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Posted: 6/15/2015 7:44:45 PM EDT
I really want to love this gun, but I literally cannot shoot a single mag through the thing without it malfunctioning (FTEs and/or failures to feed). I've tried about 5 or 6 brands of ammo through it, all of which are equally unreliable. Is this normal? I know 22lr isn't known for it's reliability, but I feel like a malfunction every round is pretty bad. What are some ways that I can improve the reliability?
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Can you tell us more about your pistol?
Did you buy it new or used? Have you disassembled it? Have you tried another magazine? Was the ammunition standard or high velocity? Has it been thoroughly cleaned if you bought it used? ....and anything else you can think of; these pistols are usually extremely reliable. |
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It's got to be something simple, usually the magazine but not always.
I've never had a problem with my 22/45 Lite other than getting a MK 1 mag in the box when I bought it new. Ruger swapped it out for the correct one. I really like mine. I put a mini red dot reflex sight on it. |
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Have you pulled the extractor and checked it? Prolly be my first thought.
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Based on what you've described, I'd reinstall the original parts back into the pistol and call Ruger for a return authorization.
FWIW; I don't believe the mods you made to the pistol have anything to do with the problems you described. |
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Based on what you've described, I'd reinstall the original parts back into the pistol and call Ruger for a return authorization. FWIW; I don't believe the mods you made to the pistol have anything to do with the problems you described. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Based on what you've described, I'd reinstall the original parts back into the pistol and call Ruger for a return authorization. FWIW; I don't believe the mods you made to the pistol have anything to do with the problems you described. Should I ask them replace it with another, or will they refund me my money and then I go buy another on my own? Quoted:
Have you pulled the extractor and checked it? Prolly be my first thought. No, I'm not sure what to check for honestly. |
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Should I ask them replace it with another, or will they refund me my money and then I go buy another on my own? No, I'm not sure what to check for honestly. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Based on what you've described, I'd reinstall the original parts back into the pistol and call Ruger for a return authorization. FWIW; I don't believe the mods you made to the pistol have anything to do with the problems you described. Should I ask them replace it with another, or will they refund me my money and then I go buy another on my own? Quoted:
Have you pulled the extractor and checked it? Prolly be my first thought. No, I'm not sure what to check for honestly. Just restore it to original, get a return authorization from customer service, and Ruger will fix it properly for you. Ruger MKlll pistols are exremely reliable and Ruger has excellent customer service. Sorry you got a lemon but it happens. |
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Thanks, will do. I was hoping there might be an easier DIY fix, but I guess I'll just let Ruger handle it.
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Thanks, will do. I was hoping there might be an easier DIY fix, but I guess I'll just let Ruger handle it. Please let us know the outcome. I will. Just installed the factory sear and bushing back in it, and I'm about to email them now. The ironic thing is that a friend of mine bought a regular 22/45 Lite from this same LGS a few months before I got mine, and his was even more unreliable. It wouldn't shoot 3 rounds without malfunctioning. He sent it to Ruger, they replaced several parts, and now it "only" has about one malfunction every 4 mags or so. Maybe our LGS got a bad batch of them? ETA: Just called Ruger and talked to a lady that was very helpful. She gave me a return authorization number and emailed me a label to send it back. |
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I would at least remove the loaded chamber indicator first and see if that helps.
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Before firing the first shot on my 22/45 lite I got rid of the loaded chamber indicator and mag disconnect. I had some other MKIII's so this was standard mods. It was the worst reliability of the Rugers I owned. It stove pipe or had feeding problems about one in 25 rounds. I finally upgraded the extractor and all issues went away. All my 10/22's and Ruger pistols have quality aftermarket extractors and I always carry a new spare just in case.
