Replacing The Extractor On A Ruger MKII Government Model

Recently, a well-used Ruger MKII Government model pistol came into my shop for repair. The chief complaint was a broken extractor. For once I realized that the customer knew what he was talking about, since he had apiece of the extractor in his hand and the other piece was stuck in the bolt of the gun. Not too big of a job, but I looked at this as an opportunity. The man was anew customer. I’d never seen him before and one of his friends had recommended me to him.

As I had a couple of extractors on hand, I could have just popped one in and sent him on his way as this is a couple-dollar part available from Ruger and Brownells. Not to pick on mechanics, but I’ve always had a problem with technicians who only do exactly what they are told without taking into account the true needs of the customer. For example, let’s say I changed your tires. Your car doesn’t stop very well, eh? Doesn’t surprise me. The brakes are shot. Why didn’t Ifi x it? You didn’t tell me to.

This customer’s gun had been fired an estimated 5,000 rounds. Other than wiping it down with light oil after firing the only other maintenance had been occasionally pushing a patch soaked with Hoppe’s #9 through the bore. As far as the customer knew the piece had never been stripped for field cleaning, a job he did not feel comfortable doing himself. The pistol was used but not abused. Normal maintenance requires field stripping and cleaning periodically. In my experience, every 5,000 rounds is about right.

The Ruger was obtained used, so it could have been fi red many more times before he bought it. Due to the very nature of inexpensive .22s most of them are fi red thousands of times, especially semi-autos. The nice thing is that the low pressures produced by this round are easy on the guns and they don’t need to be cleaned after every firing. However, after fi ve thousand rounds it’s about time to clean up some of the gunk left behind.

Since I had to field strip the gun anyway, I recommended that not only should I replace the extractor but also give the gun a good cleaning. He readily agreed and I had another paying job. A job like this takes about an hour or so. I think a charge of your minimum rate per hour, plus the cost of the extractor, plus a couple of bucks more if you find anything you don’t like after you’ve broken down the gun for cleaning would make this job worth while.

I am talking about field stripping the pistol into its components of barrel, grip frame, and bolt, cleaning any obvious grime from the barrel channels and grip frame, cleaning the barrel, disassembling the bolt (which we have to do to replace the extractor anyway) and cleaning it, and using a degreaser on the parts pinned in the frame such as the hammer and trigger assembly.

It isn’t awfully hard to take these parts out of the grip frame and reassemble them, but it will increase the time so as not to be worth it unless there is breakage or other problems. I’ve found that spraying with a good degreaser like Birchwood Casey’s Gun Scrubber and cleaning what you can reach with toothbrushes and Q-Tips and the like will do a good job until there is really a reason to take this area down. After remov-

These two pictures show the bottom of the barrel where it mates with the grip frame. Gun Scrubber and a brass or nylon brush will clean it up easily. ing the grip panels, I spray once and let the gun sit. With the grime softened, brush the parts and spray again before the fi nal cleaning. Finally, since the Gun Scrubber leaves all the metal it touches dry and unlubricated, I spray on some Break Free wiping off the excess after letting it dry.

Gun Scrubber and Break Free are two of those products that stay on my bench in easy reach. The Gun Scrubber is usually sprayed on brass brushes to clean them and take off any copper solvent that could eat away the brass. It also does a good job just to remove the gunk and clean up items like old toothbrushes. With the little red tube in place it does a great job of cleaning those hard-to-reach areas like the parts in the grip frame of the Ruger without the hassle of disassembly.

If sliced bread hadn’t come first I’d pick Break Free as the greatest invention. Break Free is a cleaner, lubricator, and rust inhibitor. I’m no chemist, but this stuff does what it says it will do. That’s enough for me. The instructions recommend letting it dry for at least two hours, or even overnight. If I can, I let the parts sit overnight and wipe off the excess the next day.

This seems to let its best properties of lubrication work while not attracting all kinds of dust and other debris that can cause problems with regular gun oil or other lubricants. As you can see in the included photos the bolt and mating surfaces of the barrel and receiver were covered with grime associated with firing a lot of promotional (cheap) .22 ammunition. Hey, I don’t knock the practice of using inexpensive .22s.

When I’m not hunting or target shooting, I use them exclusively at The moving parts here can be affected by gunk. The use of Break Free for the fi nal lubrication can help with the accumulation of dust and other debris. the range for plinking and keeping the muscle memory of my trigger finger in shape. For shooting five thousand rounds the build up in this gun was really not too bad. It came off easily with Gun Scrubber and a toothbrush.

The bolt had its share of gunk and the channel for the recoil spring assembly had accumulated an oily mess. The seven or eight little parts that make up the bolt as a mechanism were cleaned and lubed with Break Free. Unless you have a photographic memory or you work on any particular firearm all the time, I recommend a good schematic such as those available in the Official NRA Guide to Firearms Assembly: Pistols

If cleanliness is next to Godliness, then the gunsmith and his toothbrush shall not be far apart. Although Ruger will sell you an extractor they want you to buy fi ve of them. Brownells will sell by the piece and the weight won’t increase shipping on your regular order. and Revolvers. It’s sometimes funny (or not so funny) how you can end up with a small part that seems to have no home when working on any firearm. The reassembly instructions can also be invaluable for little tips unique to each design.

The extractor can be a pill to remove, especially when it is broken and there is nothing sticking out to get a purchase on with fingers or pliers. The spring and extractor plunger are in a blind hole. The plunger must be pushed into the hole with a small screwdriver blade held sideways as if you were paring an apple. Some recommend a dental pick for this job.

While I think separating the plunger from the extractor in order to get the screwdriver blade into this small opening is a good idea, most dental picks that I’ve used area bit too fragile to actually pull back the plunger under its spring tension without breaking or bending. As I said, the extractor was broken and hung up in the hole.

I had to keep tension back from the plunger while gently tapping the bolt on the edge of my workbench so the broken piece would come out enough to use my dental pick to pull it out the rest of the way. Here is where my Gun Scrubber came in handy. I sprayed some on the extractor and in the channel for the spring. It had some gunk down there that didn’t want to let go of these small parts until it was loosened with the spray.

Af- Properly cleaned and lubed this gun will give long service before any more attention is needed. Unless there is an obvious issue such as breakage or a safety concern there is no need to disassemble these parts. The grips would be removed during the actual cleaning process. ter that, the extractor, plunger, and spring came out easily with a few gentle taps on the bolt. I test fi red this gun, and it functioned slick as anew one.

After cleaning up the chamber area with a little Hoppe’s and a Q-Tip it was good to go. As long as my customer keeps on shooting up the .22s as he has been, I can expect some return business about fi ve thousand rounds from now. AG