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Redhawk 'jam' - any suggestions...?

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8.4K views 18 replies 10 participants last post by  cottersay  
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#1 · (Edited)
My 45 Colt/ACP Redhawk will occasionally refuse to allow a full trigger-pull, without letting the trigger go fully forward, and trying again.

I sent the new, barely-fired, gun back to Ruger last year due to this, and they thought it might be that the trigger group wasn't seating fully in the frame (there was a small gap), so they fitted it better, and returned the gun to me.

I didn't really 'check it out' when it came back, because the problem had seemed random, and I assumed they had corrected it. Unfortunately NOT.....it happened again....!

After some dry-firing, I realized I can reproduce the 'jam' by not allowing the trigger to FULLY go forward after the hammer falls. There are several 'clicks' as the trigger goes forwards, but the very last one is faint, and only happens just as the trigger is fully forward.

If the trigger is released suddenly, so it returns forward briskly, the jam seldom happens, if at all. However if it is released gently or slowly, there is a 50/50 chance the last 'click' won't happen, and the next trigger pull won't work (the trigger moves maybe 1/4 of a full pull, and the hammer starts back about 1/4 of the full travel, then it stops).

Any ideas what the issue is...? I know I can ship it back again to Ruger, but would be interested to know what might be the problem. Is this something anyone else here has noticed with any of their Ruger double-actions (I have three other, older, Redhawks, a couple Speed-Sixes, and a couple SP-101's, and haven't ever noticed this issue with any of the others).
 
#2 ·
Burr internally? I would just inform Ruger again and ship it back on their dime.
 
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#3 ·
It's easy enough to drop the trigger group out and take a look. Might be as simple as a burr or piece of debris lodged in the mechanisms.
Have a look, clean it up, reassemble, and reevaluate. If the problem persists... let Ruger fix it.
 
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#6 ·
Owly said:
...If the problem persists... let Ruger fix it.
Click to expand...
oldag said:
Send it back to Ruger. They will make it right.
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Hmmmm. It has been in Ruger's hands twice, and still does not function as designed. Today's Ruger seems more like a group of minimally trained parts assemblers, not well-trained and experienced revolver builders of several decades ago. I would try the trigger plunger shim before sending it back. The trigger plunger is also something I focus on when tuning a Redhawk, GP100, or SP101.
 
#4 ·
AJMD, I've run into this issue many times. Fortunately the fix is fairly simple. What's happening is the trigger plunger has too much side play and is not contacting straight on the cylinder latch. This causes the trigger plunger to gag and not fully reset. The solution is to install a shim on the trigger spring pin (left side of trigger plunger) so it holds the plunger against the trigger body yet can move freely. Look at the schematic in this link: Redhawk | World's Largest Supplier of Firearm Accessories, Gun Parts and Gunsmithing Tools - BROWNELLS

The parts in question are #58 trigger plunger, #67 cylinder latch, #80 trigger spring pin, and #78 trigger.
 
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#10 ·
Here is the EXTREMELY troubling thing about this. This problem started happening AFTER I had put about 250 rounds through this gun. It was fine the first couple times I shot it.

I have two Redhawks. As a result, I don't fully trust the other one.

Even if I get it back and it works, I will always wonder when the problem will come back since it suddenly appeared in the first place. It makes me want to sell both of them.

P.S. My problem was with two types of factory ammo. No high primers. No dirt under extractor star. Rounds fully able to seat in cylinder. I made sure I reset the trigger when I pulled it.
 
#11 ·
The trigger plunger's purpose is to pull the cylinder latch down when you first begin to pull the trigger. This will release the cylinder so it can rotate. As the trigger is pulled a bit more, the cylinder latch will release from the plunger and spring up. After the gun has been fired and the trigger is released, the trigger is pushed forward by the trigger spring and the trigger plunger is pushed forward by the dual purpose spring that also provides tension for the pawl. The trigger plunger has a nose that looks like 1/2 an arrow head (top photo). When it contacts the cylinder latch, it will cam over the latch to reset for the next trigger pull. Also in the top photo, note the trigger pin. It has an added .1" section of 1/8" diameter brass tubing. This forms a spacer that keeps the trigger plunger from wandering, thus a positive reset.

