Ruger American cycling problems

My son shoots a Ruger American Predator 6.5 Creedmoor and we recently have been experiencing jams when cycling a fresh round slowly into the chamber. Upon some investigation it was mentioned on some forums that the magazines were to blame. It shot 143 eldx without issue but we're in California so I reloaded some 124 Hammer Hunters and we went to hunting. At the range we always tossed one in at a time and it worked fine. Once we loaded them in the magazine, jam! I looked and looked and noticed the HP meplat and soft copper are hanging up on the flange of the barrel itself. I am bummed as I can't shoot Hammers at all now. I confirmed this after loading some barnes 127 lrx with tips. Cycles perfectly! Has anyone else had this trouble with Ruger Americans? I've attached pics of the pulled bullets showing the damage to the tips.

Does that Ruger American have a floating bolt head like a Savage? If so, try turning the bolt head 180°
Good luck, hope this helps

I wish! I was thinking that would help too but the darn head is fixed.

Tipped hammers exist in certain sizes.

Is there acceptable cartridge OAL/point clearance in the magazine for the Hammers as compared to the Barnes?

I had a Ruger m77 in .223 that had a problem jamming soft points. The problem was the casting was wasn't machined down or polished and caused the bullet tip to hit the rough cast surface finish and stick or deform the lead tip.
I guess this was the reason the person was selling it.
I just took a Dremel and polished the feed ramp down smooth.
Check the feed ramp for roughness should be finished to a 32 Micro finish or better.

A Pic of the jam would be helpful. What is the "flange" of the barrel?

Just a couple of guesses would be to modify the feed ramp, magazine lips, or COAL. Not necessarily in that order.

Raudy707 said:

My son shoots a Ruger American Predator 6.5 Creedmoor and we recently have been experiencing jams when cycling a fresh round slowly into the chamber. Upon some investigation it was mentioned on some forums that the magazines were to blame. It shot 143 eldx without issue but we're in California so I reloaded some 124 Hammer Hunters and we went to hunting. At the range we always tossed one in at a time and it worked fine. Once we loaded them in the magazine, jam! I looked and looked and noticed the HP meplat and soft copper are hanging up on the flange of the barrel itself. I am bummed as I can't shoot Hammers at all now. I confirmed this after loading some barnes 127 lrx with tips. Cycles perfectly! Has anyone else had this trouble with Ruger Americans? I've attached pics of the pulled bullets showing the damage to the tips.

Click to expand...

What is the COAL you are using for the 124HH? They look like the COAL was too long and hanging up under feed ramp thus cutting tip off on feeding.

Measure your maximum magazine COAL as well as the maximum CBTO and COAL for the 124 HH. Set your COAL based upon both measurements to allow proper feed and sufficient jump to lands. IMO, allow at least 0.025 magazine feed clearance for any hollow point bullet like Bergers, Hammers, Sierra etc. Otherwise run risk of damaging tip which will severely affect accuracy and terminal performance.

Every rifle and every bullet measurement is different and you must insure the bullet selected is measured for your rifle.

I have several of the Rugers like you but have not experienced this condition. If you adjust the magazine lips slightly, this will probably tilt the round upward enough to clear the tip or the bullet. You have to be gentle doing this as just a little usually will fix the condition. I would also take a good look at the feed ramp with a light to be sure it is smooth but from your picture it appears the bullet is jamming the end of the barrel. Angle of the round is off just a little, I think.

Sounds like you need to move from California to get away from that silly non-lead rule... that would fix the problem.

@Mountain Sloth you hit the nail on the head! So for the other questions, I've adjusted COAL from SAAMI length to barely fitting in the Ruger magazine hoping to alter the path of the bullet as it enters the chamber, no luck. Even a 135 Berger will hang up but since the meplat is so small and it is almost pointed like an FMJ it doesn't hang up every time. And with some force, it will cycle. I'm on my 3rd magazine. I've altered the loading ramps, changed the spring tension and filed the front down hoping to change the timing of the bullets path to no avail. It collides perfectly into the chamber flat face and stops abruptly. I say flange but it's actually the end of the threaded barrel. I put any ballistic tip, eld-m tipped or Barnes tipped bullet in the casings and they cycle perfectly without issue. I'm just unhappy because it shoots the Hammers really well and the 124 is a great deer and black bear bullet for California. I'll attach another picture of the end of the barrel that is causing my roadblock. The Ruger Predator is a slightly heavier profile barrel so the thickness is probably 1/2" and it is squared off perfectly. No angle or taper of any kind.

I can hear that conversation haha

"Hey babe my rifle is jamming, we have to uproot our entire lives now and moves states"

Seriously though. I had a gen1 and now a gen 2 neither had feeding issues. But I hear about them a lot and seems like guys fix them by changing mags.

What mag are you using? if it's the SA rotary I'd try the 450bm mag If the internal length is long enough. When you pull up the that mag on the website right at the bottom in the reviews on the website a guys explains where ruger sent him a 450bm mag and it fixed his feeding issues with his 22-250. I've also seen where a lot of guys have to switch to the 6.5/308 mag to get thier 450bm to feed. If that doesn't work you could try switching to ai mags and bm.

But if was was you I'd just switch from the 124gr hammer hunter to the 125gr tipped hammer hunter. Problem solved and your load data should be the same plus you get a higher BC.

Don't take this the wrong way, but some of those Ruger Americans are garbage. A guy had one threaded from the factory and ended up having a baffle strike with a new can in a local gun shop. You get what you pay for.

Yep. My new ruger gen 2 the muzzle thread job is pretty rough at the base and needs cleaning up. I'm running suppressed. But at least it feeds and shoots great.