Ruger Standard Automatic

[seastrike]

I've got a 1968 Ruger Standard. I bought the gun from a work associate twenty years ago for $50.
The gun has always stove piped on me. Sometimes worse than others and always figured thats the way it was or ammo....
I've been doing some amature gunsmithing on other guns and decided to play around with this gun.
I put an increased power recoil spring (Wolff) and a "power extractor" and heavy duty extractor spring (Brownells).
Yeah momma! Over 200 trouble free rounds at the range today.
Forgot to say that I spent some time polishing the feed ramp as well.

 

[hAkron]

Post a picture!

 

[El Mariachi]

The fact that it took you 20 years to 'fix' an otherwise bitchin pistol kinda scares me. Remind me not to have you file my taxes for me......














(oh yeah, pics! We need pics!)

 

[PO2Hammer]

Cool.
Would love to see a pic. Always liked the look of the standard model. Mine is a Mark II 'standard'.

 

[seastrike]

A little late but here it is....wish I would have gotten on the holster caused wear earlier.

 

[PO2Hammer]

Real nice. Love the grips.

 

[shuvelrider]

I have an early production "red eagle" that functions very well in regards to feed/eject, just keep it very clean in the chamber/ramp area. I have a similar holster except in black for mine.Took off the red eagles and put them away for safekeeping, replaced with aftermaket checked walnut.

 

[mgmorden]

I've got one of these. Good pistol but occasionally the reliability leaves something to be desired (not terrible - just not quite what I've come to expect from centerfire autoloaders). The accuracy and trigger are great though.

I've been wanting to take up Steel Challenge with rimfire lately so I'm going to replace all the springs with Wolff springs and replace the extractor and firing pin with Power Custom parts and see if that helps it any.

 

[Pilot]

Try some different type ammo in your Ruger. That may be the reliability problem. Also, try a different magazine. My Rugers like Federal and Winchester buld ammo as well as CCI Minimags or SV.

If you are still have problems, do what the OP did. Stronger extractor spring and either a VQ or Clark extractor.

I never heard of getting an extra power recoil spring. Does this help function? How about with standard velocity ammo, will it still cycle?

 

[Hardtarget]

I recieved one of those for Christmas in '66. Dad said it cost $37.50. It goes to the range almost every time. Always like shooting that little gun. I must say...yours looks good. A well taken care of pistol.

Mark

 

[DM~]

The ruger jamomatic 22 auto i bought, was the worse semi auto i've ever owned. I never could fix it no matter what i did, and finally traded it off. Many years later i bought a second one, and it jammed too, and i sent that POS down the road ASAP!

I've never bought another, and NEVER will.

Glad you FINALLY figured your's out!

DM

 

[seastrike]

I think ammo also makes a big difference. Find what it likes.
With my changes it ejected Federals and CCI subsonic 100%. I have not tried the Rem Golden Bullet yet but will this weekend but I have my doubts. That feeds fine in the rifles.

I was ordering springs for another gun was the reason I tried the extra power recoil spring and ammo change first. That didn't work. I left the new recoil spring in when I added the new extractor and ext. spring. All probably helped but I think the extractor/spring was the big deal (a $10) part(s).

The recoil spring replacement took some finese for this amature.
If you do the mainspring take pics and explain how you do it if you would. I could not find pics or video of that or the recoil spring. I did find utubes on how to do the extractor (which was easy).

Now that this gun is not a jammer it is the pleasure to shoot it was supposed to be

Luckily I still own one problem child that I will concentrate my spare time on.
My 12 year old pulled me back into shooting last year. It has been fun going through the guns and one by one making them function like new or better.

 

[ku4hx]

Check out these sites for possible fixes:
http://www.1bad69.com/ruger/stovepipe.htm
http://guntalk-online.com/detailstrip.htm
http://www.1bad69.com/ruger/index.htm

My Mark II and my wife's Mark III now function flawlessly where as before any fix was applied jamming was a constant thing with all flat point rounds. Round nose functioning was flawless for both.

My standard model circa 1968 jammed with all flat point rounds but was perfect with round nose also. I dressed the magazines as described about four months ago and now it too will fire anything. Took me so long to fix my standard because I just shot round nose only. My reasoning was why argue with success since the piece was basically for paper and tin cans. But having recently acquired two more, it seemed prudent to seek relief for all.

 

[seastrike]

ku4hx
Thanks! Which end of the magazine did you tune (base plate or lips)?
Great links.