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Before firing the first shot on my 22/45 lite I got rid of the loaded chamber indicator and mag disconnect. I had some other MKIII's so this was standard mods. It was the worst reliability of the Rugers I owned. It stove pipe or had feeding problems about one in 25 rounds. I finally upgraded the extractor and all issues went away. All my 10/22's and Ruger pistols have quality aftermarket extractors and I always carry a new spare just in case. View Quote I already shipped it off today, but who makes a good aftermarket extractor? Volquartsen? |
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I already shipped it off today, but who makes a good aftermarket extractor? Volquartsen? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Before firing the first shot on my 22/45 lite I got rid of the loaded chamber indicator and mag disconnect. I had some other MKIII's so this was standard mods. It was the worst reliability of the Rugers I owned. It stove pipe or had feeding problems about one in 25 rounds. I finally upgraded the extractor and all issues went away. All my 10/22's and Ruger pistols have quality aftermarket extractors and I always carry a new spare just in case. I already shipped it off today, but who makes a good aftermarket extractor? Volquartsen? Yes, that is what I use. |
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Quoted: Is it easy to remove? I never would have thought about that. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: I would at least remove the loaded chamber indicator first and see if that helps. Is it easy to remove? I never would have thought about that. Yes. You take the upper off the frame and basically tap it on a block of wood while pushing in on the LCI. Pin should fall out allowing you to remove the metal part. You can put the pin back in, keeping the plastic part so you don't have an open slot in the upper. I think someone even sells a machined blank to replace the whole thing. It's been known to be the cause of a lot of malfunctions. |
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Yes. You take the upper off the frame and basically tap it on a block of wood while pushing in on the LCI. Pin should fall out allowing you to remove the metal part. You can put the pin back in, keeping the plastic part so you don't have an open slot in the upper. I think someone even sells a machined blank to replace the whole thing. It's been known to be the cause of a lot of malfunctions. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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I would at least remove the loaded chamber indicator first and see if that helps. Is it easy to remove? I never would have thought about that. Yes. You take the upper off the frame and basically tap it on a block of wood while pushing in on the LCI. Pin should fall out allowing you to remove the metal part. You can put the pin back in, keeping the plastic part so you don't have an open slot in the upper. I think someone even sells a machined blank to replace the whole thing. It's been known to be the cause of a lot of malfunctions. Tandemkross sells the LCI "plug". |
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Aw crap- sorry I didn't jump in here earlier. It's too bad you sent your pistol away already. Most of the sugggestions given should work. Sometimes singly, sometimes they need to be done as a package deal.
To recap: 1. Get rid of the LCI and buy the Tandemkross plug. It's metal. 2. Get rid of the magazine disconnect/hammer bushing and all related stuff; replace with the Tandemkross unit. The two things above tend to hinder bolt speed and generally keep things a bit tighter than they need to be. The swap is about 30-45 minutes and it's very helpful to have an ipad or whatever to watch and do along with videos. 3. Scrub the crap out of the barrel and chamber- esp. the chamber. You can hand rotate a brass brush, Flitz on a Q-tip; whatever. Normally this isn't needed, but does help some hard cases. 4. I haven't needed a new extractor, but some have. I just made sure there were no burrs on it and it was well lubed. Work it back and forth a lot with a little metal probe or whatever you can find to move it. 5. Same thing with magazines- usually the #1 culprit. Ruger's magazines have gotten bad with sloppy QA. Dissassemble complely, and look at the follower. Lightly sand any plastic flash and wipe out the inside of the bodies and spring. You can also buff the feed lips with a Dremel and rouge, but it will take some finish off. If you're gonna do that, Dremel the magazine's follower slot (the long vertical slot top to bottom) because the magazine button will hang up there a lot. 6. After all that magazine work, run that button up and down until you are sick of doing it. Then do it some more. Once again, QC is sloppy and you need to smoth it out as much as possible. The goal here is to make sure everything works freely and doesn't bind on anything. Bolt speed and magazine feed timing is critical. After that, extractor claw grip is crucial, but is also related to bolt travel. If your pistol comes back 100%, then don't sweat it. If you still have problems, tinker with it as above. rimfirecentral.com has tons of people with the same basic problems, and the fixes are ppretty universal. Swing on my there while you're waiting... |
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My lite was giving me issues and it was the magazine's follower sticking. Just as the poster above me stated, they have to be worked, deburred, and/or polished. Rimfirecentral has some good posts regarding magazine upgrades or fixing them. I swapped out my extractor with a Kidd one. It uses the same extractor as the ruger 10/22 one. YouTube has videos if you don't know how to do it.
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Well bummer, hopefully I'm not wasting Ruger's time if it's just a magazine problem. Although both of mine were equally unreliable, so maybe that isn't the only culprit. Who makes good aftermarket mags?
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Most people are going to tell you the the most reliable magazines are rugers. However, I having good luck with mecgar 22\45 magazines. I just placed tandemkross +1 on them and three with the +2 from makershot to see if they will run reliably like before hand. I have not shot them with the upgrades so I can't speak if they work like they did before. Obviously I don't anticipate any problems.
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Also, I did the same upgrades with my gun as you described in your Op. So far it runs reliably. My issue was the rear sight being off and shooting left. After hours of beating out the rear sight, I installed a fastfire with their notch mount. It has a much better sight picture and the dot is not ridiculously over the bore like I see with other cheap sights and mounts.
