Before and after it was worked on by a gunsmith, I tried to get my new (2004?) Mark II .458 Lott to fail, and could not. Cycled as fast as humanly possible, slow, sloppy, at various angles... cycled fine.

Where I did have a potential problem, and apparently others did too as Ruger called me and asked if I'd send them the gun for re-working, was when chambering the second round from the magazine (from the "left") when using flat nose solids loaded to published OAL. The flat solid would jam, however, round nose solids like Hornandy and Woodleigh fed fine, again worked at all speeds/angles.

Ganyana,

Check your PMs.

Best regards;
Brett

I just ordered some bullets from North Fork and he sent me a few 370 gr flat point solids for my .416 and said to try them to see if they feed first. If they don't what is the usual hangup? This is a Ruger in .416 Rigby, it also feeds round noses fine, ejects perfectly, shoots fine. I am a mechanical type, so I can likely do it myself.

Hi Guys

Just back from this years proficiency exam - with the usual roundup of unusual failures. None by Rugers this year though. Please Note that I have never seen one of the Ruger M77 mk 2's in .458 or .458 Lott have ejection problems. This seems to be confined to those in .416 Rigby after a little wear and tear. Walter Roth, the German gunsmith in Harare has fixed all those bought to him by polishing the ejector groove and increasing the sping tension so that it pops into place quicker as the bolt is drawn back.

Even so, When cycling at a rate of less than one shot a second they work ok. On the exam many candidates are running splits of arround .8 of a second between shots and theat is when problems show up.

a customer of mine had one of these in .458 Lott that wouldn't eject. after a trip back too Ruger it works fine.

DC300

My Ruger RSM in 416 Rigby ejects great...if the pressure is okay. I have to load my rifle to the lower reccomended powder charges. With the North Fork 325s and Barnes 350xs I have to watch pressure as I experience hard extraction before I "should". Test your rifle extensively and settle on a load that your rifle likes. With a propper load the rifle cycles great. That said a little polish work on the feed ramp is nice, without it slightly deformed bullets hang up (the North Fork 325s in the magazine after firing were bulking in loading). Tune your rifle a bit (it would be nice if factory rifles fed everything but that isn't the case) and you'll be a happy camper.

John

Most of these "tests" come up with some strange phenominum or failure on one gun or another, and mostly there is some substance to it, but to what degree is questionalble....I recall one wherein the pre 64 M-70 was a complete failure..

The bottom line is every DGR should be tweaked by a competent gunsmith for feed and function, then tested throughly by the owner, until all the little quirks and bugs are out of it..Mass production does not allow for such pleasures I am afraid, cost of production applies to the sale cost to you, so they try to keep it saleable.

A DGR should be fired at least 300 times before being used, and much of that by firing and reloading at different speeds..

When testing loads at the bench always fill the magazine and fire your groups, don't single load it as most do....

With any factory DGR, it should be glass bedded, cross bolted, action polished, rails polished, and checked for feed and function IMO....and whatever else you deem suitable...

I know of no factory rifle that is set up to feed flat nose bullets, that goes against the basic laws of gunsmithdom, even though many of them actually will, most do not. It is pretty easy to correct that situation...

Tweak your gun and circumvent these problems to start with..

Hi Guys
I was rereading the archived article on the 'African Hunter' website 'lessons learned from Rifa' in which various makes and types of DGR are 'critiqued'. Ganyana says something to the effect that 5 out of 6 of the Rugers had the 'failure to eject when cycled fast' problem. Mine has had the groove polished and seems to work flawlessly (it is probably 2003 manufacture). The more I look at it it seems to be very similar in design to the pre-64 ejector and even the CZ. I find it hard to believe that the failure rate could be so high? Has anyone personally had such a problem? I've got no axe to grind as I have CZs, Mausers and Winchesters.
Charlie