 1959, which worked fine. Foolishly I sold it; now have 2 new ones and a much abused one I rebuilt. I had similar problems on the last one using T22 ammo. Tried a variety of fixes including new mags. The cure turned out to be clipping enough coils off the recoil spring and tuning it to the ammo in question. It now shoots very reliably with the original mag. I have the short recoil spring assembly marked and would probably put the original in to shoot HV ammo. A new recoil spring assy. is inexpensive and if this procedure doesn't work you're not out much. The exercise was worth it because the gun shoots very, very well.

------------------
 
I had the same problem with a new anniversary edition. My brother and I both bought one earlier this year. His seems to be O.K. but he hasn't shot it as much as I shot mine. The dealer recomended Hyper Velocity ammo. I tried every kind I could find. I tried cleaning it and still it kept jamming. I agree with the above posts on the quality at ruger slipping on the later made MkII's. I have a MkII Gov. Target model I bought in '92 that has hardly ever jammed and shoots any kind of ammo I buy. I started to send mine back to ruger but a friend wanted to swap a revolver for it and he didn't care about the jamming problem so we worked up a deal and now I am the proud owner of a *&* mod. 617 10 shot stainless wheel gun. It will shoot any thing I load it with and I beleive it is even more accurate than my other ruger. Good luck with your ruger.
 
I own 2 Mark II Targets. My first was purchased in 1982, 4" tapered barrel standard model with fixed sights.

I purchased my second one KMK512 which is the 5.5" bull barrel in stainless steel in october 1999.

Both guns shoot flawlesssly with only the occaissional jam, maybe once every 2000 rounds or so and only when 300 plus rounds have been fired without cleaning the gun.

Both of my guns the new 99 model included shoot anykind of ammo I fed them. The only ammo that does not feed are CB Longs and they dont have the power to cycle the bolt so you must cycle by hand.

My suggestion is to completely dissassemble and clean the gun, and the magazines. The extractor may have a brass shaving caught in it that is causing the problems. All of my mark II and those of my friends and aquaintances have worked flawlessly out of the box.

If a carefull cleaning does not solve the problem contact the dealer and have him send the gun back to Ruger or replace with a new gun.




[This message has been edited by Master Blaster (edited July 07, 2000).]
 
the Ruger Mark 11 does not like after market
Mags. use only Ruger, any jam i had was with
(aftermarket types) quit using them. no more
jams.

------------------
 
Government Model with 6 7/8" barrel and
say, MK-4B with 4" barrel use the same
recoil spring assembly. I have both, and
while Government model always worked fine, MK-4B did not, until I cut off 7 coils from the 50 coils of MK-4B recoil spring, decresasing tension approx. 20%. There is
a certain correlation between length of the barrel and required tension of the recoil spring in blowback pistols.
 
The Ruger .22 pistol WAS one of the finest made. Last year I bought 5 and sold all five as they are junk now. They were none accurate at all when old ones are quite accurate. They jammed, stove-piped and failed to feed frequently. I purchased them for "just in case" everything guns for my family. I tried over a dozen different types of ammo in them and none worked. Ruger said everything was fine with all of them.

My advice; sell the junk new one(s) and go find an older one and try it first. If it works buy it and buy several of the older ones. Many of the older ones shoot as well as most .22 rifles! AND they used to be completely reliable. Now like many modern gun makers they make junk and swear by it.



------------------
Talk is cheap; Free Speech is NOT.
 
I just got a MKII Target Comp. I find it feeds flawlessly with high vel. ammo, but put some standard vel. in it & I get the exact same jam- falure to extract. I wouldn't be suprised if the spring breaks in & alow use of standard vel. after a wile.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top