Thread: Brand new 308 Rugar American II not extracting and bolt it sometimes hard to close.

Hi all,

I’m new to centre-fire rifles (have used rimfires quite a bit) and I’m unsure whether this is a shooter issue or a rifle issue.

The rifle is a brand-new Ruger American Gen II, purchased from Gun City about a week ago. I’ve fired roughly 10 rounds previously without any issues. Today at the range, the first round fired and extracted normally, but rounds two and three failed to extract. I cleared round two and tried again, and the same issue occurred. After clearing it again, I decided not to continue.

When I got home, I cleaned the rifle and bolt, but the issue persisted. I then loaded a spent cartridge and tested extraction, and it would only extract after around five attempts. I’ve included a video showing this.

Any ideas on what might be causing this? If it’s user error, please let me know.https://youtube.com/shorts/Ci_ytMTubGc

Could be a number of things.

1. Extractor position is off by a bit(seeing you struggle to close the bolt points this direction).

2. Chamber might be tight(I've had to fix a number of Ranch rifles with this issue).

3. Are these reloads by any chance? Cases have memory from previous chamber.

4. Extracter claw damaged

Take it back to Gun City and ask them to sort it for you. They should be able to make this right and it will ensure you don’t have other warranty issues by getting the seller to have the first go at fixing it.

Watching your video you shouldn’t have to use that much force to chamber a case/round.

Reach out to the team at Gunworks to have a look?

Originally Posted by Jaco Goosen

Could be a number of things.

1. Extractor position is off by a bit(seeing you struggle to close the bolt points this direction).

2. Chamber might be tight(I've had to fix a number od Ranch drifles with this issue).

3. Are these reloads by any chance? Cases have memory from previous chamber.

4. Extracter claw damaged

For question 3, these are factory Sako rounds I got, all of them that I fired yesterday were good until today.

were you feeding from the top as in the vid or feeding from the mag?

Originally Posted by scotty

were you feeding from the top as in the vid or feeding from the mag?

Via the mag

Cheers mate. That gets the ammo off the hook.

Did you check the speed by any chance?

Can you post photos of the primer and if any damage to the case rim?

Clearly you have a Friday rifle. Return it without doing another thing and remember to take at least 3 spent cases to use as an example.
Which brings me to, have you tried all the fired cases ?

Rounds from today


Rounds from yesterday

Like Kiwijames said it's a brand new rifle and it's on the seller to sort this

Originally Posted by NIMROD

Clearly you have a Friday rifle. Return it without doing another thing and remember to take at least 3 spent cases to use as an example.
Which brings me to, have you tried all the fired cases ?

Just tried a few others, was the same then it outright refused to come out and I had to use a cleaning rod to get it out

Cheers guys, will go to Guncity tomorrow.

@Jaco Goosen
Looks like it takes several goes to get the extractor to hook over the case rim and the bolt obviously takes force to close.
What's the chances the lugs are badly cut or misaligned in the receiver, or that the barrel ( and therefore the chamber ) is not truly centred ? Would either of those cause the problem ? @Sh3eep , if Jaco advises either of these scenarios being possible, and if I were you, I would be insist that Gun City replace this rifle with another new one. I wouldn't accept anything else.