I have a GSR and it is currently one of my favorite guns. In many ways it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense why, the short 16 1/2" barrel makes the gun loud, the muzzle blast is stiff, and the fireball unleashed at dusk is almost enough to make the BATF classify it a flame thrower. I don't think mine will ever shoot under an inch as advertised and being one of the early guns its action was a rough as a cob out of the box. However, with time the gun has smoothed up, has proved decently accurate enough within 250-300 yards and is just plain fun to knock steel down with. It hits with an authority that an AR15 just can't match on poppers and brings a big grin every time it works its magic. The gun carries well, fits me well, has iron sights, and just has some kind of apeal to it that I cannot explain. Though I know that many of us GSR owners seem to suffer the same attraction I feel.
Several of my friends have also bought GSRs and all had been happy with their guns so far, but every so often a lemon slips through the cracks and one of us ended up wth one
Here she is fresh out of the box, serial number in the range of 680-17xxx. She was ordered from a wholesaler and shipped to the favorite local gun store.
Right out of the box the rear sight was wiggly loose and the angled action screw was not real snug, so we tightened them up. Loose screws seemed to be a common place issue with the first GSRs that shipped out so we always check those first. Also the rear peep portion of the sight had been adjusted to the far right, but we hoped that the sight might have been that way because it was sighted in at the factory.
The bolt sleeve had some machine marks on it which were not attractive, but were simply a minor cosmetic flaw.
On the positive side of things the bolt cycled very smoothly right out of the box where others had been a bit stiff or rough. The trigger was the heaviest of any GSR I have shot, but it was also more crisp with less creep. We took the new gun out to break her in with some fresh ammunition from Cabela's. We had finally found some brass cased, factory new 308 Win ammo on the shelf! I don't want to tell you what the cost was per round, but it was well over a dollar.
Well the gun shot well to the left and it did not look like there would be enough adjustment left in the rear sight to fix it at 100 yards, but worst of all the bolt stuck on the first round. We had cleaned and inspected the gun before shooting and hadn't seen anything wrong, but the bolt had to be palm pounded up and was almost impossible to get open at the end of the lift. It was the same for the next 20 rounds we fired. There was no damage to the fired brass that we could see. The gun acted the same with or without a magazine in the gun. It would cycle rounds through the gun easily if the cartridge was unfired, but as soon as the cartridge was fired the bolt would be tight as a drum and hard to operate.
We then noticed that the bolt could not be closed on the spent brass once the bolt had been lifted. It seemed there was no way the gun could have been test fired like this. Inspecting the gun we found the following.
The ejector had a burr as sharp as a chisel on it.
In the chamber entrance at about 4 o'clock there was some kind of deformation.
On the claw of the bolt there was a lip, but I am not sure this had anything to do with the problems we were having.
Here are some close ups on the bolt.
Needless to say, we were bummed out. Ruger was called and immediately offered to send us a shipping label for the gun for return to the repair center in NH. As others have mentioned Ruger was very friendly and helpful and made the process easy, though i felt like we were creating a national gun registery with the amount of information they needed. =)
I am wondering what the hive mind thinks:
I am wondering if the barrel was threaded into the receiver at an angle thus causing the sights to be so far off?
What would cause this issue?
Do you think it was just a lemon that slipped past QC or did ithis happen from firing?
Have you guys ever seen anything like that?
Have your GSR sights been adjusted hard to one side like that out of the box?
I will update this thread when Ruger sends it back. In the mean time one of us will not be taking this GSR pig hunting at the end of this month.
Several of my friends have also bought GSRs and all had been happy with their guns so far, but every so often a lemon slips through the cracks and one of us ended up wth one
Here she is fresh out of the box, serial number in the range of 680-17xxx. She was ordered from a wholesaler and shipped to the favorite local gun store.
Right out of the box the rear sight was wiggly loose and the angled action screw was not real snug, so we tightened them up. Loose screws seemed to be a common place issue with the first GSRs that shipped out so we always check those first. Also the rear peep portion of the sight had been adjusted to the far right, but we hoped that the sight might have been that way because it was sighted in at the factory.
The bolt sleeve had some machine marks on it which were not attractive, but were simply a minor cosmetic flaw.
On the positive side of things the bolt cycled very smoothly right out of the box where others had been a bit stiff or rough. The trigger was the heaviest of any GSR I have shot, but it was also more crisp with less creep. We took the new gun out to break her in with some fresh ammunition from Cabela's. We had finally found some brass cased, factory new 308 Win ammo on the shelf! I don't want to tell you what the cost was per round, but it was well over a dollar.
Well the gun shot well to the left and it did not look like there would be enough adjustment left in the rear sight to fix it at 100 yards, but worst of all the bolt stuck on the first round. We had cleaned and inspected the gun before shooting and hadn't seen anything wrong, but the bolt had to be palm pounded up and was almost impossible to get open at the end of the lift. It was the same for the next 20 rounds we fired. There was no damage to the fired brass that we could see. The gun acted the same with or without a magazine in the gun. It would cycle rounds through the gun easily if the cartridge was unfired, but as soon as the cartridge was fired the bolt would be tight as a drum and hard to operate.
We then noticed that the bolt could not be closed on the spent brass once the bolt had been lifted. It seemed there was no way the gun could have been test fired like this. Inspecting the gun we found the following.
The ejector had a burr as sharp as a chisel on it.
In the chamber entrance at about 4 o'clock there was some kind of deformation.
On the claw of the bolt there was a lip, but I am not sure this had anything to do with the problems we were having.
Here are some close ups on the bolt.
Needless to say, we were bummed out. Ruger was called and immediately offered to send us a shipping label for the gun for return to the repair center in NH. As others have mentioned Ruger was very friendly and helpful and made the process easy, though i felt like we were creating a national gun registery with the amount of information they needed. =)
I am wondering what the hive mind thinks:
I am wondering if the barrel was threaded into the receiver at an angle thus causing the sights to be so far off?
What would cause this issue?
Do you think it was just a lemon that slipped past QC or did ithis happen from firing?
Have you guys ever seen anything like that?
Have your GSR sights been adjusted hard to one side like that out of the box?
I will update this thread when Ruger sends it back. In the mean time one of us will not be taking this GSR pig hunting at the end of this month.