Hartzview Hunting Safaris - Ruger .416 Alaskan

Good afternoon gentleman,

I have been real busy the last couple of months so did not have much time to get on the forum. I have a couple of days open so thought I would quicly share this with you and maybe anyone can help me with a solution.

I at last got my .416 Ruger Alaskan which I wanted so bad. It shoots and handle's like a dream except for one vital aspect!

The gun would not feed correctly at all! It jams the cartridge into the top part where the barrel meets the bolt action the whole time. I did read up on it and some people had the same problems. Is there anyone out there that would be able to give some advice on who will be able to fix this proble? I can certainly not hunt dangerous game with the gun like it is now.

I will try to get some pics on here to show how it looks like when this happens! This is a bit dissapointing after the long wait, and unfirtunately in South Africa we cannot just run back and exchange it for a new gun...... It will be a years wait again for a new license!

Thank you all and hope everybody had a great season so far!

Best regards,

Jacques Spamer

I'll try to look into this today for you but it may be later this week. With you coming to Dallas in January, I wonder if you can't bring it with you and have it repaired while you're here?

Jacques, any gunsmith can sort this out relatively easy,

My best to you bud

Did a quick google search using "416 ruger alaskan feeding problems" without the quotes of course. A number of hits came up. This has indeed been a problem for Ruger though it seemed most of their issues were resolved in later made guns, which I'd presume you have but perhaps not. One way to determine if you've got an older made one is if it includes the barrel band or not. If you don't, it's an older model.

The problem seems to boil down to the feed rails and/or the magazine box. If it's the rails only, you may be able to "fix" it yourself by cycling rounds through a bunch of times and thus wear down any rough spots. Try this with only one round in the magazine and do so as if you were reloading the gun like there was a buffalo bearing down on you! In other words, don't be gentle about it. I would start this with a brand new round and after the first cycling check the brass looking for scratches in the brass running from front to back. If there are scratches present, I'd have to say you've got some rough rails. By doing this over and over you may smooth them out. If not, a competent gunsmith should certainly be able to handle this.

You may have in addition too a rail problem a problem with the magazine box. One of the issues I found in the google search was that the magazine box can be a bit too wide. If this is the case it may be that it's off to one side or the other, but the point is if it's too wide than the bullet is too far over to one side and will come up out of the box and hit one side or the other of the barrel. The fix for this is a new box, and if I read correctly it requires a Winchester box. Again, this is gunsmith territory to be certain.

I'm sorry this happened to you my friend. As an engineer, it's my opinion that this is absolutely unacceptable quality control.

By the way, does this happen with more flat nose bullets versus pointy ones?

I had a small problem with this in my 375 Ruger Alaskan with 300 grain round nose bullets, but it was very easy to fix as I reload and just set the bullet about one millimeter deeper with my 375 Ruger die and problem solved.

I don't know if this can help you, but it can be worth a try if you have access to reloading tools and dies for 416 Ruger.

Hey guys,

Phil thank you very much for the details. I will be taking the gun into a gunsmith the weekend to have them work on it and get it fixed as I have a elephant hunt on the begining of October and need the gun for the hunt.

Thanks guys!

Best regards,

Jacques

Originally Posted by Hartzview Hunting Safaris

Good afternoon gentleman,

I have been real busy the last couple of months so did not have much time to get on the forum. I have a couple of days open so thought I would quicly share this with you and maybe anyone can help me with a solution.

I at last got my .416 Ruger Alaskan which I wanted so bad. It shoots and handle's like a dream except for one vital aspect!

The gun would not feed correctly at all! It jams the cartridge into the top part where the barrel meets the bolt action the whole time. I did read up on it and some people had the same problems. Is there anyone out there that would be able to give some advice on who will be able to fix this proble? I can certainly not hunt dangerous game with the gun like it is now.

I will try to get some pics on here to show how it looks like when this happens! This is a bit dissapointing after the long wait, and unfirtunately in South Africa we cannot just run back and exchange it for a new gun...... It will be a years wait again for a new license!

Thank you all and hope everybody had a great season so far!

Best regards,

Jacques Spamer

Jacques I had the exact same problem with mine, especially with the hornady factory ammo. The issue was a little better with reloads as the case overall length was longer and round did not jam as severely. The cure was that my gunsmith polished the magazine follower, feed rails and removed the barrel and polished the feed ramp.
Since having this done I have had zero jams and have 100% confidence in the gun. Hope this helps.

Originally Posted by richteb

Jacques I had the exact same problem with mine, especially with the hornady factory ammo. The issue was a little better with reloads as the case overall length was longer and round did not jam as severely. The cure was that my gunsmith polished the magazine follower, feed rails and removed the barrel and polished the feed ramp.
Since having this done I have had zero jams and have 100% confidence in the gun. Hope this helps.

Hey Richteb,

Yip the Hornady factory ammo are the worst. I pulled out the Hornady bullets and pressed Barnes X in a little deeper which helped a bit but it still jams up from time to time. Will get the gun to the gunsmith over the weekend though so they can fix the problems.

Thanks for the advice!

Best regards,

Jacques

Originally Posted by Hartzview Hunting Safaris

Hey Richteb,

Yip the Hornady factory ammo are the worst. I pulled out the Hornady bullets and pressed Barnes X in a little deeper which helped a bit but it still jams up from time to time. Will get the gun to the gunsmith over the weekend though so they can fix the problems.

Thanks for the advice!

Best regards,

Jacques

Mate, also get them to adjust the extractor claw angle so you can single load rounds without having to push the round into the mag. If you don't and try to close the bolt on a round in the chamber you will eventually break the extractor. Certainly not cool on a DG gun.

Let us know how the 416 ruger performs. I just got an alaskan in 375 ruger but have not fired it yet. Will probably use reloads only.