ruger 44mag carbinewontcyclehelp!

[mac100]

the ruger manual states that you should load the 1st round into the chamber(with safety engaged), close the bolt & load remaining cartridges into the magazine.
the one i used to have had to be unloaded through the action opening(no cartridge release tab) but the bolt locked back on each cycling & had to press the bolt release each time.
i just rolled each round out separately without chambering it.
it would never cycle through by hand without holding that bolt release down.

This is how mine works as well. When cycling manually it locks open but load the first round push the blot hold open until it chambers he round and load the rest. When you fire it, it will cycle no problems.

 

[buck knife]

I understood you were firing the gun and it wouldn't cycle rounds,My .44 will cycle anything I put in it reliably,but some are very picky.if it's the early version with no mag releae button,you will need to load the gun just like the fellas said above ,drop a round in the chamber then close bolt and load the rest in the tube.it should work perfectly doing that.If not,have a real close look at all the metal parts in the action for cracks or damage.

 

[jakester]

As for the bolt hold open upon loading the first round...This a common occurrence on these rifles and of the three I've had over the years, two of them had that issue, although it happened sometimes, but not always. It's possible that a good thorough cleaning of the entire mechanism needs to be done, with focus on everything moving freely without binding and any weak springs addressed. I wasn't able to solve the issue, although I did "work around it" like one poster who loaded a single cartridge first, and then the 4 rounds into the mag. Firing function was fine.

The fact that the OP's rifle has the bolt hold open issue when first loading the rifle, and also after the first round is fired, leads to belief there might be two separate issues happening coincidentally. Since it fires and ejects the case, yet locks the bolt back, It doesn't sound gas related. Possibly something going on within the cartridge feeding/lifting mechanism.