Ruger mkll...yay or nay

[zukiphile]

Massad Ayoob wrote in one of his books about a Ruger that I think was a Mark I, Standard, 6" that had over 10,000 rounds through her without ever being cleaned at all let alone field stripped! Hope someone can corroborate this.

That just means that the lower was never stripped to its pieces and cleaned. That's normal.

I was well more than 10,000 into my first MKII when I bought and installed a VQ sear. The problem with that is the trigger mechanism gets coated in a black sand. The volume of crud was impressive.

On a regular MKII, one can remove the grip panels and hose out the interior with solvent. Some recommend brake cleaner for this. On a 22/45, that isn't an option.

I don't recommend taking apart the lower unless one is very comfortable with working with small pieces in tight places. If an owner thinks that getting the barrel back on the lower and the mainspring back in is difficult, he shouldn't disassemble the lower.

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

Wow , that would be averaging over 1900 rounds a week! I thought I fired my 1994 MKII a lot within the first few years I had it - over 30,000 rounds - you left me in the dust!

I gotta give another WOW, +1, on that number of rounds fired from a Ruger Mark II, and in a year yet.
I have a range out back of my shop and can't even imagine finding the time to shoot up 4 bricks of 500 rounds in a week.
As far as taking the Ruger Mark II pistol completely apart, the horror stories are more mythical than true. If you ever were to replace the sear with a much better made representative, you will need to do the "detail strip" to get at the factory sear and replace it. There is absolutely NO other way to clean a Ruger Mark II grip frame unless all the parts are removed so one can get into all the "nooks and crannies" that harbor crud. Learning by doing creates experience, and it's no different with Ruger Mark pistols from any era:

These are clean and function perfectly. No springs have ever been broken due to having the coils fill up with crappola.
This pistol had tons of problems. Gee, I wonder why:

Maybe he read Ayoob's article that cleaning was never necessary. After I got done with this grip frame and upper, it once again ran like **NEW**.