2nd time back to ruger for repair

bought a Sr40c right after the first of year, went to range for 1st time and had approx 15 light primer strikes out of 100 rounds. called ruger customer svc and sent it back for repair, replaced striker assembly, mag d/c, striker blocker, slide stop assembly and some sort of barrel repair. went to range again today and experienced the same thing, different ammo but about 12-15 FTF light strikes out of 150 rounds. called ruger and back to ruger it goes.
this gun was bought brand new from a local gun shop and out of approx 250 rounds have has approx 25-30 FTF due to light primer strikes.
what kind of crap they putting out of ruger?????

Jeez there cankerman, it happens. With the number of pistols being produced to keep up with demand since Obama has been in office a few lemons from all manufacturers slip past QC. I'm sure Ruger will make it right.

palabman said:

a few lemons from all manufacturers slip past QC. .

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Judging from all the "bought a new Ruger and it didn't work" threads, I think Ruger has closed their QC department because the bean counters said it'd be cheaper to deal with the mistakes.

I'm always leery of first post being a knock Ruger one!

I can say that when I worked at Ruger in NH they were having problems with a gun and the General Manager said send them out and we will fix them when they come back. He was only interested in the numbers going out and not what was coming back.

If by your always leary of a first post being a knock Ruger one, I guess I shouldn't expect it to work flawlessly right out of the box then I guess your right.
I guess I tell the wife if she needs to use it as a home defense gun and if FTF again like it has every 1 out of 5 times she can just throw it at them.
If you car only started/ran every one out of 5x you would be a little agitated too.
I bought this gun because of the perceived good reputation I thought tbe company had for making quality handguns.
But I expect it to go bang not click, after all that's why I bought it to go bang.
So if you want to be leary about about the post go ahead, but you, me or anyone else should not have to return a gun, car, computer whatever 2x so far to fix the same problem if its a qualty product, thats the bottom line

Every gun manufacturer will sell some lemons once in a while, but when it was sent back and was returned with the same problem......baaaaad baaaaaad baaaaad. :x

No-1 said:

Judging from all the "bought a new Ruger and it didn't work" threads, I think Ruger has closed their QC department because the bean counters said it'd be cheaper to deal with the mistakes.

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Quite the contrary! Their QA department has undergone a massive expansion in the last few years...it now includes every single customer...

palabman said:

Jeez there cankerman, it happens. With the number of pistols being produced to keep up with demand since Obama has been in office a few lemons from all manufacturers slip past QC. I'm sure Ruger will make it right.

Click to expand...

i dont have a problem with the lemon part, (if they fix it which they did not hence sending it back for the 2nd time) seems as this is more than a lemon problem seems like more widespread than that after looking at the many posts across the internet and different forums.

Well sent it back the other day via Fedex return label from Ruger, there is only one drop center in my area that (per Ruger) that accepts firearms as you are supposedly required to tell fedex it is a firearm per Ruger and Fedex.
Had quite the argument with a clerk and supervisor at Fedex who told me the gun needed to be disassembled (as they said per Fedexpolicy) or they would not take it, after about 40 minutes (no joke) and with the supervisor having to phone company security (hell thought she was calling them on me) they finally took it and has since been received by Ruger.
Time to play wait and see

It's really interesting to read these posts, where Ruger has a "massive" quality problem. Has anyone who likes to chime in on these ever taken the time to actually calculate a hypothetical defect rate with assumed production numbers? I've never seen one here.

But for example, if Ruger produced 75,000 SR40c pistols over their life to date, and we see 6 posts here for different owners the defect rate is .00008 or .008%. Hardly a tidal wave. And since I spent 38 years in manufacturing managment and quality, it''s really quite excellent.

But that's only those that posted here. What if for every one that posted here there are 100 more unknowns? 606/75,000 = .01 or 1%. Still good but not great. 99% good is just not good enough. Somewhere between those two is the real defect rate. I suspect it is probably significantly under .5% given the nature of CNC machines, but offset by human assembly.

Personally, I'd be leery of damning Ruger, its quality department, or its manufacturing department for that kind of performance.

My nickels worth.

Maybe Ruger will get it right this time, they have been getting plenty of practice.

I hope they get you took care of cankerman. Stay after them until they get it right.

@Greg in this particular case the issue isn't really about a manufacturing error rate. From personal experience I think Ruger's QC, at least in their semi-auto operatiosn, is far too poor for an MIA product. We're talking quality being compared (and not particularly favorably, sadly) with Taurus. Even so, you have valid points about us not having good numbers for a "big picture" view...but that applies only to initial quality.

