Anybody have a rifle malfunction that made them say what!

WildBillG

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So I have another post here about my Ruger#1 troubles. While I was going through them and working on a few things anther issue pops up. The fore end was off and I qas looking things over and hopefully going to gain a little accuracy. While doing this I cock the rifle while lying upside down and it will not fire. I watched the hammer spring move but never knew what it was supposed to do. So I go through my rifle manuals and find one on the Ruger#1 and proceed to take it apart. In the instructions it mentions firing the rifle and the hammer sring will be easy to remove. Well I can not fire the gun and there is a lot of tension on the spring. With a lot of fiddling I get it out and proceed to take it apart. Every thing is done I can do with out removing the butt stock and I play with the hammer release and the trigger works. Put it all back together after building a spring compressor and fighting the piece in place it works. When playing I notice this is great it has a nice trigger now. Put it in the gun room and show it to friend the next day he tries the trigger it works once but then flops in the wind. Last night I angerly take the thing apart again and rreset the trigger to work but it barely holds and I can not get it to work again. My thought now is some thing has to be broke in the trigger. Off comes the butt stock and I am looking and see some thing that looks like part of a chain link. Read more in the manual and yes it is to be connected to the sear. The pins that hold the link in place are in place but not the link. Grab the needle nose pliers and the pin comes out like nothing. Put the pin back in tap it in a bit and all is good . reassemble rifle and it works like new.
Then I start thinking was this piece ever together and how did I get it to work the first time. As I said in my other thread I don't think this rifle has 200 rounds through it. Lucky know one got hurt with this thing I'm thinking.
This is my story any others have any unusual rifle stories to share. Has this happened to any one else with the Ruger#1?
 
<SNIPPED STUFF> This is my story any others have any unusual rifle stories to share.

Bought a Ruger 77 (old style, with the tang safety) that someone had put in a B&C stock and glass bedded at the recoil lug...and only at the recoil lug. At times, you would close the bolt and the firing pin would follow the bolt handle down. ***? It was baffling. After much investigating, I found that if you didn't put in the rear action screw, everything was fine. Put in the screw and tighten to 15 to 20 in/lbs, and the problem came back. Because the tang wasn't bedded, the rear screw was 'bending it' down enough to allow the sear to lose contact with the firing pin to where it wouldn't hold it in place; an 'accidental discharge' waiting to happen!

The seller was an honest and good man who had taken the gun in on trade and pointed all this out to me (thankfully) so I got a great rifle at a good price AND was able to fix the glitch without anyone being harmed. Ya gotta watch out for those used rifles. Sometimes you don't know what the previous owner did (or didn't do) to the gun.

Glass bedded the tang area and all is right with the world now.
 
I don't know if this counts but I have a Savage model 12 that will pull the bullet out as your trying to eject it unfired, me and a friend never noticed the bolt being hard to close or anything, so it was sighted in and wasn't till I was hunting coyotes that I had a problem with it and it didn't do it on every round, tried a different box of ammo, both being Federal match 168 gr, one out of each box did it, I thought it might have just been something wrong with the one maybe a it didn't get seated right, but I took it back were I got it and had them send it back to savage in January, they still have it, but I've never had anything like that happen to me, I'm just hoping whatever they have to do to fix it doesn't mess with the accuracy cause it was a tac driver.
 
About 30 years ago, I went out with friends to shoot a few "prairie poodles" with my Remington Heavy Barrel Varmint in .223 Rem. My very first shot, a "puff" of gasses, a slight stinging to the face, and recoil...if you can believe that. I could not open the bolt, and rather than force the issue, I took it to a gunsmith! I immediately went home and pulled all of the remaining loads, only about 30 rounds, weighed each charge and found nothing wrong. I was using IMR 4198, and could not have "double charged"! To this date, I can't explain. The only possible explanation, and this is reaching...the rifle had sat in my reloading room, muzzle up for about 2 weeks. Maybe an insect built a nest or some such in the barrel. I was living alone, so a child tampering, wasn't a possibility!

I'm glad I wasn't there to observe how he opened the boltand extracted the brass. The .223 brass had a belt similar to a "belted magnum", the case rim was damaged, and the extractor was destroyed! The "smith", performed a "go - no go", and an inspection, and could find nothing else damaged on the rifle.

The only other malfunction was, an unexplained miss.....it couldn't have been me! :D memtb
 
I don't know if this counts but I have a Savage model 12 that will pull the bullet out as your trying to eject it unfired<SNIPPED STUFF>.
That is interesting. As if the leade wasn't cut long enough from the factory so you were putting the bullet into the rifling? Very curious to see what Savage says/does about this. I'm with you - hopefully they don't mess up anything GOOD about the gun since you said it was a tack driver.
 
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About 30 years ago, I went out with friends to shoot a few "prairie poodles" with my Remington Heavy Barrel Varmint in .223 Rem. My very first shot, a "puff" of gasses, a slight stinging to the face, and recoil...if you can believe that. I could not open the bolt, and rather than force the issue, I took it to a gunsmith! I immediately went home and pulled all of the remaining loads, only about 30 rounds, weighed each charge and found nothing wrong. I was using IMR 4198, and could not have "double charged"! To this date, I can't explain. The only possible explanation, and this is reaching...the rifle had sat in my reloading room, muzzle up for about 2 weeks. Maybe an insect built a nest or some such in the barrel. I was living alone, so a child tampering, wasn't a possibility!<SNIPPED STUFF>
Well that would be spooky. I'm glad you and the rifle were ultimately okay. I like your theory of something making a 'home' in the barrel. Another thought would be if you were reloading something else before the .223 Rem, and some of that powder got left behind (just a little bit of it would be enough if it were a pistol powder) and that very first .223 round you threw powder for got a 'duplex' load of sorts. Obviously I don't know what happened; I'm just tossing out another possibility. All the other rounds you pulled would look normal and measure out correctly in a case like that. Guns and ammo intrigue me; so many variables involved.
 
