I'm not enjoying my new, $500 paperweight.
I picked up the Ruger Mark III 22/45 Hunter last night. The very first thing I did was slice my finger open on the bolt and bled all over the damned thing before I had put a single round through it (I have pictures for later).
I purchased some high falutin' CCI ammo from the store, but it wouldn't feed worth shit. I'd say 1/3 of the ammo crumpled on the feed ramp and half of the others wouldn't even eject. When they did fire, I was literally hitting 1 and a half feet above where I was aiming at 15 yards. Needless to say, my initial impression was not turning out so well.
So I switched to the cheap, Remington ammo I bought in a 550 pack from Wal-Mart. My feed and jam issues practically disappeared. So, cheap Wal-Mart ammo good. Went to Wally world afterwards and picked up 1100 more (for $20!).
The next phase was cranking on the rear sight until my aim point was where it should have been. Now, I'm going to attribute the sighting errors quite possibly to the way I was holding the gun or using the sight. Regardless, after a few turns of the adjustment screw, I got 2" groupings (or less) at 10 yards with no problem.
I'd say I put about 200 rounds down range. Once I got over the shitty ammo and adjusted the sights, the gun was an absolute joy to shoot. I've got a long way to go before I'm 'competition ready', but I could shoot that for hours without tiring. The gun is light, deadly accurate, the Hi-Viz sight is easy to see, the trigger is amazingly crisp with only the slightest bit of over and under travel, and it is very attractive to boot (a lot of .22 pistols just look silly.)
I got home, and me being Mr. Anal about cleaning decided to field strip the gun and clean it. It came apart fairly easily. Cleaning was a bear because of all the nooks and crannies, but cleaning a weapon is almost as pleasurable to me as shooting it so it was no big deal.
Then the horror began.
First, trying to get the pistol back together is not simple. Maybe I'm just jaded with my 30 second take down and reassemble I can do with the Glock, but I spent literally an hour trying to get everything back in place. The bolt refused to slide in. I found that the empty magazine bolt slider holder thing was stuck and had to push it down to get the bolt to slide in (took a long time to figure that out). Then, trying to get in the main spring took another hour to get in place. I followed the directions to a T. I went online looking for tips (apparently, I'm not the only one with issues). Finally, I got everything to click and slide in with no forcing and had reassembled the gun.
Now it won't fire.
I cannot get the hammer to fall. And if the hammer is cocked, you cannot disassemble it. So now I have a gun that won't fire and won't come apart for me to find out why it isn't working. There is a safety that won't allow the pistol to fire if there is no magazine. Maybe that "bar" or button or whatever is also stuck. I don't know.
All I know is that Ruger isn't open yet, shipping a gun is f*&%ing expensive, I'm sure my assembly will be considered the cause of the malfunction therefore not covered under warranty, and they'll be backlogged until Feb. 2009 in repairs.
So, I'm a real bitch to be around today. Be warned.