Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Light Primer strikes Ruger MKII

Have a 2006 Ruger m77 MKII 30-06 I picked up last March giving me some trouble. Here is the scenario:

I never shot the rifle before taking it to the gunsmith and having a Timney trigger installed set at 2&3/4#. Also had it bedded in a Mcmillian stock (which I later sold) at the same time. Fast forward to early fall... still hadn’t shot it till October. Got it up and running with 165 core-lokts (maybe 4-5 rounds) with no issues. I start gettin light primer strikes with no ignition. Repeat on 4 cartridges in a row. I even snapped the pin 3 times on one with nothing. Assume bad lot of ammo. Grab some Hornady American Whitetail 150gr and proceed to shoot 4 3 shot groups of 1” or slightly less. Wait a few days and shoot another 10-15 rounds of ammo. No issue whatsoever. Killed a good 8 point December 15 with 2 shots; no issue. New Year’s Day At 8:00 am, decide to take a cull buck and rifle snaps. Quickly bolt rifle and kill buck. Brought gun home, disassembled and cleaned. Don’t see anything wrong. Shoot it today and it snaps on 10 out 15 rounds, 3 types of factory ammo. Of the snapped ammo, i shoot 1 of each type thru my M700 and all go bang first trip of the trigger. I’m taking it back to the smith but am curious what’s going on here. Is it a weak firing pin or something in the trigger? Or is it something totally different?

Have you measured fired cases to see if the rifle has excessive headspace? A long chamber can cause light strikes/misfires

I have not. I threw all the brass in my brass bucket together. May have to try and fire a few to see

First ensure your bolt is free of gunk inside.
Remove the firing pin assembly, and spray out the interior of the bolt and the firing pin spring/assembly with brake cleaner. Reassemble dry and go shoot it.

That is what I was thinking. I got the smith to disassemble, inspect and clean bolt when he had it too. But I think this may be what I need to donow

I’m a big fan of those Hornady headspace comparators. I measure my previously shot brass to get my rifle chamber headspace, and use that as a reference to adjust the headspace clearance on my ammo.

I'd bet the inside of your bolt is full of goop, gunk and dirt.