Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Trouble with light primer stikes in Ruger 77

I have an all weather hawkeye in .358 win that I purchased this summer. I was going to take it bear hunting but it misfired when I tested it out before my hunt. I had taken the bolt apart for cleaning and luckily decided to test fire before heading out.

After the hunt I took the bolt apart again and found a burr in the bolt that had prohibited full firing pin travel. Case closed so I thought. Yesterday I took it out to shoot it a bit before the upcoming deer season. I got three into less than an inch when it didn't fire. It did this several times with light primer strikes being the problem. If I recocked the bolt it seemed to fire the second time or third time the trigger was pulled. Any ideas of what might be causing this? I really don't feel comfortable hunting with this gun now until this is resolved. I took the bolt apart and there doesn't seem to be anything in there this tim. I'm bummed out too because it is way more accurate than my BLR was and it just fits me better than that gun did.

If you have the time before season, I'd send it back to Ruger for replacement of the bolt...

at least call their repair dept for instructions on what they will do about it...

close to MN deer season, but no way around it needs repaired or replaced..

If you have another rifle, use it if you don't have time to send it to Ruger. If you don't have another rifle I'd clean the bolt again with carb cleaner, spray out the bolt body, grease the lugs and cocking cam, and spray the spring & firing pin with Remington Drylube. I know it's blasphemy but I'd dry fire it a couple of hundred times and then test it with ammo. Good luck hunting.

Besides the normal bolt issues.. headspace is the other bugaboo. Can you measure the fired cases to see if they stretched much? Either way I would let Ruger deal with it.

I looked at the bolt again over lunch and on the mechanism where the bolt engages is good but it has a small wart on the tail end which looks slightly worn. I'm thinking it must be dragging ever so slightly causing light hits.

There's no time to send it in before season but I think I'll give ruger a call and see what the want to do. The darn thing is accurate and seems like it would be a great rifle for rough elements if I can get this resolved. I have a Bushnell 3x9 4200 on it which would make it an excellent wet weather combo.

I have several other guns so that's not an issue but I was looking forward to using this gun as my bad weather option. My go with my Win EW shortie instead as that gun has never failed to go bang.

A couple other things to look at-

If you took the bolt apart, did you screw the bolt cap all the way in when putting it back together? I'm not sure how the Rugers look, but on a Mauser and Model 70, if you leave the bolt unscrewed by even one thread, you will end up with the symptoms you describe.
Also, check to see if the firing pin spring is okay. I had a weak spring on a Remington 700 and had they symptoms you are describing. Replaced the spring and all was well.

Bob

I've got an older 77RS in .358 that I had the same problem with. I tried new firing pins and firing pin springs, and never solved the problem. Sent it to Ruger and they made it shoot right. They never did let me know what they did to it. The turn around time was fairly quick, and the charges minimal.

Two other things come to mind. One - .358 ammo has been known to be VERY sporadic regarding specs, with some being off by nearly .020 at the shoulder datum which will affect headspace a lot.. (not sure if I'm phrasing that correctly)..

Second - is the bolt handle allowed to go fully down, or is it coming into contact with the stock before? If not, relieve that contact area to allow full downward movement of the bolt handle. Anything less can easily give you light strikes..

That

My mom's 1976 .243 does this exact thing. It is maddening. I got stuck with the thing as a 12 year old and it cost me a deer. Took me 20-some years to get over my hatred of ruger bolt actions. The gun got thrown in the back of my dad's safe, where as far as I know it still lives. Hopefully it's rusted into a pile of dust with a scope on top my now.

But seriously, if I can send this POS back to ruger and they would fix it, well, there might be one less fence post around.

Bigbuck,

How much do you want for that troublesome All-Weather?

I think I'll give ruger a chance to fix it first as it is proving to be very accurate. That and I like the caliber.

Is the cocking piece dragging on the sear? Seen it before and it caused misfires.

This is what I believe is causing it. There is a booger on the bottom side that was not cleaned up and it looks like it is dragging slightly

It's on the way back to ruger. I'm hoping they can get it back to me in 2 weeks or slightly more so I can use it 3rd weekend of the MN gun season. The customer service person I spoke to was very helpful and friendly so hopefully the great service continues.

I had the same issue with my Ruger M77 .280 Rem. To fix the problem I used some 240 W/D sandpaper and removed about 10 thou from the seating rod on my RCBS hand priming tool. It made the primers sit perfectly flush with the case head instead of 10 thou below. It fixed the problem.

pabucktail, you mean your entire family is really that dumb? None of you realize that something as simple as this can be easily fixed? Simple misfires are no problem. To be "thrown in the back of the safe" tells me your bunch is a dumb as my dad. I never have figured out why people don't want to fix things that aren't right. To say all Ruger rifles are junk because of your incompetence is just stupid. Ever heard of a gunsmith?

That ain't bad, right there....

But he isn't "over his hatred of Rugers" as claimed. Much like I feel about Savage 110's.... (I gotta say, having just rebarreled one, that is a slick system of rebarreling!!!)

I could quote chapter and verse of various things I've done to Rugers to make them "shoot right" - including the 2 I personally own and one formerly owned, but it's been covered above.... weak springs, burrs, bolt closing, headspace, gummy works. Hard recoil pads, need glass-bedding/trigger jobs for best accuracy, etc..... I love my rugers- next to a '98, they are damned near tank-like.

A sloppy chamber can be fixed cheaply by neck sizing only on reloads...a modified AI, if you will.. (my much-regretted-sold, factory standard RU 77 25-06V, which went from 5 inch 5 shot groups with factory ammo to MOA with reloads using a $19.95 (at the time)basic Lee Reloader Kit.)

Remain calm Jeff! You ought to back off and not make generalizations about family. It's a rifle dude, calm down.

If you would read more closely, you'll notice that I used the term "get over my hatred", indicating that I am over it. I've got Hawkeyes and blackhawks, and a number 1 that I've found to be great tools. I never said they were all junk. Stop being over emotional and read more closely. Mom's gun has been to a gunsmith or two, to no avail. As for that particular rifle, I could take it or leave it. Back in December of 1990 it caused me a very bad day. If it was fixed and rebarreled, I might like it. If it was used as a prybar that might be okay as well.

Besides, what with so many perfectly functional and accurate Winchesters and Remingtons around, that one Ruger was pretty easy to ignore.

You said ruger bolt actions, plural. No mention of just that one. You also forgot to mention you took it to a couple of "gunsmiths", they must not have been too competent. The only "emotion" comes from people who make ignorant generalizations. Not getting it fixed is dumb in my opinion. That is where the dumb part comes from, your dad must not care much about having things that work right.