Ran some .22 short in my Ruger mark iii

[zachomega]

I was at the range earlier today. I made it a day of .22.

I mostly shot my marlin 925 and Ruger mark iii. I've been burning through some .22 shorts through the marlin with no issue other than having to load it as a single shot.

Toward the end of my range time, I had some .22 shorts left and thought it might be educational to shoot them through my Ruger to see how it would handle it.

I loaded one round in manually and no surprise it fired just fine. I was surprised when it also ejected just fine too! I didn't think it would have the power to cycle the gun properly.

I decided to try again to see if it was a fluke. Cycled just fine.

Now I was ready to try loading them into a magazine and seeing what would happen. I loaded two rounds. First chambered just fine and fired. But it failed to eject and jammed up. Sort of a stove pipe and failure to feed at the same time.

I cleared the action and tried a few more times. I managed to get 2 rounds out of it a couple of times in a row but also had jams a few times.

Anyway, I found this interesting.

-Zach

[Pete D.]

I bought a .22 Short conversion kit some years ago for my Ruger Mk.II. It came with a reduced power mainspring, a lightweight bolt and two magazines that had been adapted to feed the shorts. It works flawlessly. Unfortunately, I have not seen one for sale for years.
IIRC, it was made by J.A. Ceiner down in Florida.
Pete

[MARINE DIVISION TWO]

It will work feeding manually,but clean the chamber often !

[zachomega]

I'm one of the few people who doesn't mind cleaning my mark iii. Once you get used to it and replace the hammer bushing with a mark ii bushing, it is not so bad. The mark iv does look nice though.

-Zach