Ruger Mk. III single loading?

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Naphtali

Single-Sixer
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
226
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Seeley Lake
My pistol has had a parts swap with an earlier Mk. II. My pistol can now fire with magazine out chamber loaded. Can I drop a 22LR cartridge into the chamber of a Ruger Mi. III 22 LR pistol — that is, will doing single shot shooting, by directly loading the chamber, harm its feed, extraction, or ejection? I ask because I remember that chamber loading some mechanisms is harmful.
 
Joined
Dec 11, 2002
Messages
8,966
Location
Ohio , U.S.A.
No, I've seen many folks shoot "One at a time" over the years, we used to use up all th e old .22 shorts like that.....at least with the .22 lr the fired case will be extracted, not so with 'short's............ :?
I think the mag has to be in for the Mk III if there is a "mag safety"...our old MK I, standard autos and MK IIs not so.......... 8) :roll: :wink:
 

SGW Gunsmith

Blackhawk
Joined
May 15, 2010
Messages
966
Location
Northwestern Wisconsin
No, Dan is right, it won't hurt anything involved with the pistol, but it just might be hard on some of the rounds you're hand feeding.
Consider, the feed lips on your magazines are designed and shaped so that they more, or less, guide a round pretty darn straight into the chamber mouth, so just dropping a round into the receiver and expecting it to somehow find its way into the chamber is asking a bit much. So, no it's not harmful to the pistol but it just might be to your vocabulary when rounds are damaged in the single round feed plan.
 
Joined
Dec 25, 2007
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9,933
Location
missouri
Somewhere I read a comment that dropping the slide on a chambered rimfire round "could" cause the extractor to hit the rim hard enough to fire the round. This has never happened to me and it seems that a unique set of circumstances would be required for this to happen.
I ran 200-250 rounds of Colibri hand loaded directly into the chamber of my old 22/45 series II w/o any issue. They simply wouldn't feed from the magazine w/o having the bullet catch the back of the chamber. After those were gone, I switched to different ammo that turned the 22/45 into a manually operated magazine fed pistol and didn't have to handle each round.
 

SGW Gunsmith

Blackhawk
Joined
May 15, 2010
Messages
966
Location
Northwestern Wisconsin
Another reason, that I haven't seen mentioned as yet, involving the shooting of .22 Short ammunition in Ruger Mark pistols, or any other firearm, that has a .22 Long Rifle chamber, is what can happen with a steady diet of those Short rounds.
Consider, the .22 Short cartridge case is shorter, so the case mouth is closer to the bolt face also. A steady diet of .22 Shorts will have the front end of the cartridge case, after the bullet leaves, create a burn, or carbon ring at that place in the chamber. If that goes on for some time, without some attention with a bronze bristle brush, that carbon ring will hinder a full length .22 Long Rifle round from fully chambering at the time you need it to.
So, for those who think that cleaning a .22 caliber rifle should only be done during "Leap Year's" February 29th day, you just might have a problem developing.
 
Joined
Dec 25, 2007
Messages
9,933
Location
missouri
^^^ Agree.
With the reduced power/noise long rifle ammo now available(sometimes), there's really no need to fiddle with 22 shorts(they cost even more than long rifle) in a standard chamber.
A couple months back my Cousin showed up with a cheap single action revolver and asked if I had any 22 shorts since he wanted something to shoot trapped raccoons in his barn. I handed him a 1/2 full box of CCI QUIET 22lr ammo and told him not to waste any. Then I had to go through the full explanation of why it's counter productive to shoot shorts in a lr chamber.
 

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