The tolerance of the parts can stack in your favor and make the trigger plunger fit perfect in the channel of the trigger. Sometimes tolerances DON'T stack in your favor and allow the trigger plunger to have too much side play. When this happens, the trigger plunger will not reset reliably. The fix is to use a spacer or shim on the trigger pin. Note the photo of the trigger group assembly. One arrow points to the trigger plunger, the other arrow points to the brass spacer that fits on the trigger pin.

Here's the drill .... first you must remove and disassemble the trigger guard assembly. Place the trigger and trigger plunger in the assembly then push the trigger pin part way through until you can slide the brass spacer between the trigger plunger and trigger frame. Once the brass spacer has been added, you can reassemble the trigger group assembly.

BTW, the photos are from a GP100 but SP101s, Redhawks and Super Redhawks all have the same trigger plunger and all will respond positively to the above "fix". The brass spacer is cut from a 1/8" diameter piece of brass tubing. The one in this particular gun was filed down until the plunger was snug yet moved freely. This turned out to be .1" long, however on another gun, it may be slightly shorter or longer, depending on the tolerance of the parts.

I have been doing this modification on customer owned Ruger DAs for many years and never had a single failure to reset after installing the brass spacer. Further, the spacer diameter is small enough where it doesn't interfere with the function of the action. You can buy brass tubing at hobby shops ... usually in 12" lengths ..... enough to do about 100 guns for about a buck. I use a tubing cutter to cut a small section of brass tubing then file the ends down to get the right length. If you screw up .... there's plenty more tubing to try another piece.

Image



Image
 
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#14 · (Edited)
UPDATE: Thanks for all the replies.

I took it apart, polished off a couple burrs, lubed it, and reassembled it, and it works MUCH better. I can still MAKE the jam happen intentionally, but it won't just happen from a lazy return.

I plan to fire 500 rounds or so through it, assess the 'jam' again, and if it is at all an issue, send it back or attempt the more intense repair Iowegan so kindly illustrated. Definitely has to be 100% before going to grizzly country.

What I did in the interim was interesting though.

I swapped trigger groups and hammers from my new 45 ACP/Colt Redhawk (503-88xxx) with a 15-20 year old 44 Mag Redhawk (502-14xxx) that I've shot so much it really is smooth, and with that gun I can't even intentionally get the trigger to fail to reset. I was just curious as to whether or not I could do the 'simple fix' of putting the more reliable parts in the gun I'd use for bear protection, and the less reliable ones for now in the gun I use more for deer hunting. NEITHER gun functioned well with the other one's guts...! Other than smoother surfaces on the older gun, there were no obvious parts differences or spring tensions I could tell just by hand. Both guns were ROUGH in trigger pull, the trigger sometimes staying rearward and needing pushed forward. I thought it was just my re-assembly technique (or lack of), since getting the plunger in a Ruger Mark-II 22 LR Pistol is easy compared to getting the one in the Redhawk aligned. However, disassembly and reassembly two or three times got me the same results, and in between when I put the old parts in the old gun and the new parts in the new gun, I got the same thing as before - the old gun smooth and flawless, and the new one rougher (but way better than with the 'old' parts in it), and easy to 'jam' like before.

Not sure what to make of that, other than to make a mental note that I can't just 'swap parts' in those guns like some others....

At this point, I'm leaving the old one as-is, since it is smooth and reliable, and will just work with the new one to get it to that point. If the parts don't swap, that's fine.

UPDATE Part Two:

After a couple hundred dry-fires, the need to actively PUSH the trigger forward for complete reset started again, so I took Iowegan's advice, and effected at least a temporary repair; unfortunately I didn't have any brass tubing, but I did have an ink pen that had exploded, strewing the little plastic ratchet parts about. It turned out one of them was a perfect diameter to form sort of a bushing, and it MARKEDLY reduced the wobble of the Trigger Plunger. What this did was interesting - it made the 'jam' much more consistent, the feel of the 'reset' much more precise, but it did still happen. So I used a hard Arkansas stone to polish the nose where it contacts the cylinder bolt, just enough to allow it to pop up and over it when the trigger is about 0.06" from fully forwards (this now duplicates my older Redhawk) instead of having to be FULLY forward, and sometimes given that extra 'nudge'.

