Long Story With A Question At The End

Several years back I bought a worn and dirty MK10 VERY cheap. After cleaning it up I discovered that it had a problem with the bore although it shot pretty well. I called Ruger to see what could be done. They no longer had any blue 10" barrels but offered a Great Eight barrel as a replacement.

After a while the ugly got to me so I had my LGS pack it up and send to Ruger for a complete refurbish with a new Great Eight barrel/receiver. I now have a factory built Great Eight with a 224 serial number prefix and a MKIII rear sight.

Here's the questions, do I have a Great Eight or not.

I.M.O., with the barrel replacement occuring for the customer and not by Ruger (then returned to stock and resold as a Great Eight), your gun will not letter from the factory as a Great Eight.
It is interesting that Ruger would do this because there are a lot of people here on RF that believe Ruger will not rebarrel a gun to something other than what barrel the gun left with originally.
Chet15

Chet,

Thanks for the response. The reason stated for offering the Great Eight barrel is that they no longer had any 10" barrels. I suspect it was also because they have a suppy of 8" barrels that they are never going to get rid of because of their policy of not changing barrels that you mentioned.

I'm not sure about lettering. It was returned with a box label indicating a Catalog No. of MK8, Model of 00136 and the correct serial number. Would that 'letter'?

HSG

While it makes an interesting story, and one you should keep all verifying correspondence, It is still an after production change, and therefore a MK10 rebarrel job, by the factory. Sort of like restifying old cars, it is still what it was originally, with a facelift.

Usually mjost factories do NOT throw things away and will use them in "service/repairs, etc,. and yes, possibly you catch them at the right time and folks working there, will put on wehat you request, we found that to be true when the "factory" added 9mm stainless spare cylinders for some folks , on the new models...so NEVER, say never........
lots of "custom " stuff out there swapped parts around,we lost count on how many 10 inch barrels we cut down to whatever size the customer wanted, whatever, but NO that 'change' does NOT make YOUR gun, a "Great Eight" issue........

Actually I didn't request, they offered.

I take it they put on the full round Great Eight barrel that was used on the original MK8 and not the slab sided Great Eight barrel that was used on the 22/45 version?

reakin

That's correct. Since Ruger only replaces the barrel with the receiver, the 22/45 combo wouldn't match the MKII lower.

chet15 said:

there are a lot of people here on RF that believe Ruger will not rebarrel a gun to something other than what barrel the gun left with originally.
Chet15

Click to expand...

Here's a 4 digit s/n'd OM .44 "Flattop" that's been sent to SR&Co. for some work.



Ruger installed .44 cal. barrel with "my requested" NM 4-5/8" .45 cal. front sight. I installed the brassie after the gun came back from the Factory.

I believe that any "current production" barrel can be fitted.

JMHO,

flatgate

PS I removed "my" lockwork and installed a "Conversion Kit" lockwork prior to shipping......

Highstandardguy said:

That's correct. Since Ruger only replaces the barrel with the receiver, the 22/45 combo wouldn't match the MKII lower.

Click to expand...

Oh, sorry. I skipped right over the part where you mentioned the receiver/barrel being replaced as a unit. I just assumed they screwed in a new barrel.

Just for curiosity sake, are the threads the same on a MKII receiver/barrel and a 22/45 barrel/receiver?

reakin

I don't know but I suspect that they are. Clark would know since they will replace barrels. Might be a good question for the Ruger-Smithing section.