My Ranch Rifle has issues :(

[yamahacowboy]

When I got my Mini14 a few years ago It ran fine with 100s of rounds. Then Last year I installed that little scope rail that Ruger supplied with it and I started having major issues with empty brass getting jammed between the front receiver barrel "Ring" and the operating handle rod to the point where it needed mortaring to unjam. So no problem, I removed the little rail and just used the Ruger rings for my scope. SO last Sunday I took it to reset the scope. Now I have issues where "sometimes" a empty case would not eject and stay in the action between the front barrel receiver ring and the bolt keeping it open. I had to pull back the handle and "tip" the rifle over so the shell would fall out
But not too bad at first. Once I set POA on the scope I removed it thinking this Mini "just don't like" a scope on it. Well the same issue kept happening. Looks like a short stroke issue. Now this time I used some grease on the rails instead of oil since I forgot the oil. It was lightly greased with a Q-tip. Maybe the grease dried up faster than a coat of oil??
It would eject most of the shells off at mostly 1 and 2 o clock with a hiccup or two each mag (10 round mags). I noticed that the gas piston is getting scraped up like its not aligned right when it closes.

 

[OldePhart]

Hard to say without seeing the gun but if the gas piston is scraped up my guess would be it's not sealing well and gas is blowing by instead of operating the piston properly. I would guess there may have been a burr or something in there from day one and the issue has just gotten progressively worse as the piston deteriorated.

 

[DGW1949]

What type of oil or grease you lube the slide with shouldn't matter as far as reliability goes. Unlike the AR platform, you can run a Mini totaly dry and it will still function fine.
Adding the factory supplied rail should not effect the reliability of your Mini either. My guess is that it had a problem right from the get-go which did not manifest itself untill the rail and/or scope was added, and now whatever the underlying problem is has gotten worse.

As you may have noted, both the gas piston and the slide are by design, a bit sloppy in how they are fitted to the gun....so yeah, you are going to see some long marks on the piston.
On the other hand, if one side is heavily marked on just one side while the other remains untouched, you might be seeing evidence that the gas port aint 90-degree "plumb" to the barreled reciever.

All in all, I'd say that your best bet is to get ahold of the nice lady at Ruger's Service Dept, tell her exactly what you've told us, and let her arrange to have it fixed.

DGW

 

[blume357]

I haven't messed with a mini in a year or two... but it seems to me like there is a way to put the rail running from the piston to the bolt on wrong... side down or such... I'd check this.

As you know.... the thing should be throwing brass into the next county.

Then again, the simplest solution is call Ruger and send it to them and get a custom rifle back... worse will be you have to pay for some of the shipping.