A friend and I plan to go PD hunting in SD this June, and we both purchased new Ruger American Rimfire rifles in .17 HMR at the same time. We also purchased a total of 6000 rounds of Hornady ammunition with the 17-gr. V-Max bullet.
Both rifles shoot accurately enough, but they both also frequently malfunction. There are frequent failures to extract, requiring the fired case to be pried out of the chamber.
There are also frequent failures to feed from the magazine. This is most common with the 4th, 5th and 6th rounds in a fully loaded 9-round magazine. The bolt will bind when it is still about 1/2 inch short of closing. I am not sure, but I believe this is a problem with cartridges binding in the magazine rather than refusing to enter the chamber.
These problems occur in BOTH rifles. Today I tried some CCI A-17 ammunition and it produced the same problems as with the Hornady ammo in both rifles.
I read many glowing reports about the RAR .17 HMR before we bought these rifles, but these two are turkeys so far. Are others experiencing these problems and is there a fix, short of returning both guns to Ruger?
Last edited by wildhobbybobby; 04/23/16.
