22 Bullet fails to fire - tools to retrieve the bullet

[mikemyers]

Background information - my 22 Target Pistol has been firing lead round nose bullets with no feeding problems for perhaps 400 rounds. I went to a different range yesterday, and the 22 ammo they sell is:

Winchester Super X 22 Long Rifle
40 Grain, 1280 FPS
Power Point Round Nose Copper Plated
Small Game​

I bought some before I noticed it was copper plated bullets. I was then wondering if it was appropriate to shoot copper plated bullets and lead bullets through the same gun (S&W Model 41, or High Standard). That's my first question. (I'll remember to look more carefully in the future.)


The main reason I'm entering this, is because the 5th bullet I tried to shoot loaded into the gun properly, but didn't fire. I pulled back the slide, and the bullet was still seated in the barrel. I asked one of the range masters for assistance, and he went back to the office, returning with a gray colored rod perhaps a foot long, which he inserted into the barrel and tapped on it, to push the bullet back a little, and then used the other end of the rod to pry the bullet out of the barrel.

Question - what is the name of the tool he used? It seems to be something to keep in a shooting bag "just in case".

At that point I stopped shooting for the day. I didn't know if the ammunition was the problem, or if it was just that one bullet. Any thoughts on why this might happen, and what, if anything, can be done to minimize the chances of it happening again?

 

[Steve CT]

I've had this problem once or twice, I keep a spare cleaning rod in my .22 range bag for this purpose. It is aluminum (gray) with no tip or brush on it.

edit to add: I have only fired standard velocity with any High Standard I've ever owned. There are reputed to be frame cracking issues with some High Standard pistols that get a steady, long term diet of high velocity ammunition.

 

[notaglockfanboy]

Are you talking about the whole round left in the chamber, or just the bullet?? There is no reason why you should worry about firing lead and copper plated bullets in the same gun, I have done it for 30 years and had zero issues. You got a bad round, and if you have ever fired .22lr ammo before, you should know they tend to have some every once in a while. As Steve ct said, I don't use the high velocity rounds in High Standards, only standard velocity. YMMV

 

[mikemyers]

Thanks for the information. OK, I won't worry about the copper plating. Yes, I meant the whole round, case and all, stuck in the gun. The case had a mark on it where the firing pin hit it.

I haven't shot 22 very much at all in the past. I've just started to do so. I thought I was shooting "standard" bullets, not "high velocity". I assumed that if they were "high velocity" it would have said that on the box. Now that I've looked it up, I see what you mean, and apparently I was shooting high velocity rounds. I won't forget this in the future.

Standard velocity
Standard-velocity rounds have a slightly supersonic muzzle velocity of around 1,125 ft/s (343 m/s), and a "normal" bullet weight of 40 gr (2.6 g). Standard-velocity cartridges generate near or slightly supersonic velocities. These rounds generally do not develop these velocities in handguns because their short barrels do not take full advantage of the slower powder.

§High velocity

High-velocity, copper-plated .22 LR rounds
The Long Rifle was originally loaded with black powder. The first smokeless powder loads were intended to match the standard velocity of the original black-powder rounds. Smokeless powder is more efficient than black powder, and the cartridge cases could hold more powder. Smokeless powder loads, called "high speed" or "high velocity", were offered by the major ammunition makers, giving a typical velocity increase of 20% (1,200 feet per second (370 m/s) to 1,300 feet per second (400 m/s)) while still using the standard 40-gr solid or 36-gr hollow-point lead bullet.​

I accept what you wrote, and will attempt to buy only standard velocity from now on.

 

[MedWheeler]

In probably 18-20K rounds of .22LR I've fired (the vast majority of which has been MiniMags), I've never had such a unseating of a round, nor any other failure. But, as mentioned, others have. Just have something on hand to drive it back out with.

And, yes, there are no issues with running "mixed-finished" rounds through your gun. However, many barrels tend to "condition" to a type of bullet after a couple of dozen of them are run through it, which can improve accuracy with that particular ammo.

 

[Steve CT]

High velocity is really only a potential problem with the High Standard. If the M22 is a modern gun, any ammunition should be fine.