Bought a Ruger 77 (old style, with the tang safety) that someone had put in a B&C stock and glass bedded at the recoil lug...and only at the recoil lug. At times, you would close the bolt and the firing pin would follow the bolt handle down. ***? It was baffling. After much investigating, I found that if you didn't put in the rear action screw, everything was fine. Put in the screw and tighten to 15 to 20 in/lbs, and the problem came back. Because the tang wasn't bedded, the rear screw was 'bending it' down enough to allow the sear to lose contact with the firing pin to where it wouldn't hold it in place; an 'accidental discharge' waiting to happen!

The seller was an honest and good man who had taken the gun in on trade and pointed all this out to me (thankfully) so I got a great rifle at a good price AND was able to fix the glitch without anyone being harmed. Ya gotta watch out for those used rifles. Sometimes you don't know what the previous owner did (or didn't do) to the gun.

Glass bedded the tang area and all is right with the world now.

With the Ruger 77 tang safety rifles the factory recommends only tightening the the center screw just tight enough so that it does not back out. I have followed there recommendation and have not had any problems.
 
I was carrying a 300 win mag on a empty chamber and had some brush snag my trigger in a less than ideal situation and "click" send the firing pin. Shortly after I tried to chamber a round and the sear was not engaging and the firing pin was riding forward every time I ran the bolt. I slung the rifle and by the time I got back to where I could disassemble it everything was working again as normal and hasn't acted up since. Ran the bolt 3 times in the field with the same result of the firing pin just riding forward as I closed the bolt. Still makes me wonder
 
Well that would be spooky. I'm glad you and the rifle were ultimately okay. I like your theory of something making a 'home' in the barrel. Another thought would be if you were reloading something else before the .223 Rem, and some of that powder got left behind (just a little bit of it would be enough if it were a pistol powder) and that very first .223 round you threw powder for got a 'duplex' load of sorts. Obviously I don't know what happened; I'm just tossing out another possibility. All the other rounds you pulled would look normal and measure out correctly in a case like that. Guns and ammo intrigue me; so many variables involved.


Thanks, it could've gone bad! I actually started to mention that the "only" other rifle I was loading for was a .375 H&H using WW 760. Plus when pulling all of the other rounds loaded at the same time, I only saw the 4198. To this day, it perplexes me as to what happened! memtb
 
With the Ruger 77 tang safety rifles the factory recommends only tightening the the center screw just tight enough so that it does not back out. I have followed there recommendation and have not had any problems.
Great reminder to those reading this as I didn't mention the center screw at all in my post. As you say, it gets nearly no torque at all (perhaps 5 in/lbs, at most.) But - just to be absolutely clear here - it wasn't the center screw involved in any of this. The lack of bedding compound in the tang area of the aftermarket stock (despite the front of the action being glass bedded) allowed the tang portion of the rifle to be pulled down by the REAR action screw, flexing the action enough to make sear engagement tenuous to non-existent.

It wasn't a 'fault' of the rifle. Someone just tried to tinker with things using an aftermarket stock, but only did the job half-way, leading to a safety issue. I'm a big fan of the Ruger 77, with a soft spot for the 'old' tang safety models. That's where the safety SHOULD be in a hunting rifle (or shotgun) - right there, under thumb, on the tang. Browning A-bolts and X-bolts get it right, as do the Savage/Mossberg guns. You can take off the safety in near total silence with one digit (the thumb) and do so quickly, without breaking the grip of your trigger hand. Perfect!

Having said that, I have many different brands of rifles and like them, too. I just think a tang safety is a beautiful thing.
 
Thanks, it could've gone bad! I actually started to mention that the "only" other rifle I was loading for was a .375 H&H using WW 760. Plus when pulling all of the other rounds loaded at the same time, I only saw the 4198. To this day, it perplexes me as to what happened! memtb
Well that is interesting. Even if some WW760 'cross-pollinated' to your .223 Rem ammo, it wouldn't lead to the result you got, so the mystery remains!
 
I was carrying a 300 win mag on a empty chamber and had some brush snag my trigger in a less than ideal situation and "click" send the firing pin. Shortly after I tried to chamber a round and the sear was not engaging and the firing pin was riding forward every time I ran the bolt. I slung the rifle and by the time I got back to where I could disassemble it everything was working again as normal and hasn't acted up since. Ran the bolt 3 times in the field with the same result of the firing pin just riding forward as I closed the bolt. Still makes me wonder
Hey Buster, what a great post. Makes me think I should reconsider my habit of hunting with a loaded round in the chamber and the safety on. If the safety were to get 'brushed off', a simple twig in the trigger guard could lead to more excitement than I'm looking for in a hunt. That is perplexing that you couldn't get the rifle to re-cock after the incident with the brush. Only thing I can think is perhaps some debris got trapped in the trigger mechanism and by the time you got back to where you could disassemble the gun, it had worked itself out, 'fixing' the problem? The problem when you can't 'find and fix' something is you are then left wondering if the rifle is really okay or not. I'm assuming it has worked fine ever since? Weird!
 
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