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Also, I did the same upgrades with my gun as you described in your Op. So far it runs reliably. My issue was the rear sight being off and shooting left. After hours of beating out the rear sight, I installed a fastfire with their notch mount. It has a much better sight picture and the dot is not ridiculously over the bore like I see with other cheap sights and mounts. View Quote My sights were shooting way to the left too, but I got that little Sightmark for free shortly after so I just stuck with it. So far, I like it a lot. Might try a little steel challenge when I get it running reliably. |
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My lite is the old black with small flutes or 3906 I believe. If I push down the button on the magazine it would actual take it a second for the spring push up the next round. Brand new out of the box that way. I disassembled the magazine and polished the area were the spring decompresses in the magazine. Then I ran the button up and down a bunch of times. It made a big difference with reducing the number failure to feed occurrences. The fte issues was the extractor on mine. After I installed the Kidd I have not had an issue. The fte was only a few rounds out of the hundreds I shot with the original extractor. I replaced it for cheap insurance.
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I'll be interested to see what comes of this. I have three 22/45s and all of them have after market guts in them. They have all run great until they get too much crud in them from running a can in them. My steel threaded barrel model for some reason seems much harder to out the mainspring back in.
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I really want to love this gun, but I literally cannot shoot a single mag through the thing without it malfunctioning (FTEs and/or failures to feed). I've tried about 5 or 6 brands of ammo through it, all of which are equally unreliable. Is this normal? I know 22lr isn't known for it's reliability, but I feel like a malfunction every round is pretty bad. What are some ways that I can improve the reliability? View Quote Best way = Tandemcross hammer bushing Solves feeding, mag drop issues. |
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I really want to love this gun, but I literally cannot shoot a single mag through the thing without it malfunctioning (FTEs and/or failures to feed). I've tried about 5 or 6 brands of ammo through it, all of which are equally unreliable. Is this normal? I know 22lr isn't known for it's reliability, but I feel like a malfunction every round is pretty bad. What are some ways that I can improve the reliability? Best way = Tandemcross hammer bushing Solves feeding, mag drop issues. Already have one. |
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I'll be interested to see what comes of this. I have three 22/45s and all of them have after market guts in them. They have all run great until they get too much crud in them from running a can in them. My steel threaded barrel model for some reason seems much harder to out the mainspring back in. View Quote I have a can that should be approved next month, so from then on it'll always be suppressed. Do they run dirty or are they picky on being clean and shiny? |
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Can you tell us more about your pistol? Ruger 22/45 Lite Blue Did you buy it new or used? New about a month ago from my LGS. I have put less than 200 rounds through it, and maybe one or two mags have reliably fed, shot, and extracted all 10 rounds. Have you disassembled it? Yes, to install a Volquartsen sear and Tandemkross bushing. It was unreliable before and after I installed those. Have you tried another magazine? Yes, I've tried both. Was the ammunition standard or high velocity? I tried both. Has it been thoroughly cleaned if you bought it used? I Firecleaned it thoroughly when I installed the sear/bushing. ....and anything else you can think of; these pistols are usually extremely reliable. That's what I had read, hence my frustration. I thought these were the most reliable 22lr pistols out there. <a href="http://imgur.com/sMlyoaA" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/sMlyoaA.jpg</a> Hope Ruger gets it figured out for you! I gotta say, I love the looks of your gun. I've wanted a 22/45 since they came out and always liked the designs but when the version you have came out, I was instantly sold. The ability to also use standard 1911 grip panels to customize the gun is a big plus. It's beautiful in that color blue but I'm holding out, hoping they will offer them in pink. If not, I guess I have to buy another color and pay to have it anodized in pink myself. |
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I have a MkIII 22/45 that has been modded heavily. Tactical Solutions PacLite barrel, Volquartsen internals for fire control and the extractor and firing pin. Used to use an Allchin CMore mount, and have switched to a 90 degree mount to reduce parallax.
