Problems with newer Ruger firearms

[Doug Bowser]

I am the Secretary of a 200 member gun club in SW Mississippi. With ammo costs as high as they are, we are shooting a lot of .22rf pistol and rifle matches. I am skilled in doing trigger jobs on .22 rf Ruger firearms. I have performed this service on at least 40 10/22 rifles and 50 .22 rf Mark II & III pistols. I am reporting what I have experienced with these firearms.

Ruger 10/22

The major complaint I have is the trigger gaurd and trigger are now polymer. The trigger has a steel insert that acts as the sear. This steup is spongy and is not conductive to a clean crisp trigger pull. The factory triggers will all pick up 6 pounds. I reduce the trigger pull to 3 pounds (CMP LEGAL) and install a screw in the back of the trigger gaurd that acts as a trigger stop.

In contrast the older 10/22 rifles had a hard cast aluminum trigger gaurd and trigger. I just bought a used 10/22 today and it has a clean crisp trigger of 4 pounds and no spongy trigger. I will reduce the trigger to 3 pounds and it will be easier to work on than the polymer.

Ruger Mark II & III .22 rf pistols:

I have 7 of these pistols in my shop for trigger work and magazine fitting. I will tell you the problems I have observed with these pistols.

Magazine problems:

The main problem with the Mark III pistol magazines is, most of them seat a little too high in the frame. This causes the fired cartridge being extracted from the chamber to hit or rum on the top of the feed lips and jump off the extractor. Then the next cartridge is fed from the magazine and it tries to double load. The empty ctg being on top and the loaded ctg on the bottom. The front of the cartridge feed lips are sharp and square. I round them off and trim the top of the feed lips slighlty. After this is done, I slowly extract an empty round from the chamber and make sure the ctg case does not touch the magazine. This problem does happen with Mark II pistols but it is not as common. My club bought 4 Mark III psitols and three of them had the magazine problem. Of the 5 MarkIII pistols I have to work on, all 5 malfuctioned in this manner. We had one new magazine for a Mark III that woud not take more than 4 ctgs. One other new Mark III had a bolt that would not fire any cartridges.

There are 2 brand new Ruger 22/45 polymer framed pistols in my shop. Both of them have magazine problems. There is great difficulty locking the magazines into place. When they look as if they are locked into the pistol, they drop low in the frame and the second cartridge will not feed.

Trigger concerns. The Mark II & III pistols have a trigger stop that has to be set by taking the trigger out of the frame and adjusting a small allen screw on the forward part of the trigger that stays inside the frame. This screw is never set at the factory.

The triggers on the new Mark III target pistols are seldom less than 5 pounds. Some have been weighed at 9 pounds. I set them for the 4H kids at 3 to 3.25 pounds. I tried to shoot the pistol with the 9 pound trigger and I stopped to check to see if the safety was on.

I still think the Ruger makes the best .22rf pistol and light .22 rf Rifle for the money. They are very accurate. My Mark II is as accurate as many other models and is less than 1/3 the price. My 10/22 shoots good ammo into 3/8 " at 50 yards with 5 shots. If a new .22 rf Ruger suffers any of these difficulties, it is relatively easy to fix them.

I know many of you will say your pistol operates flalessly but I have observed these problems in many psiols and rifles of this make but not every one of them. As I said, I am just trying to point out that the fine tuning that used to be done at the Factory, has been left to the shooter.

[testhop]

does anybody have or use ruger mark 1 auto pistol
i have one it shoots great cant understand why ruger change modal
when i bought it i got 6 extra mags to go with iy

[MT Gianni]

My old Mark 1 shoots just fine also. My son nicknamed it "sweetness" when he was 10 or 11 and it has stuck. My nephew thought I was flat out nuts when i borrowed MoldyJoe's to hunt rabbits with a few years ago but shook his head when he saw how I did. They do work fine. Gianni

[Doug Bowser]

I havevowned several Mark I & II Ruger Traget Pistols over the years. They were $57.50 in 1963. The Mark I usually had a good clean trigger and there were 2 teats on the trigger cast into the front of it, for after travel and to stop forward motion of the trigger . The forward motion was to eliminate the extreme slack found in the Mark II & III pistols today. The teats were hand fiiled at the factory to eliminate after travel and slack. On the Mark II & III the trigger furnished is longer and straighter then the Mark I but the trigger stop built in is never adjusted properly at the factory. I replaced the factory trigger in my Mark II, with a Clark Ruger trigger. If you have a Mark I or II, the Clark trigger is a VAST improvement. The after travel is adjustable with the Clark trigger by using an allen wrench. The adjustment is done without disassembly of the pistol. The Clark trigger as of now is only useable on the Mark I & II.

There is a Volkarson (sp) trigger available, that is adjustable for both after travel and slack. It is a good replacement for the Mark I, II or III. For my tastes, the Clark trigger is better shaped. On my Mark II the trigger pull was slightly creepy. All I had to do was polish the sear and hammer notch surface with a fine Arkansas stone, being careful not to change the angles of the sear and hammer notch surfaces. It breaks at a clean 2.75 pounds.

On the newer Mark III pistols, the hammer notch has to be reshaped and polished and sometimes a reduction of the engagement is needed. Don't attempt this if you have never had anyone show you how to shape the notch. Also a bit of expertise in the complete disassembly of the Ruger .22 Auto pistols is needed. For my 4H kids, I set the trigger somewhere between 3 and 3.5 pounds. A clean breaking trigger that weighs 3-3.5 pounds with after travel correction makes the really good Mark II or III much better. An ultra light pistol trigger is not ideal. There is no control over the trigger.

It is obvious that the factory is only assembling pistols. Otherwise they would not have sent us a Mark III that would not fire , with a magazine that would not accept more than 4 rounds. They made the defects good but why should they have to.

I am going to buy a Ruger .22 Rf Semi-auto Pistol this year. The pistol will be a Mark II 5.5" blued version to go with my Mark II 6-7/8" tapered blued version. I don't see the need for stainless firearms. They are more expensive and there is no advantage in owning the stainless pistols. One other thing, on the Ruger 5.5" Mark I, II & III, take the screw out of the front sight and use red locktite on it. I also put some locktite under the sight base. The Ruger screwed on front sights almost always vibrate off after firing them for a while. This is true with all the Ruger Mark I, II & III pistols.

Have fun,

Doug Bowser