Went into the man cave about dark last night to install a new gizmo, a Ruger Hammer Strut Support, under the trigger sear spring retention pin in the bowels of my 80's vintage Ruger Mark II semi-auto .22 LR. Supposed to make reassembly less strenuous once installed - it keeps the hammer strut from falling into an abyss and then not functioning once all back together. I have had the bolt out of this gun twice or three times and it's taken 45 minutes or more to reassemble so Ruger's engineers win just about every time.
All was going well easing out the sear spring retention pin to slide the strut support under it when the nearby trigger sear retention pin "fell out" and then the sear and the adjacent spring did the same. I know these pistols have great reputations and I like mine; they virtually built Ruger's brand as their first ever offering but dang. So much for a 10 minute job. Despite creating even more tedious work, installing the after market strut support was easier once the sear was out of the way, but then, of course, the safety fell out and its teeny-tiny detent ball went bouncing on the floor searching for a good hiding place - which it found. How did all that cat hair get under my reloading bench? Then the bolt locking & release lever comes off and the trigger return spring and it's little metal cap came flying out. I went to bed resolved to mail it off to a 'smith this morning.
Thank The Good Lord for You Tube and at least one guy who knew exactly what I needed to see. Not that it made it easy mind you; only possible that's all. Spread out a towel on my office desk with the best light I own four inches above my work. Little parts don't roll so good on towels. I learned that by doing it other ways.
Needing four hands, about one third the size of mine, it eventually occurred to me to put heavy duty packing tape over the pin holes on the naked grips to retain the pins so I did not get it all back together for the sixth time only to have a pin slide out from four steps ago. Had it together five times and then noticed the detent ball from the safety still on the towel or the cap for the trigger return spring laughing at me from the desk top, or to have the sear pin literally just slide the heck out releasing everything accomplished thus far.
But guess what? I win. Came close to sliding it off the bench into the rubbish bin several times but managed to breath deeply and relax. It's events like this that remind me of why I never pursued gunsmithing as a vocation - and never will. At least this firearm is clean now as I took the occasion to get into all the nooks and crannies I've never seen before. It may be a cold day in Calcutta when I disassemble it again and never, ever that far. And the tape is a pretty good idea if you have loose pins mostly retained by the grip panels. I'll never take the grips off this semi-auto again without taping as I go. What fun. I understand the Mark IV does not have the reassembly issues the earlier models have and hence do not need the Hammer Strut Support gizmo. Lucky Mark IV owners.
All was going well easing out the sear spring retention pin to slide the strut support under it when the nearby trigger sear retention pin "fell out" and then the sear and the adjacent spring did the same. I know these pistols have great reputations and I like mine; they virtually built Ruger's brand as their first ever offering but dang. So much for a 10 minute job. Despite creating even more tedious work, installing the after market strut support was easier once the sear was out of the way, but then, of course, the safety fell out and its teeny-tiny detent ball went bouncing on the floor searching for a good hiding place - which it found. How did all that cat hair get under my reloading bench? Then the bolt locking & release lever comes off and the trigger return spring and it's little metal cap came flying out. I went to bed resolved to mail it off to a 'smith this morning.
Thank The Good Lord for You Tube and at least one guy who knew exactly what I needed to see. Not that it made it easy mind you; only possible that's all. Spread out a towel on my office desk with the best light I own four inches above my work. Little parts don't roll so good on towels. I learned that by doing it other ways.
Needing four hands, about one third the size of mine, it eventually occurred to me to put heavy duty packing tape over the pin holes on the naked grips to retain the pins so I did not get it all back together for the sixth time only to have a pin slide out from four steps ago. Had it together five times and then noticed the detent ball from the safety still on the towel or the cap for the trigger return spring laughing at me from the desk top, or to have the sear pin literally just slide the heck out releasing everything accomplished thus far.
But guess what? I win. Came close to sliding it off the bench into the rubbish bin several times but managed to breath deeply and relax. It's events like this that remind me of why I never pursued gunsmithing as a vocation - and never will. At least this firearm is clean now as I took the occasion to get into all the nooks and crannies I've never seen before. It may be a cold day in Calcutta when I disassemble it again and never, ever that far. And the tape is a pretty good idea if you have loose pins mostly retained by the grip panels. I'll never take the grips off this semi-auto again without taping as I go. What fun. I understand the Mark IV does not have the reassembly issues the earlier models have and hence do not need the Hammer Strut Support gizmo. Lucky Mark IV owners.
Last edited:
