ruger old army misfires

S

spooker

Inactive
I HAVE THE MOST UNRELIABLE OLD ARMY THEY EVER MADE. JUST PUT IN NEW NIPPLES. DOES NOTHING FOR IT. I MUST GO AROUND ONE COMPLETE CYCLE AND THEY FIRE ON THE 2ND CYCLE. THE CAPS ARE SEATED ALL THE WAY ON THE NIPPLES. PIETTA'S AND UBERTI'S FIRE EVERY TIME. NO PROBLEM. MAY SELL THIS HUNK OF JUNK.:mad:
 
Are you using factory nipples or aftermarket nipples?

I also wonder if the mainspring has weakened? Generally they don't but who knows?
 
This is an unusual complaint. Those things are usually very reliable.
I personally prefer Colt open tops, Pietta and Uberti, of which you mention, are some of my favorite makers. :D

A lot of people shoot the ROA though and I'm sure somebody can get it firing regularly for you.
I don't have one, but hang in there and advice should come rolling in from members soon. :)
 
Spooker,

Sounds like this could be a mainspring issue. I am a Colt and Glock LEO Armorer and I have wrenched on a few guns in my time, so let me take a stab at this and there are likely forum members with much more BP experience that will hopefully chime in on this issue as well.

IIRC, I had a ROA brought to me with a similar problem. What I did was install a Ruger Vaquero mainspring. Again, IIRC, the ROA mainspring has something like 20 and the Ruger Vaquero has either 28 or 30 coils.

2MALSS, the Vaquero mainspring cured the problem and, IIRC, the struts are the same too, so this is a drop in repair.

Hope this helps...
 
Box up that HUNK OF JUNK and send it to me! :D Seriously though what size caps are you using? Is the hammer traveling far enough forward. You can dry fire the ROA all day long, so this may help you trouble shoot it. The ROA I had NEVER misfired with #10 or #11 caps. This is indeed a very weird complaint and will be following this thread to see what you find.
 
If they fire the second time around they are NOT fully seated and the hammer is seating them on the first try.
 
Generally, if you have to go a complete go around and then they fire on the second strike, the caps still weren't quite down all the way onto the nipples so the first hit seats them and the second hit crushes them enough to fire them. One way to test this is to put larger sized caps on the nipples, even real loose caps pinched out of round just enough to hold them on. If those larger caps all go off on the first go around then your first caps are too small for the new nipples. Solutions are either larger caps or go to factory stock nipples or some other replacement nipple like Treso or Slix-Shot.

Caps aren't standardized like primers. A CCI #11 is smaller in fit than a Remington#10. The Remington#11 fits way larger nipples than the CCI#11 and the RWS#1075. The Rem#11 is actually the same diameter but just cut shorter than the Rem #10 which is longer and thus able to grab smaller nipples farther down the tapered shank.

What size caps are you using? What nipples did you install?
 
My old Pietta 1858 Remington will splinter #10's to bits and leave pieces of 11's on the nipple, but they fire every time with stock nipples and springs.

IIRC, the #11's will fall back off the nipple if you tilt the barrel upward....
 
Hawg,
YMMV and MMMV. I think there is a wide variation in the degree of taper of different makes of revolver nipples at different times. Half of my guns take CCI#11s, the other half take RWS#1075s but all 15 will take Rem#10s. If a gun doesn't fit Rem#10s I replace the nipples with ones that will (Uncle Mike's/Butler Creek or TOW SS nipples). I actually haven't installed any Slix-shot nipples yet even though the designers hound me every time I have a misfire. Of the 37 C&Bs I've owned over the years I've managed to get Rem#10s to fit them all one way or another. My mileage continues to vary.
 
That nipple to hammer tolerance is one of the things that impresses me about how Ruger makes the ROA. Dry firing is huge good fun. It does make me think twice about changing nipples. Is this something we are supposed to set with nipple height? I really don't know. Are the Colt generations built like this too? I've seen flattened nipples before. Unsightly cheapening of the piece.
 
ROA

Hawg is right. If they fire on the second go around, the caps are too tight.

Most ROA shooter's I know have trigger jobs done. Rugers are notorious for a stiff trigger. I thought this could be your issue (spring too light). However, since they are firing the second time around, I agree with Hawg.

FWIW If your Ruger has ever been modified in any way, DO NOT send it back to Ruger. I had a friend who had some trigger work done and sent it to Ruger for a sight adjustment. He had ONE HECK OF A TIME GETTING IT BACK FROM THEM! They said it was modified and unsafe. (because of the light trigger).

Birch
 
Spooker....

Your revolver is defective and maybe even haunted.

Send it to me.

(Unless the serial number is 666)


.


. ;o)
 
Had the same problem. Try Treso nipples and #10 Remington caps. These are slightly larger in diameter and seat much better than CCI #11 which are smaller.
I have tried CCI# 10, way too small, CCI # 11 may work, but are VERY tight. The #10 Remis go on the nipples very easy and they don't normally come off under recoil. Good luck. Took me a while to figure mine out, I also came on here and asked many questions. Good people here. Hope this helps.
 
Ruger 0ld army misfires.

Good fellows, i have tried everything. New nipples from track of the wolf. Rws caps winchester caps cci caps and rem# 10caps. New nipples state use cci#11. Still not working. I even emory clothed nipples twice. Mainspring seems strong to me but maybe not. I do believe my pietta's and ubert's do have a stronger mainspring as they fire every time. No fail. I will see about vaquero spring. Thanks:(
 
Mine does the same thing after the first 6 shots. Gets dirty I suppose.... Using CCI #11s. Stock nipples on ROA. Anyway, what I did was make a short pushrod (a hardwood dowel with a ball on one end) that I could completely press the cap onto the nipple after placement. The little ball on end of the short rod is to 'comfort' the palm of my hand while pushing. That did the trick for me. Note that my hammer mainspring is quite strong and has never been messed with.
 
Rclark. I have tried the push dowel trick. Caps would not move no matter how hard i push. There is no other brand of caps to use. Why should the roa have any misfire problems. The italian guns don't.
 
Is this firing problem only on the first 6 shots you fire out of the gun or on every cylinder load? I'm wondering if it could be oil in the nipple flash hole...some guys around here hose their guns down with WD-40...so much so that they have to clean them a second time to get them to shoot.
 
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