Ruger 77/50 design question

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mike nelson

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I purchased a used (like new) ruger muzzleloader this spring and have been reading a lot on various sites from present and past owners of this discontinued rifle. Many comments were inconsistent ignition with the percussion caps and excessive blowback. Seems that much of the issue with the ignition is from dry firing and damaging the breech plug nipple so a cap doesn't properly fit. This can be remedied by not dry firing (note that the plunger spring tension can be detentioned for storage by holding back on the trigger and slowly closing the bolt). My question is the blow back issue while noting that the ruger bolt can very easily be disassembled for cleaning of the bolt. This blow back problem also supposedly blows debris upward and onto a scope. My ruger is a early production model and there is a extension on the bolt body encompassing about 30% of the bolt body face. It's purpose according to the owners manual is to come in contact with the breech plug to ensure the BP is fulling seated, the bolt being unable to be fully closed unless the BP is indeed fully seated. Well I've thought long and hard about this design issue and wondered if the problem was true why didn't ruger increase the radius of this extension to deflect any blow back to the right and away from any optics. While monitoring used Rugers for sale on other websites and the photos provided I've noticed that some appear to have a bolt that exactly provided this extra coverage. Now I've found on a gun parts website that appears to have many factory new ruger 77/50 parts for sale with good photos that there were bolt bodies manufactured with this extension encompassing about 50% of the bolt body face, possibly later production guns. Can anyone confirm this?
 
I never understood why ruger stopped making that ML, I've been watching gun broker on a few of them.
 
I wonder if teflon tape around the threads of the breach plug would cut down on the fouling. I know it really helps my Remington 700ML.
 
derfhunter

It is an inherent design flaw. Easily seen in the Rem 700ML design and Ruger 77/50. It can be cured by installing a "bolt nose" and breech plug to upgrade. The person to contact is "Hunter" on Dougs and he is here on MML contact derfhunter. He will have the real skinny on what you need to do. W
 
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