Bought brand new shot probably less than 100 times.

From the start the gun jammed up, so it worked it's way to the back of the safe for the last 15 or so years.

Would like to shoot it now so took a closer look.

Loaded 10 rounds of various ammo in 2 different magazines and cycled the bolt.

It would load a few rounds and then the nose of the bullet would get stuck on the bottom of the feed ramp making a nice smile face on the nose of the bullet.

Is this simply a matter of slightly touching the bottom of the ramp with some sort of buffing wheel on a Dremel.

Or maybe a cheap easy fix by a gunsmith.

Maybe a call to Ruger customer service.

Undecided on how to handle this what would you do?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: kimber1911,

I owned the same exact model gun, and the same vintage, for many years and in addition to being a tack driver it was 100% reliable with the several loads I used in it...with the single exception to its reliability occuring on a hunting trip in which it was left outside in a vehicle when over night temps fell below 0°. While my partner was stoking the breakfast campfire I tried to shoot the MK II. It became a single shot and repeatedly had FTE and stovepipes. A few minutes thawing over the campfire was all it took to return the gun to its normal relability.

You mentioned the gun "jammed up", but that doesn't help much because guns can fail in different ways and jammed up just indicates a stoppage of some sort. To have any hope of remotely diagnosing an issue you will need to provide more detailed info on the exact stoppage(s).

As far as cycling rounds by hand, unless you are allowing the bolt to strip a round from a mag at normal speed and slam the round fully into the chamber I'm just not convinced that you can reliably count on this method to effectively diagnose any issue unless it's a fairly gross or coarse misalignment, burr or ding. Obviously if you are going to chamber live rnds in an effort to diagnose an issue you should pay particular attention to following Safe handling and muzzle awareness.

If it were my gun I would field strip it and all the magazines. Completely clean all lubrication from the gun and mags (thoroughly clean the chamber area and extractor area), thoroughly inspect the gun and mag components and, if no obvious issues, apply fresh lube and be certain that the gun and mags were correctly assembled. Obviously it's not difficult to assemble one of these incorrectly.

Then, I would hit the range with a variety of ammo types, including some higher velocity ammo, and both RN and HP.

Bring along a pencil and notepad, and if able, a camera. Make notes of what type stoppages you experience, which mags, which ammo, which round in the mag (top rnd, 3rd rnd, last rnd, all rnds etc..). Take pics of stoppages and report back here.

Yes, I was using live rounds with the gun horizontal (normal shooting position) pointed in a safe direction with finger pointed forward off of trigger.

Gun and magazines were very clean with very light oily surface.

With ten round loaded I pulled bolt fully rearward and let go.
Then pulled bolt rapidly rearward and fully released to load next round.

No issues with round extracting.

Bolt jammed stripping round from magazine with nose of bullet pressed up against lower edge of the feed ramp.

Might be a simple fix, might not. Call Ruger; that thing should run like a top.

Anything's possible and you may have a gun problem, but I have a Trailside which regularly smilies/stovepipes Blazer .22LR but eats its regular ammo Federal Champion Target 24x7.

I would try multiple different types of ammo before doing much with the gun itself, and test each type by itself to see if a pattern emerges. It's hard to identify ammo issues with a mix in the magazine, which it sounds like you may have had.

.22LR autoloading mechanisms seem to be pretty picky about what works, moreso than center fire autoloaders in my experience. Not as much recoil energy for the .22LR pistols to work with, I think is part of it. Anyway, it could be your Mk II is just looking for the right ammo, and if that turns out to be the case, that's an easier/cheaper and potentially quicker solution.

My .22s have thus far fallen into two groups: Ones that like Blazer .22 and ones that don't like Blazer .22 but do like Federal Champion Target.

It's a simple magazine issue.

The magazine lips need a very slight adjustment to let the round up just a little higher when stripped.

My M&P22 had feed issues as did my High Standard, but a very slight adjustment to the magazines allowed them both to now feed anything reliably.

High Standard sells a magazine adjusting tool for that very reason.

Searched for Ruger MK II magazine adjustment and ran across this MK II magazine tweak.

Wonder if that could work.

I wouldn't cut anything just yet.

When I got my High Standard about every third round would pop up and jam against the upper edge of the chamber. I tweaked the the area of the magazine circled in that article inward just slightly and the rounds then just slid right in nicely and it hasn't missed a beat since.

Earlier this week I bought two new magazines for it and they did about what yours is doing. When you released the slide the round would just move foreword and jam against the feed ramp.

I tweaked them open just slightly more in the area that is circled in the article until the round just strips off and slides right into the chamber smoothly.

It is a very slight adjustment, and the difference between popping up too high and staying down too low is almost not noticeable, so if you tinker with your magazine just make very minor adjustments.

Cutting metal away on your magazines can't be replaced, but a slight tweak of the metal can be put back in place with no harm being done.

Ordered a few MecGar magazines.
Cheaper than OEM Ruger magazines and at $14 each shipped not a big deal if I bend ‘em up or trim too much off.

Most of my Googling says to find ammo it likes.
However I found a few posts that seem to indicate after trimming the magazine all ammo worked fine.

I like the idea of a potential magazine tweak that would fix it for all ammo.

Problem solved.

I installed a Volthane Target Grip when I first bought the pistol.
An inserted magazine was being held between rubber near the magazine well and magazine release.

All I needed to do was take a Dremel to the rubber that was preventing the magazine from being "fully" inserted. Since the magazine was not fully seated the bolt wasn't always grabbing the bullet properly.

Now the magazine base seats fully between the magazine release and bottom of the grip frame.

Look for that 1/16" gap, 1/8" gap will cause failure to feed.

The first thing to do is look inside the pistol's ejection port with a magazine installed.

A properly positioned magazine should have a gap immediately underneath the ejector pin. This gap is measured where the magazine rear feed lip sits underneath the ejector. (See picture)

There is about a 1/16" gap between the feed lip and the bottom of the ejector. The rear feed lip slopes upwards but only reaches a point that is about even with the bottom of the ejector pin’s bottom edge.

Link with picture.

I would have suspected a magazine related problem, as Ruger Mk whatevers are usually quite reliable.

The interface of the magazine and the gun can develop problems in any auto. Glad you solved it.

quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:
Problem solved.

I installed a Volthane Target Grip when I first bought the pistol.

Ahh...there is always a missing piece of pertinent information!

Good to hear that you have it fixed.

quote:

Originally posted by GP229:

quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:
Problem solved.

I installed a Volthane Target Grip when I first bought the pistol.

Ahh...there is always a missing piece of pertinent information!

Good to hear that you have it fixed.

Exactly right, that would have been a handy piece of info to have when trying to T/S a problem remotely, especially without pics.

Glad kimber1911 got the problem figured out and thanks for following up with the resolution!

Problem gun


Cause noted when I installed the extended magazine release.
Ordered the extended magazine release to ease magazine removal and planned to install it before modifying magazine rear tabs.


Magazine installed after rubber near magwell trimmed.
Magazine base plate now fits flush up to metal surface.