Ruger MkII issues

[Josh M.]

I've got a nicely broken in 8 year old Ruger MkII. It had a couple reliability issues when it was new, but we got those sorted out, and it has been stone reliable since.

Last weekend I was plinking with the wife and towards the end of our session, my old trusty had a couple of failures to eject. Even my wife commented that see had never seen that gun malfunction. I figured that it was a cleaning issue, since I have been shooting quite a bit lately, and the gun probably has 1000+ rounds since I cleaned it last.

So today I took it down to clean it, and found:
#1 - the ejector is loose where it is rivited to the reciever.
#2 - the firing pin return spring is broken

I don't want to send the gun in to Ruger because it has the best trigger job I've ever felt on a MkII done by a dearly departed friend of mine.

The firing pin spring surprises me the most...I wouldn't think that it is really being stressed that hard.
Has anybody else seen one break?
I plan to get a new one from Ruger if Brownells doesn't carry it.

The ejector however is a bit trickier...anybody ever delt with this problem before? The bottom of the rivet is the peened side and is easily accessable for further peening. The ejector side however does not offer me a straight shot, so I will have to make a special anvil to get at it while I peen the other side. Anybody ever delt with this problem before? How did you tighten up your ejector? I'd be interested in a more long term fix if anybody's ever used one.

Hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving! - JM.

 

[jaybar]

Loose ejector no - no problem

There is no need to tighten the ejector. "Loose" ejectors are quite common on the Ruger pistol. The ejectors alignment is controlled by the slot in the bolt that it rides in. Leave it alone it is not the cause of your ejection problems. The random failure to eject is most likely caused by the broken firing pin spring. Whats happening here is that the unrestricted firing pin is moving forward as the bolt flies rapidly backward. The unrestricted firing pin smacks the rim and knocks it loose from the bolt face - resulting in a premature, weak "ejectulation" if you get my drift.

Replace the firing pin spring and I'll wager that your problem goes away.