Ruger 10/22 Upper Receiver Failure

A

aerobeast

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Well this isn't supposed to happen...Right?

I just bought an inexpensive, nice looking 10/22 stock. I was in the middle of the swap, putting my barrel back on the upper receiver, then SNAP.

Just by looking at the failure cross section, the aluminum casting looks very porous. The stress from tapping the two threads is evident by the aluminum cast color change. A close up look at the tap shows discontinuities in the thread.

Is this a known issue? Should this type of thing happen? I am relatively new to firearms, however I am an engineer with lots of mechanical design experience...I certianly didn't do anything I wasn't supposed to do wrt the upper receiver.

The 10/22 is a 10-15 year old carbine model with about 2000 rounds, passed down to me from my father.

Would Ruger be interested in seeing this, or would there be some kind of warranty covering the rifle for a failure like this?

In any case, I figured my fellow gun nutz (especially those 10/22 fanboys/fangals) would certianly be interested in these pics.

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Thanks,

Brien
 
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What were you using to tighten the screws? Appears to be a fresh break, although the area around the holes appears to be discolored. 15-20 in lbs would not be enough to break that under normal circumstances. Send it to ruger, see what they say.
 
gun runner said:
Wow... Did you have a hard time removing the barrel?
Click to expand...

No, not at all. It's a loose fit. I was putting the barrel in, getting the barrel chamfer to line up with the barrel hole in the receiver. Perhaps I came in at a bit of an angle...but really wasn't thinking much of it as I've done this at least 20 times before. Wasn't forcing anything. As I was about to line it up...SNAP! There would have been the slightest amount of force on that piece. My initial reaction was that it was ceramic! And the broken piece kind of looks like it too lol. If you look at it really closely there are thousands of small holes. Very porous and sponge-like. In my opinion this looks like a casting defect...
 
10mark22 said:
What were you using to tighten the screws? Appears to be a fresh break, although the area around the holes appears to be discolored. 15-20 in lbs would not be enough to break that under normal circumstances. Send it to ruger, see what they say.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input. I hadn't even gotten to the screw tightening part yet. In the past I have used an Allen key, hand tight.
 
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