This isn't unique to Ruger, though from my POV it appears that Ruger is leading the trend to manufacturing mediocrity for the American firearms industry. The bottom line, unfortunately, seems to be that American manufacturing pretty much across the board is not what it should be and could be. Probably plenty of blame to go around for that, from labor to management to, yes, we consumers and our demand for inexpensive products.

But, this thread is about a gun that went back for service for a specific problem, was supposedly repaired, but came back to the customer with exactly the same problem. That makes it a whole 'nuther horse. And it's not even an esoteric problem that might be difficult to duplicate. To be fair, this too is not a problem unique to Ruger. I've heard of one case where an early S&W .40 Shield went back for repair and was returned as repaired, only to fail again on the first trip to the range, whereupon the owner noticed a hairline crack in the poly frame. Under recoil the frame was flexing and binding the slide.

But, when a product comes in with a complaint, and one that is pretty easy to duplicate, it is inexcusable for that product to go back to the customer without being repaired and then tested extensively. We don't know what happened at the plant in this case...whether it was a case of the paperwork for a different gun being mixed up with this one so the gun went back to the owner untouched...or it was a case of a sloppy tech (or a sloppy process) that meant that a standard set of fixes got applied to the gun but then it wasn't tested beyond firing a couple of test shots...etc. The bottom line, though, is that the process failed and that seems to be happening enough that the process needs to be addressed.

Hmmm, had a thought @cankerman - out of curiosity - when you examine the fired cases and the light-struck primers, are the dimples all about the same depth? Just wondering if all of the strikes are actually lighter than they should be...i.e. right at the bottom edge of strong enough...or if the strike strength is varying from shot to shot.

Doesn't make any practical difference to you...it needs to go back to Ruger until it is right...but the engineer in me is curious...

the 1st time, the ones that fired were strong/deep and the ones that FTF (light strikes) were more like a dimple instead of of strike. they did however fire when cycled thru again, so no bad primers. the 2nd time the ones that fired were deep/strong and the ones that FTF were more than a dimple but not as strong as the ones that fired, again the FTFs were cycled thru and did fire

Thanks @cankerman - the reason I asked is what you describe would indicate to me it is possibly a bit of manufacturing debris interfering with the movement of the striker, but not all the time. No guarantee of that...and obviously even if that is the case they should have found that at Ruger...but if you haven't already sent it back again you might want to do a detail strip (if you're comfortable doing so) and use some canned air and solvent to flush and blow out the striker channel.

I know my LC9s was kind of "messy" with manufacturing debris/gook when I got it. I think the Ruger is the only gun I've bought that really needed a good cleaning out of the box before the first range session (aside from the old surplus SKS I bought many years ago that was still packed in cosmoline). I always clean/inspect any new gun from ingrained habit but the Ruger was the first that I felt like it absolutely needed that bit of attention.

It sounds like they may have just followed a standard "customer reports light strikes" protocol of replacing spring and striker, for example, and then fired a couple of test shots and it went bang so they said, "fixed." I'm not prescient, so that's just a guess, but a fairly reasonable one and worth checking yourself before going another couple of weeks without the gun (unless you aren't comfortable doing a detail strip or, of course, if you've already sent it back again).

Of course, it could be a more serious issue like a sear engagement that is not quite right and sometimes allows the striker to release before being fully "cocked" so if you don't find something that is an obvious and clear fix send it back to Ruger for sure.

John

cankerman ,

What did you find when you cleaned the striker channel before contacting Ruger?

I ask this because I found quiet a few pieces of metal in my striker channel from primers. It was causing light primer strikes in mine.

I think that it was primers from Federal factory ammunition that was causing the issues.


Charlie

My observed failure rate is more along the lines of 66%. Last week I bought an All Weather American, a 9mm LRC and a 22/45 Lite. The American was ordered but I refused it because it looked like the holes for the scope mount had been started in one place then moved leaving a dimple in the top of the receiver. The 9mm LCR works but it is common knowledge that the front sight Ruger installs on these revolvers in this caliber is not the proper height. This particular example hits about 6" high at 7 yards! The 22/45 Lite jams constantly. Upon disassembly it was discovered that the feed ramp was apparently hacked out by a blind monkey with a dull hatchet. I've been a loyal Ruger customer for almost 40 years but I'm tired of making excuses for them and I've written multiple letters to them warning of alienating long time customers. This is what the feed ramp on the 22/45 looks like. Note the jagged semicircular gouge on the left side of the ramp and the deep striations up the center of the ramp.

Oh, and I completely forgot about the SR22 I bought recently. BOTH magazines were faulty. The magazine disconnect would not "reconnect" when the magazines were inserted so even with full magazines inserted into the pistol it was useless. Ruger replaced the two magazines and thankfully one of the two now work. I guess that actually increases my personal failure rate to 75%. That is unacceptable.