wvruger

Hello everyone!!!

I brought this up on another forum but wanted advice from ruger owners

I have a question id like to run by everyone here. I bought a new mini 14 in october, have put 60 rounds throught it between two trips to the range and have always fully stripped and cleaned my mini right after shooting, I run an oiled patch down the barrel every month and when im really bored and fully field strip and clean in ( sounds like i take care of my firearms right, also have a dehumidifier in my safe) WELL I opened my safe last week to check my rifles out and give a fresh coat of oil, grabbed my mini, checked down the barrel and what would you know the bore is full of rust right below the crown. I began to clean my rifle hoping i could remove the rust to only have the rifeling still hold rust. I began to think when i brought my ruger home from the store to clean it there was next to no factory grease/oil, making me think maybe think was already happening when i purchased the rifle even though I never caught it. I contacted ruger stating my case and wondering what can be done, a 3 month old rifle should not be showing that much rust when it is taken care of like i do. They told me to send the rifle in for their techs to check out. SO TO MY QUESTION: Do you think ruger will be replacing my barrel or am i just wasting my time paying the shipping to just be told they wont do anything about it. I have over 1700 worth of ruger in my safe and have many firearms without rust, i love my rugers and plan on adding many more to my collection and just want to be taken care of in this odd situation.


Thanks,
wvruger

78CJ5

If you ask real nice they might even pay the shipping. They will probably find something wrong with that barrel it should not be rusting under the kind of care you talked about. Just my 2 cents.

RugerGP100

78CJ5 is right...............when you contact them and describe your routine they may very well say that they will take care of everything.

Get more flies with honey than vinegar........and I would honey them up.

rantingredneck

unless you were shooting some funky ammo with corrosive priming that shouldn't have happened. I've sent one gun to Ruger before for repair (aside from the LCP recall). They paid shipping both ways and had my gun back to me in 2-3 weeks repaired.

wvruger

So far the only thing i have put through my ruger is remington whitebox shells umc i beleive

BCCL

In my experience, Ruger has great customer service. In the 90's I worked in a gun shop, and what few guns we had to send in, some of which were WAY past new, Ruger always fixed them no matter what was wrong, and never charged.

I hope they still have that level of service!

wvruger

So what does everyone think would cause this rusting to occur in my mini?

marlinspike

I have no idea how this would happen. Are you sure it's not copper fouling? I don't oil my bores and I've never seen rust. No dehumidifier, nothing, just clean it and leave it and my mini is ~3 years old.

wvruger

Its rust, it was build up and cleaned it down to just being on the rifleing. It wasnt there after the last cleaning and oiled patch down the barrel so im sticking to it being rust.

wvruger

Never had to deal with copper fouling build up though, how would you tell the difference if you can mix it up with rust? This really seems to be rust to me, it was built up on the rifleing, got most of it cleaned up yet it seems the rifleing ( isnt catching or grabing on a patch) is rusted down the barrel as i shine a light down it.

liberalsmakemepuke

For a rifle that isn't even a year old, if it's been cleaned the way you say it has, it seems damn near impossible for it to be rusting that badly. With only 60 rounds through it, it doesn't seem possible to have fouled it out badly all the way to the crown. Plus, a little flash rust would come off with some solvent and a brush. You're going to have to let us know that it is.

Did you let that Mini have a Friday night out on the town? Maybe it has a screaming case of the clap. Or a yeast infection or something.

wvruger

ha ha must have caught something from the wild ones in the gun safe, but i do plan on sending this into ruger this week or next ( im going to try and see if ruger will pay for the shipping but id glady pay shipping to get this barrel replaced, being a college student it took a while to get all that money aside to get the mini so i want this rifle to be with me for years to come). I will let everyone know what happens and what gets relayed back to me.

marlinspike

Run a patch with copper solvent on a jag down the bore (Shooter's Choice makes a good one). Leave it in there for 5-10 minutes. Run another patch wet with copper solvent down the bore. If the patch has any color to it (blue or green), it's copper fouled. Be sure to clean the bore out with standard bore cleaner afterwards.

wvruger

thanks for the reply, i guess i have had to deal with copper fouling on other firearms before, however i beleive this is rust. Would it be normal to find copper fouling below the crown after only 60 rounds and cleaned after every box of 20? ( another reason for thinking its rust)

marlinspike

Well, if you clean with something like Hoppe's 9 the copper simply builds, so it doesn't matter how many times it was cleaned. That said, I wouldn't expect it after 60 rounds unless they were fired full-auto.