I have 7 factory mags for my stainless Ruger MKII Target.

But 4 of my mags give me nose dives into the base of the feed ramp.

See photo:
Attached File


I have done the requisite cleaning and polishing, and the follower button is now really smooth.

I have polished the lips. There are no burs.

I have compared the openings with a feeler gauge, and they are identical.

For the life of me I cannot figure out why the front of rounds rise up slightly in the good mags.

I have looked at it with magnification and such, but I see no physical difference and no reason why the front of the top round would rise up slightly.

But failure of the bad mags to do it is the crux of the nose diving problem.

Anybody know why the top round rises up slightly in the good mags?

I.e., what causes the front of a round to rise up slightly in the front of the magazine?  Rounds do it even when not inserted in the gun.

Thanks.

Have you taken the followers and springs out?  Compare the good to bad .

Yep. I've done that a dozen times.

Again, I don't see WHY any round ever sticks up slightly on the front end.  

I actually thought that guns were designed to feed rounds STRAIGHT into the feed ramp, and that a round that rises up would be likely to stovepipe.

Looks like Ruger MKII is designed to depend on rounds rising up slightly in the front end in the magazine.

Rounds that fail to rise up slam straight into the base of the ramp on my gun. (All my mags are Ruger MKII brand.)

Hmmm. I always slap the mags in the gun with a little force to make sure they are seated, but it sounds like my magazines may not be going as high in the gun as they should. I'll look into that.  But it's hard to see details inside of the open bolt much less measure anything in there.

Thanks for the feedback.

OK, I kind of figured it out. It's not a magazine problem.

It's a problem feeding hollow points.

For some reason, it feeds round nose bullets 100%, but will not feed hollow points consistently.

Hollow points nose dive into the base of the feed ramp about 80% of the time in 4 of my 7 mags. The other 3 mags feed hollow points OK.

I suspect that the flatter nose on hollow points is part of the problem---possibly the biggest problem.

I measured the lengths, and hollow points are slightly shorter than round nose bullets.

Round nose .22 LR bullets run about 0.9875 inches long end-to-end.

Hollow points run about 0.9670 inches long end-to-end.

That's about 0.02 inches difference.

I wonder if Ruger ever tested their MKII Target using hollow points . . .