Ruger Mark III reliability

A

AzShooter

New member
What mods have you done to your Ruger Mark III or other to help get 100 % reliability.

I know ammo selection is very important. Did you replace the extractor and if you did, with what?

Is tuning the magazines important?

Do you clean between stages at a match?
 
Absolutely nothing should be necessary. Thousands of rounds through mine with near perfect reliability. Occasionally I'll have dud rounds with the cheap Rem. thunderbolts or similar ammo, but very rarely do I see malfunctions.

Because these guns are so awful to disassemble, sometimes the reliability issues are owing to people never fully cleaning them.

Are you having reliability issues with yours?
 
Are you having a problem with yours?
Every Ruger rimfire Mark series I've owned has been trouble free even with the cheapest ammo.
The pistol that is, the ammo not so much.
Part of the rimfire experience.
 
My Mark III is reliable with all the ammo I've shot through it. A couple duds from bad ammo.

Sent from my SM-G930R4 using Tapatalk
 
Ammo is important.

But, magazine tuning is a big deal, especially with the newer magazines. We round off the edges and pinch the feedlips to get the proper alignment for feeding.

The loaded chamber indicator and magazine disconnects are also reliability reducers for the Ruger rimfire pistols. All of mine have a LCI delete and a magazine disconnect bushing installed. Depending on generation, you may or may not have these issues.

If you tune the mags, install a LCI delete and MD bushing...ammo becomes much less important. :D
 
My Mk III was very reliable, but as I use it for Bullseye competition, I've always shied away from the bulk junk. Early on I had occasional jams(that had me calling for alibis) that were caused by the LCI, but removing it solved that problem. BTW, I switched to using only dry-spray lubes, so powder fowling became much less an issue. Been 100% ever since.
 
If I had to tinker, and modify a new gun to make it run right, why would I buy it in the first place? Maybe that's why I bought a Buckmark.:D
Not really, I'm sure like every other Ruger I have owned a MK III should run just fine out of the box. But also, like most rimfire handguns, it may have a preference for some ammunition.
 
What mods have you done to your Ruger Mark III or other to help get 100 % reliability.
Click to expand...

No .22LR pistols will be 100% reliable. That's just the nature of rimfire primers.

That said, a stock Ruger Mark III is about as reliable as a .22LR semi-auto can possibly be. You shouldn't have to do anything to it.
 
I've told it before, so I'll tell it again-the Mk III is a dangerous design. I'm convinced Ruger realized this, and thus the changes in the Mk IV.

My Mk III nearly blew my support thumb off when the 'loaded chamber indicator' was violently shot from the gun during (what I assume must have been) a round firing without the bolt being fully forward.

Marked up and stung, I wrote to Ruger to tell them about it, and they sent me a new LCI to replace the one which had nearly taken my thumb off; no apology, and more telling, no request for more information or photos of the failure.


Just FYI-


Larry
 
I got the Mark III from my son who's been shooting it for years. He really took good care of it. As an ex Marine I know he cleaned it when needed and says it runs real well with the ammo brands I expect to use, CCI Mini Mags and Federal AutoMatch.

Hopefully I'll find out how reliable it is tomorrow, if it doesn't rain.

It's had all the upgrades including new bolt, LCI replaced, C-More sight, Volquartsen sear and Compensator.

Should be interesting.
 
A Ruger Mark III will normally be reliable right out of the box.

Having said that, I like the VQ extractors and firing pins.

But that is not a "have to have" for a reliable Mark III.
 
Well, God smiled at me today and lifted the rain so I could go to the range. Turned into a beautiful morning with temps in the low 70 and not a breeze to be found.

I took my Mark III 22/45 with 8 magazines and my Model 617 and 5 different types of ammo.

The Mark III digested everything except Aguilla hyper velocity. The revolver fired all ammo except the Aguilla. So now I know what both guns like.

CCI Standard Velocity and Mini Mags grouped about the same from both guns. The real winner of the day was Federal Auto Match with no misfires and loaded into the magazines with no problems.

I installed a Volquartsen compensator yesterday and it made some difference compared to shooting my friend's Mark III Hunter model. I shot better groups and had less recoil.

Sunday I'll take the Mark III to it's first Steel Challenge Match. I think it will do well.
 
The revolver fired all ammo except the Aguilla.
Click to expand...

What problems did the 617 have with the Aguilla?

I like your choice of revolvers. If I had an unlimited budget a S&W 617 would be mine. I think I'd get the 10 shot rather than the 6 shooter.
 
I have probably 4K rounds through my MK III and no issues at all with even the cheapest ammo I could find. I guess its almost time to clean it but I'm afraid to take it apart. :)
 
The Aguilla would not go off on the first strike. They all went off on the second strike. Accuracy was very good but for match ammo I won't use it in the revolver.
 
The semi-auto .22 pistol isn't usually 100% reliable. Usually it is bad ammo that causes jams but so does bad magazines. If you keep it clean you will get very few jams BUT you will get some malfunctions, nature of the beast. I have a Mark II that will shoot a 900 match most of the time if I have good ammo. Even a revolver isn't really 100%.
 
We ran over 200K rounds of Eley Force through the AM rifles and pistols and had 3 rounds not ignite total. Once we got the magazines tuned, they ran better.

Running .22RFs wet, especially for high round counts is the cause of a good number of guns that don't run.
 
MarkCO, hard to improve on only 3 failures in 200,000 rounds and that was bad ammo, WOW. That's really 100% reliable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top