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Ruger 17 WSM, Failure to Fire

K9TXS

I have no idea what could be wrong. There are times when the firing pin strikes the rim, that's all it does, no bullet down range. If I recock it, just raising the bolt up and back down, it will fire. One day I lost count on how many times I tried to get it to fire on one particular round but it wouldn't fire. I rechambered the round three times and would recock it, but it just wasn't going to fire.

Sometimes I can shoot 20 plus without any issues and then it happens. It's always just one round and never consecutive rounds. I looked around for a stronger spring, but have not been able to locate one.

Any suggestions.
 
What you're experiencing is somewhat common with the 17 WSM ammo and it isn't really isolated to any one particular gun. I have a Savage Bmag and can sometimes go most of the day and not have any fail to fire issues then for no apparent reason I'll get one here or there. It's a rare occurrence for them not to fire on the second try and I've only had a couple that wouldn't go bang at all.

Unfortunately, Winchester's quality control with their rimfire ammo is anything but stellar and since Winchester, regardless of the name on the box, is who makes ALL of the 17 WSM ammo we're pretty much held hostage to their mediocre product. Most of the time it shoots relatively well and is plenty good for making hits on ground squirrels at some pretty impressive distances, but match quality it is not.

The 17 WSM runs at a fair bit higher pressure than any other rimfire so I'm guessing the rims on this stuff is a little thicker and you add that to their mediocre quality control and it's not all that surprising to have these kinds of problems. Actually, considering Winchester's QC sucks, we're probably lucky there aren't more problems with this stuff.
 
K9TXS said:
He's the one that built the rifle.
Click to expand...
He told me that half of the Rugers have misfire issues and was not impressed. Does Wolf make an extra power firing pin spring? I have a Bmag and have never had a misfire yet. I have only shot around 100 rounds through it so far, so it's possible down the road. I just spoke with a guy at the range last week, and he showed me a photo of his brother and 900pc of empty brass after a ground squirrel shoot and he shot 900 rounds and he said he had possibly 20-25 misfires. I know the old ammo had alot of issues, but mine was all new production. Wolff offers a 23lb spring where the factory is 19 lbs. I hope that helps.
 
I have ran over 10k rounds through two Bmags. Only had one ftf. Started with a skinny barrel when they first came out. Upgraded it to a heavy barrel. The problem was the ammo. It would not fire after several tries.
 
Some have known of the split cases, misfired rds, etc. I recently acquired the Franklin Armory F-17L. It was having some issues with fail to feed and fail to fire, about 2 out of 5 rounds. I saw way too many split cases coming out of it and even one round that just burnt through the side of the case without firing the bullet. In troubleshooting the fail to feed issue I was given great info. If you have the Winchester ammo that was made prior to June of last year, Winchester will swap it out with you. Their newer runs of ammo, after June, should have no issues with cases and misfires like the older lot numbers. Franklin Armory took my gun back for warranty, tweaked the gas port and I picked up some brand new boxes of ammo. They had the gun back to me in less than 2 weeks. Fired some new ammo and it runs flawlessly, 200+ rds with zero failure. It doesn't care for the 25 gr rds, but the 20 gr rds are shooting 5 shot groups inside of a quarter at 100 so I'm more than happy with it.
 
moorepower said:
He told me that half of the Rugers have misfire issues and was not impressed. Does Wolf make an extra power firing pin spring? I have a Bmag and have never had a misfire yet. I have only shot around 100 rounds through it so far, so it's possible down the road. I just spoke with a guy at the range last week, and he showed me a photo of his brother and 900pc of empty brass after a ground squirrel shoot and he shot 900 rounds and he said he had possibly 20-25 misfires. I know the old ammo had alot of issues, but mine was all new production. Wolff offers a 23lb spring where the factory is 19 lbs. I hope that helps.
Click to expand...

Wolff was the first company I contacted and was told they do not make a stronger spring for the Ruger 17 WSM.
 
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