Ruger through the years...

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I have lost track of the number and variety of Ruger fire arms I've had since the late '60s-early '70s. Every one, in my memory at least, was a pleasure to own and lots of fun to shoot. I have owned rifles, revolvers and pistols. I'll not mention any specific brand names but I place all fire arms in one of three categories; poor fair or good. Ruger has always been in the good category IMHO.

Some of them have had unfortunate features that detract from the over-all pleasure of ownership. One was the Ruger Mark II .22lr. (pictured) Re assembly was very frustrating. I refer to the hammer strut situation. If you are not familiar with that just trust me it was no fun. If you are familiar with it you already know.

It was a great shooter and loads of fun but I finally traded it off for something else. I can only wonder if Ruger still makes them like that.

You know from recent posts that I just got a new 10-22. As previously stated this is my 3rd one. I don't remember any problems. with the first two (purchased 20 to 25 years apart and the last one about 10 years ago)

But when I took this new one apart, cleaned it and put it back together, I noticed some changes; some no problem but one which I resolved permanently, and one that is serious for me with my hands in such bad condition.

The first problem was removing the bolt-stop pin. I had to hammer the dickens out of it to get it where I could get a grip on it with a pair of Channel locks to get it the rest of the way out. With each blow I cringed hoping I wasn't wrecking the scope. It took many blows...hard blows.

When I finally got out I tried filing it down some but was getting nowhere. I finally took a drill the same size as the holes and gently, a little bit at a time wallowed them out until the pin would slide in and out with just a little resistance. Problem solved.

The real booger was trying to replace the bolt and bolt spring/bolt carrier back in. I'm no engineer but I know there's a better way to arrange that. I can't remember how it was in the other 2 but I don't remember it being any problem.

I went on youtube and downloaded a video on it. I spent over an hour trying to get it back together. Something wasn't right. And my hands were on fire.

I down loaded a different video and this guy took the time to mention a couple of things the other guy left out. Sometimes it's the little things that are not obvious but very critical that you need to know.

It is going to be hard on my hands every time but now that I know the secret it won't take but a minute or so to do.

I fired a couple of rounds from about 35 yards and the scope seems to have endured all the violence without any damage. I have never been comfortable hitting gun with a hammer. :(
 

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Yeah my Ruger American Compact 22 mag. is much easier for maintenance. Like the no hassle. nice handgun by the way.
 
I know I had at least three of these back in the day... a 4", a 6", and a bull barrel. But eventually I started remembering how hard they were to assemble.
 
I have a Std, MK1, MK2, MK3 and Mk4. They are second only to my Smiths.

The MK4 has a simple takedown and can be field stripped in seconds. Not like the earlier versions.

As far as the originals, I didn't even understand that there was a problem until I read about it on the internet. Ruger's Owner's Manual clearly shows how to reassemble a Mark, plus there are dozens of UTubes that can help. It never fazed me a bit.

As an aside, I may field strip a Mark after several thousand rounds and what I find is that it didn't need to be cleaned after all.
 
The main thing to remember about re-assembly of the earlier Ruger .22 autopistols is to keep the hammer in the DOWN (or un-cocked) position. It is not possible to assemble it with the hammer in the cocked position as the tip of the hammer strut is too low. A little fiddling with guiding the hammer strut into the hammer spring channel may also be necessary. I have seen some little doodad advertised for sale which is supposed to make Ruger assembly easier but I have never seen or used one and have no idea about if or how it works. It might be worthwhile for some. In any event I relatively seldom disassemble the Ruger for cleaning as it's not often necessary.

Some years ago I had a neighbor who had disassembled his Ruger .22 for cleaning and spent all afternoon unsuccessfully trying to get it back together. He came over and asked me to do it for him. Of course he was attempting it with the hammer cocked. I showed him the secret, and he never needed any more help. I think the procedure should be pretty well covered in the Ruger instruction folder but I have never looked for it.

The toughest pistol reassembly job I ever had involved the (then new) Remington R-51 9mm pistol. And I was already very familiar with how the old original Remington 51 pistol was disassembled and reassembled. I finally got it back together, and never disassembled it again.
 
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I've always owned at least one Ruger .22 pistol. My favorite shooters, which I can still enjoy and shoot regularly . My current inventory top to bottom. Standard, MKII, MKIII, MKIV.


 
Some years ago I had a neighbor who had disassembled his Ruger .22 for cleaning and spent all afternoon unsuccessfully trying to get it back together. He came over and asked me to do it for him. Of course he was attempting it with the hammer cocked. I showed him the secret, and he never needed any more help. I think the procedure should be pretty well covered in the Ruger instruction folder but I have never looked for it.
/QUOTE]

I had a buddy who bought a really nice MKII pistol some years back, box and papers, LNIB, 6" bbl, nice pistol.

He shot it a few times, and decided it was time to clean it. Getting it apart, no prob. Reassembling it, different story.

He asked me for help, I showed him the way to do it.

Long story short, he never got the hang of it.

He gave me the pistol, which I have and still shoot today.
 
Never had the issue so many people seem to have. Have a MkIII Bull barrel and will probably get around to installing te bushing ot get rid of the mag safety when I start shooting it, but I got my dad's old 1950's vintage Ruger about the same time and have been shooting it instead. When it wears out, I'll start shooting the MkIII.
Right now, I'm thinking about having the barrel on the MkIII threaded for a silencer so I can plink in the back yard.
 
Ruger to me is like the Chrysler to S&W and Colt's Ford and Chevy.

They are usually a little cheaper and did a lot of innovative, maybe strange, but always cool things.
 
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