I first made some spacers with washers for removing the magazine disconnect. Then I used a Tandemkross bushing. Now I have gone to a MkII hammer and bushing and the trigger does not reset reliably. I can adjust a screw in the trigger until it does, it will run about 10-15 rds and stop working again. Either the screw doesn't stay in place, or something else is wrong with it. I'm going to try some blue loctite, and if that doesn't solve it, I am going to ditch the Volquartsen trigger for a stock one. Never had a problem with magazines, mostly just ammunition and the trigger not resetting reliably. |
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I have a MkIII 22/45 that has been modded heavily. Tactical Solutions PacLite barrel, Volquartsen internals for fire control and the extractor and firing pin. Used to use an Allchin CMore mount, and have switched to a 90 degree mount to reduce parallax. I first made some spacers with washers for removing the magazine disconnect. Then I used a Tandemkross bushing. Now I have gone to a MkII hammer and bushing and the trigger does not reset reliably. I can adjust a screw in the trigger until it does, it will run about 10-15 rds and stop working again. Either the screw doesn't stay in place, or something else is wrong with it. I'm going to try some blue loctite, and if that doesn't solve it, I am going to ditch the Volquartsen trigger for a stock one. Never had a problem with magazines, mostly just ammunition and the trigger not resetting reliably. View Quote I believe the blue loctite will resolve your problem. |
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I would at least remove the loaded chamber indicator first and see if that helps. View Quote I had occasional issues with mine because of a combination of the loaded chamber indicator and iffy ammo. Removing the loaded chamber indicator helped and is not really needed since guns should always be handled as though they are loaded. |
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Hope Ruger gets it figured out for you! I gotta say, I love the looks of your gun. I've wanted a 22/45 since they came out and always liked the designs but when the version you have came out, I was instantly sold. The ability to also use standard 1911 grip panels to customize the gun is a big plus. It's beautiful in that color blue but I'm holding out, hoping they will offer them in pink. If not, I guess I have to buy another color and pay to have it anodized in pink myself. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Can you tell us more about your pistol? Ruger 22/45 Lite Blue Did you buy it new or used? New about a month ago from my LGS. I have put less than 200 rounds through it, and maybe one or two mags have reliably fed, shot, and extracted all 10 rounds. Have you disassembled it? Yes, to install a Volquartsen sear and Tandemkross bushing. It was unreliable before and after I installed those. Have you tried another magazine? Yes, I've tried both. Was the ammunition standard or high velocity? I tried both. Has it been thoroughly cleaned if you bought it used? I Firecleaned it thoroughly when I installed the sear/bushing. ....and anything else you can think of; these pistols are usually extremely reliable. That's what I had read, hence my frustration. I thought these were the most reliable 22lr pistols out there. <a href="http://imgur.com/sMlyoaA" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/sMlyoaA.jpg</a> Hope Ruger gets it figured out for you! I gotta say, I love the looks of your gun. I've wanted a 22/45 since they came out and always liked the designs but when the version you have came out, I was instantly sold. The ability to also use standard 1911 grip panels to customize the gun is a big plus. It's beautiful in that color blue but I'm holding out, hoping they will offer them in pink. If not, I guess I have to buy another color and pay to have it anodized in pink myself. Thanks, they make them like this if that's your thing: |
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I had occasional issues with mine because of a combination of the loaded chamber indicator and iffy ammo. Removing the loaded chamber indicator helped and is not really needed since guns should always be handled as though they are loaded. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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I would at least remove the loaded chamber indicator first and see if that helps. I had occasional issues with mine because of a combination of the loaded chamber indicator and iffy ammo. Removing the loaded chamber indicator helped and is not really needed since guns should always be handled as though they are loaded. I didn't even know it had one until this thread. I've never used one or felt the need for one, so I'll replace it with the TK plug. |
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My 22/45 was new about 5 years ago.
Couldn't get through one mag. After searching the web, I replaced the extractor with a Volquartsen. Zero problems since that day. It was a pretty common issue at that time. |
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Every MKIII I've owned has immediately had the LCI removed, mag safety removed, and MKII hammer bushing installed. I've never had a problem with the factory extractors.
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22/45 just came back today. They replaced the barrel, bolt assembly, ejector, and ejector rivet; and they repaired the grip frame and hammer bushing. Either my gun was an absolute lemon, or they just shotgunned it and replaced everything.
They said that they test fired 40 rounds of 40gr Aguila with no malfunctions. I'll try to head out today or tomorrow if I have time and burn through a few mags. They even included a complementary Ruger cleaning cloth for me. |
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Mine runs like gang busters. In fact, it is in my gun bag to shoot today. ETA: The first thing I did when I pulled it out of the safe was put CLP on the moving parts. It is purely amazing how many cycling issues are corrected on various firearms by this one simple step.
Have you tried a box of Mini Mags? If it won't run with them, it won't run with anything. Yesterday I had a 2206 and a 41 at the range. I had Winchester bulk pack, CCI quiets, and CCI standard velocity. When they say a 41 only runs with standard, they are absolutely right. The CCI quiets would not reliably cycle either pistol. I am guessing this is why many people don't like them. At least remington subs work in my 2206. Winchesters had cycling issues with the 41. I had three very strong primer strikes in the Winchester bulk that did not fire. I am running the same ammo through the older version .45/22 today, with and without a can. If I find this thread later, I will add the results. |
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That area you have circled is where the ejector is riveted in. I would expect that's completely normal.
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Just tested about 100 rounds of cheap Winchester bulk pack stuff through it. Ran like a champ--no malfunctions at all. In addition to the factory repairs, I reinstalled the TK bushing and Volquartsen sear and disabled the LCI. Seems like the factory extractor will be sufficient. I'm happy now. This is the Ruger I'm used to.
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