If you have not shot a lot of .22lr, it may hep you to know that most .22 lr pistols can be very ammunition specific. Two identical model pistols may show some pretty surprising accuracy differences with exactly the same ammunition. I will run up to ten different varieties of ammunition through a new pistol just to see what that particular gun likes best for function and accuracy.

Just out of curiosity, which High Standard do you have?

 

[45_auto]

Don't waste your time worrying about the difference in 22LR between "standard" and "high velocity". Your gun won't care. Buy a box of whatever the range has available and go shooting.

 

[Shimitup]

.22's are pretty nasty, how often do you clean it? Powder residue and lube grunge will cause both ignition and extraction issues.

 

[Sunray]

"...copper plated bullets and lead bullets through the same gun..." Make no difference whatsoever. You have to try a box of as many brands as you can to find the ammo your pistol will both shoot well and cycle the action. The bullet makes no difference.
That Super X stuff is high velocity vs target/standard velocity. Made for hunting. Probably sold by the range because it'll likely cycle any pistol. Even a Smith 41 that is the most particular pistol there is. Mine shoots Remington Target and IVI standard velocity(cf issue Canadian made stuff you can't get) and nothing else.
Misfires aren't unusual these days. Winchester's QC has gone down. Your cartridge had no powder. The primer alone is enough to push the bullet into the barrel. No bang means no extraction cycle with a .22 blow back.

 

[351 WINCHESTER]

I have noticed that many Winchester bullets are slight bigger than Federal and other .22 ammo that I have shot. Combine that with a tight chamber and you have issues. That rod you talked about is a range rod.

 

[BCRider]

The tool he used is typically called a "range rod". Many just carry around an extra cleaning kit extension. I made my own from some 3/16 brass rod I bought at Home Depot. For rimfire handguns I cut it to about a foot long and file and chafer the ends. Because the rod is often used with a hammer or something else to hit it I also stuck on a leather washer about the size of a quarter with a little X cut to pass over but hold onto the rod. That way if the rod slips in from a hammer blow as the bullet spits out the muzzle is protected from damage by the leather. The 3 foot length was enough to make up the handgun rod and a rifle rod.

I'm not sure what the guy used as the prying tool. Usually just a finger nail works by that time.

A lot of rimfire ammo suffers from some amount of FTF due to the primer in the rim not being even enough or the brass too hard to let the pin snap it off. If you were to replace it in the magazine in a different orientation so that the FP hit a different part of the rim chances are it would fire just fine.

So don't worry about it when you find one that doesn't fire.

I'd be more worried about why your 41 didn't simply extract the round. I'm thinking that it probably has an issue with the extractor.

Or it may simply be that the Super X is cheap ammo which doesn't have correctly formed cases. I ran across that with a Rossi 62 pump rifle recently. I was trying to shoot Remington Thunderbolt ammo and every second or third round would not allow the action to close fully into battery. I took a few home to inspect and compare with some better quality CCI SV ammo and found that the rims were "fat" and that there was a generously rounded fillet between the forward casing and the turn out that formed the rim. The CCI stuff was clean and sharply formed in that same area. So the cheap nature of the ammo was the reason why it was not chambering correctly.

Your S&W 41 will have a rather tight match tolerance chamber. So if the Super X was wedging in place it's no surprise that the extractor is failing to pull it out. It just means you need to buy and bring along some better ammo.

If you still have a couple of rounds of the SuperX unfired try chambering it by hand through the ejection port. It should slip in and seat easily and come back out with just a flick of a fingernail. If it wedges in there and needs more force than the proper "almost nothing" amount then it's poor quality ammo that is better avoided.

Cheaper bulk ammo that I've had good luck with is Federal bulk 525 and even Winchester 333 and 555 bulk packs. Blazer has also proven itself to be good stuff in either the bulk boxes or in the bricks of 10x50 round packs.

Since your Model 41 is intended for target shooting it should also do well with standard velocity loads. And for the most part that implies anything listed as "SV" or Standard Velocity and anything labed as "Match" or "Target". These last two from what I've bought and shot tend to shoot at SV speeds.