I will get a chunk of brass tubing for more durability, however - I don't want anything that might crack and come off and gum up the works down the road. Speaking of that, the little Trigger Guard Latch Retaining Ring is a pretty fragile thing, and loose, and it seems a roll-pin through the shaft of the Trigger Guard Latch would be less prone to coming off under recoil.

Anyway - problem solved - Thanks Iowegan.....!
 
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#15 · (Edited)
......what's the saying about countin' chickens afore they hatch....??? :eek:

I bought the brass tubing today, excited to make the repair more permanent, and so today I'm fiddlin with the Redhawk, and try to slow the trigger's return so as to make the 'jam' happen (which I could NOT do last night).

And it jammed... :confused:

Repeatedly... :(

So I watch the cylinder bolt carefully, and realize that "when I push the trigger forward", it pulls the bolt away from the cylinder as the trigger plunger is popping up over the bearing surface.....but, "when I push the trigger forward" - I have also been subtly putting some pressure on the cylinder and forcing it to rotate clockwise (not the normal operational rotation).

What actually is allowing the trigger to reset fully now appears to be the [abnormal, forced] rotation of the cylinder actually camming the cylinder bolt out of the locking notch; there is actually a radius on the trailing edge of the bolt that the little dished-out area beside the cylinder bolt notch catches and appears to push the bolt away from the cylinder enough to reset the trigger. It does NOT appear to be a simple 'binding' issue, in that if I wiggle the cylinder it won't free the bolt up to move on its own; it is only when I really torque the cylinder clockwise that the bolt pops out of the notch. I hadn't realized that when trying to re-create the 'jam', what I thought was un-doing it (pushing the trigger forward) may not have been the only thing that was un-doing it; evidently it was un-jamming when I put some clockwise torque on the cylinder.

Maybe I hadn't noticed this because the trigger also required the forward push (...I remember that so distinctly...!) until I fixed that part last night.

Unfortunately, although the shimming did make things perceptably more consistent, and I do think the stoning of the bearing surface (5 light strokes with a hard Arkansas stone) improved the 'reset point' as felt through the trigger, the durn thing still jams with ordinary dry-firing. I thought about a range session to see if the shock of live ammo would prevent the jam from happening, but the gun still shouldn't lock up like that, even dry-firing....! I am not going to wear Kevlar gloves just so I can keep one hand on the cylinder to torque-assist... :roll eyes:

I'm also not sure why last night the 'jam' was not easy to make happen without severely retarding trigger return, yet today it jams like that at least 50% of the time.

The end-point will probably be another trip to Ruger, but I'm still curious as to what the problem is, because I want to know what to watch for if they do fix it (those 'repair letters' you get back seldom say anything helpful), and the way repair services go these days, I'm not sure they actually will fix it. Gone are the days of walking into the gun shop, showing the gunsmith what is going on, so he [or she] gets the real story and fixes the right thing. I'm not even sure the letter I wrote last time describing the problem got read by the guy who worked on it; these days a clerk types everything into a bunch of computer check-boxes, just like in health care, and nobody really knows what is going on.
 
#17 ·
I don't want to hijack this thread, so I'm going to start my own, but my Ruger Redhawk .45ACP/.45LC does the exact same thing, whether I'm dry firing or live firing.

Picture below showing the trigger pulled, the hammer a quarter of the way back, but the bolt has not released the cylinder (normally -- the majority of the time -- the bolt is already retracted into the frame at this point.) The trigger must then be released and pulled again to function properly (most of the time, but sometimes it just locks up again!)

And this is suppose to be my good ol' dependable carry gun...:mad:
 
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#18 ·
I have two fairly new .44 caliber Redhawks. The one that is back for the second time to the factory developed this problem after about 150 rounds. The first 150 rounds were flawless.

As a result, I now have no confidence in either gun.

Even if I get the gun back that is having the problem, I don't trust it won't happen again. I also don't trust that the other gun won't suddenly get this problem.

I REALLY REGRET buying the Redhawks.
 
#19 ·
I don't blame you Dave, which is why I had to fix this issue myself. I had to fully understand that when I fixed it it would stay fixed and dependable, plus I wasn't to keen on sending my new revolver back to Ruger 2, 3, or 4 times! (See my fix on my newer post, "Redhawk locks up -- but in a BAD way".)
 
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