I am having the most success with the American Eagle in the black box. When there is an empty case on the bolt if I pull the bolt back sharply the case will eject vigorously. Occasionally it will not go into battery but I can just bump the bolt and it will close. I thoroughly cleaned it this evening and scrubbed the chamber. Maybe I will get some other brands of ammo this weekend. I am no stranger to minis. I have a tactical model that I will never sell or trade. Thanks for your help.

I had some problems with the 5820 SS I bought recently. I know the new ones have tighter tolerances than my 183, but it seem the finishes were rougher as well. I took the gun apart and polished all the contact areas in the receiver and bolt with a scotch brite pad. I then got some rubbing compound and polished it some more. I then put a lot of grease in it and cycled it by hand about 100 times. I stored the gun with the bolt back for about two weeks to try to weaken the springs a little. Afterwards I had no more problems. I think it just needed to be broken in and the stuff I did just sped up the process.

After everything you said, three potential problems come to mind.

1. Your piston is out of spec (too large, not properly surfaced, out of round, etc.)

2. The internals of your gas block are improperly cut so the piston is sitting at an angle to the recess in the slide.

3. Your receiver is improperly cast and the magazine sits ever so slightly too high causing excess drag on the bolt.

These all seem to me to be possible culprits, but im no armorer or gunsmith, so take it with a grain of salt

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Yut-either you know what it means or you don't

Get some Lubriplate 130-AA grease and grease everywhere the bolt contacts the inner receiver. Also run a pipe cleaner with some solvent down the gas tube.





Then get some Federal XM193 or PMC Xtac and see what happens.

My local dealer has a special on xm193. I will try your suggestions this weekend. Thanks

Problem solved. I decided that after work today I would break down my 581 tactical. This rifle has been flawless except for 1 time when I was sneaking up on a groundhog and quietly closed the bolt. It wasn't fully seated and didn't fire.

I compared all of the castings and noticed the op rod was roughly machined and had large weld globs on the bottom. The bottom of the rod(that rides against the stock liner) looked like it was machined with a chainsaw.

I took a large 600 grit DMT diamond whetstone and polished out the machining marks on the bottom. I polished all edges and ground down the welds with my dremil. What a difference that made. The action is noticeably smoother. I ran 80 trouble free rounds after this. I was very surprised how soft that metal was and how poorly the rod to my new mini was machined.

Thanks to everyone who made suggestions and offered encouragement. Its kind of funny how your rifle not working correctly can bring you down.

Good find. kwg

Glad to hear you got it running good

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Yut-either you know what it means or you don't

I would have sent that rod back to ruger and requested another one.