head space on ruger Mark 2

Discuss .22 pistols.

Moderators: Bullseye, Moderators

Post Reply
45dave
New member
New member
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 5:17 pm
Location: midsouth michigan

head space on ruger Mark 2

Post by 45dave » Sat Mar 07, 2009 8:19 am

It has been a long time since I posted anything but just wanted to share a head space issue with a MarkII I picked up. The fella I purchased it from warned me it would misfire now and then. Sure enough, sometimes 4 or 5 rounds would not go bank and not eject in a box shells. After playing around for some time the thought suddenly hit me in the head if the shell is not being picked up by the ejector maybe the head space on the bolt is too deep and the shell rim is too small.
So I collected half a dozen rounds that would not fire after several tries and found out they were all running 0.038 or so in thickness, one as 0.036. In checking several boxes of several brands the rims thickness tended to run 0.040 to about 0.044 and when I checked the depth of my bolt it was 0.050...ding ding ding..
I stripped the bolt down ( that ejector is a tricky but clever little deal, wow talk about creative idea) and ground the pocket down to 0.047 deep.
Back to the range where all but the thinnest one went bang.
I ran a bit over 300 rounds with only the one misfire so I am going to take another one or two thousand off the face next week.

So...if there is anyone who is experiencing some occasional misfires where the round is also not picked up check the head spacing. It is actually an easy fix if you know someone with a good old basic tool room grinder.

Post Reply