Originally Posted by
Joe Mac
Mine has 1500-2000 rounds through it thus far. It's been mostly fed Win NATO ball and Gold Dot 124 +P, with a bit of 124 Lawman. Here's what I've figured out:
1. You've gotta do the barrel seating procedure, as described in the manual (loosen nut all the way, install barrel, tighten nut), before firing it. I didn't until I pulled my head out of my ass and read the damn book, after having a half-dozen or so failures to feed or eject in the first few hundred rounds.
2. Once seated correctly, it ran 100% with all ammo and OEM or Magpul mags...for about 300 rounds or so – then I got a stovepipe or two, and the entire forend started to rotate slightly in my hand while firing.
3. Seated the barrel again; back to reliable, smooth sailing – for another 300 rounds or so.
4. Re-seat barrel, etc. etc.
So it apparently beats the barrel loose, leading to malfunctions, after several hundred rounds of high-pressure ammo. It is reliable when properly tightened, and very accurate: I got one-hole, .5" groups at 25 yards with Gold Dot. (By the way, the irons were dialed perfectly for 124 +P right out of the box – no adjustment needed.)
Re-seating the barrel takes only seconds, so it's no inconvenience to do after each range trip. However, I found to my disappointment (but not surprise) that re-seating the barrel caused my Aimpoint zero to wander. This gun is going to be irons only, which is no biggie given the purpose I bought it for (politically correct road trip carbine for states like CA, where I go at least once a year).
If Ruger has an update for these that will prevent this quirk, I'll send it in. Otherwise, it's useful to me as-is. I also added a TLR-7 on the little accessory rail.