Ruger American

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Demonical

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I was at the range yesterday, and a young lad was shooting a shiny new Ruger American in .308. Shooting factory 150gr ammo (no idea the manufacturer).

I was watching him and damn near every round he had to use a cleaning rod to bump the cartridge out of the chamber. The extractor on the bolt didn't appear to have anything wrong with it yet it wouldn't extract a spent factory round.
And I'm saying it was 70-80% that didn't extract.

And, also he showed me 1 cartridge that the primer was bulged right out, like it was an excessively over-loaded handload. But just factory ammo.

Needless to say, this raised an eyebrow on me...
 
I have three Ruger American rifles, no issues whatsoever with two of them, my 308 eats any kind of ammo and prints really nice groups, so does the 270. Zero extraction issues.
Can’t speak for the third one, 30.06, still hasn’t been fired yet after three years. LOL

Sounds like the chamber requires an inspection by a gunsmith.
Could happen to a Savage, or a Remington, or any other brand of rifle.

I recently had a used rifle that I purchased almost two years ago, finally got around to shooting it, it had an extraction issue, someone must have dropped a round on the ground and then fed it into the chamber and fired it, the chamber just needed a good quick and simple polishing and it had been fine after that.
The chamber was a little rough inside and was a bit hard to extract the factory federal fired casings.
 
Last edited:
B.Ruddick said:
I have three Ruger American rifles, no issues whatsoever with two of them, my 308 eats any kind of ammo and prints really nice groups, so does the 270. Zero extraction issues.
Can’t speak for the third one, 30.06, still hasn’t been fired yet after three years. LOL

Sounds like the chamber requires an inspection by a gunsmith.
Could happen to a Savage, or a Remington, or any other brand of rifle.
Click to expand...

Well I suppose that's possible, but in all my 50+ years shooting and playing with guns, that Ruger would be the first and only new rifle I have ever seen that wouldn't reliably extract a fired cartridge.

fwiw.
 
The primer bulged out sounds very strange.
As if there was enough room behind the cartridge for it to work it’s way out after being fired, yet how did the firing pin manage to strike the primer.
Did the pin strike the primer and push the round ahead at the same time somehow?
The headspace near the shoulder is out?? wondering what the length of the fired brass was after?
Questions we won’t know unless we had that rifle to look at.

I had a primer fold before, was struck by the firing pin, did not go off, extracted the cartridge, and saw the primer folded in half to a 90 degree angle, while still inside the primer pocket of the cartridge.
It turned out to be the BAS ( big ass screw) on the back of the bolt of a Savage 110E I once had, it had backed off some and caused this to happen twice in a row.
Tightened it up and added some blue locktite and all was good again.
 
I have been reading more and more about guys who have had issues with their Ruger Americans. There must be a bad batch that came out. Its really disappointing, I always thought pretty good about ruger but many forums are blasting them right now.
 
Factory ammo can be over pressure too, I've popped primers and had hard exrtraction on some.

But it sounds like the headspace is incorrect and the rifle should go back
 
American was the only gun I ever bought new and sent it right back for refund, ate the return shipping and was glad to.
It was just gross, took it out of the box and couldn't even wipe the packing oil off it with a rag, the rag stuck to the barrel and shredded, the exterior of the barrel looked like a long threaded bolt.
Opened the bolt to work the action, sounded like a zipper, that was enough Ruger American for me....and that was when they were $400, not the price they are now.
Now that is a sample size of 1, I'm sure there are better finished ones out there then I got, the zipper bolt is common however. They just pump these out too quickly, and what passes QC is a pretty wide spectrum.
 
S1de8urnz said:
I have been reading more and more about guys who have had issues with their Ruger Americans. There must be a bad batch that came out. Its really disappointing, I always thought pretty good about ruger but many forums are blasting them right now.
Click to expand...


I've got a couple of them in .223. Bought them as range fun guns after the ban because they use AR mags. Both are pushing close to 10K round count and I can't say I've had any problems with them. They are still reasonably accurate, too. One of these days I may even put up a paper target to check group size but mostly they get shot at steel.

That's not to say that these are very refined rifles or that other people haven't had problems with them, though. They are inexpensive bolt actions built to a price point just like Savage Axis etc. It seems everyone is making an "affordable" rifle line up these days and I doubt that the QC is as stringent on them as their flagship rifle lines!
 
I bought a used Axis in 223 that did the same thing, extractor couldn't pull the case back. Ended up just needed a good cleaning and got a bunch of like black tar out of the chamber. Its gone, Probably the first and last axis I will ever own for more reasons than just that.
 
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