Does anyone have trouble with Winchester .22lr ammo?

[slash415]

I have a Marlin bolt action 22, and a Ruger SR 22. I have had my Marlin for 6 years, and have been able to put just about every brand of 22 ammo through it. I have consistently had issues with Winchester ammo. It is the only .22 ammo I have used that has failed to extract, from a bolt action gun. I have literally had to pry the casings out with a screw driver.

I have had my SR 22 for about 3 months, and have only been able to use Wincherster ammo. The problems are even worse in my ruger. Almost every other round fails to completely eject, or another round is not loaded into the chamber. And at least once with every mag, a round gets stuck in the chamber after it's been fired.

Am I alone with this , or has anyone else had these issues?

 

[frankenstein406]

Their quality control has gone down hill but sometimes it's the only available option right now.

 

[Onmilo]

OP
You weren't real specific on exactly what type of Winchester .22 you were having issues with.
I despise the bulk stuff they offer but have no problems with Super X high velocity, Dynapoints, and T22 standard velocity.

 

[Zaydok Allen]

It seems to me Winchester .22 ammo has more duds in a brick of ammo than other brands.

If you are having extraction problems, it may be that their brass is a little less polished than other brands. You may have rough chambers too. Get a .22 cal mop, and some mother's mag polish. you can polish the chambers by hand, and it may help with the issue.

My Ruger SP101 in .22 had rough chambers and I had to polish them. Problem was solved. If it's only one brand, my advice may not be valid.

 

[decoy562]

Are you talking about the bulk white box? Nope, no problems in my Beretta Neos. I swear I could shoot anything in it.

 

[jimmyraythomason]

It seems to me Winchester .22 ammo has more duds in a brick of ammo than other brands.

I would mostly agree with this(especially Wildcat) but have found Remington Golden Bullets and Yellow Jackets to be dud prone as well.

 

[On An Island]

My troubles with Winchester bulk .22LR are weapon specific. My Remington 550 will shoot anything ever made without a glitch including Winchester, but my Sig Mosquito which is finicky to begin with coughs up hairballs when I try to use it, moreso than Golden BBs and Yellowjackets.

 

[ColtPythonElite]

My buddy happily scored a couple of bulk 555 boxes at Walmart recently. I have never seen so many duds. Probably close to 10%. We tried it in multiple guns with the same result.

 

[slash415]

Thanks for the replies. I am using Winchester super x (bulk ammo). My main concern is with my sr 22. I am literally having to manually cycle almost every round, to get it to fire.

 

[Zaydok Allen]

My main concern is with my sr 22. I am literally having to manually cycle almost every round, to get it to fire.

Then again, I'd recommend

You may have rough chambers too. Get a .22 cal mop, and some mother's mag polish. you can polish the chambers by hand, and it may help with the issue.

My Ruger SP101 in .22 had rough chambers and I had to polish them.

 

[PJSprog]

I've had the exact opposite experience. I've been shooting Winchester Wildcats for as long as I've been buying .22s, and I can't recall ever having a dud with them. When I couldn't get them a few years ago, I started buying Remington, and had at least one dud in every 50 or so. Once the Winchesters were again available, I restocked my supply. Both my Savage MkII-G and S&W 622, as well as my wife's Ruger 10/22, shoot them just fine.

 

[marv]

The only trouble I've had with Winchester ammo is finding it.

 

[Mike1234567]

I've refused to buy any Winchester brand brass-cased ammo for years now.

 

[351 WINCHESTER]

Maybe Winchester bought Remington's priming system.

 

[Vol46]

My Beretta Neos has had 3 jams in the first 300-400 rounds - all 3 were Winchester. They failed to completely eject - kind of like an underpowered round. Never a problem with Remington, or CCI.

 

[MGRAY]

I have sent 3 boxes of 555 back. They would not cycle in my MKIII or SR22. Tried to drop them in a cylinder from my Single six. About 10% would not drop in. Last 1/16" needed to be pushed in by hand. The extracter would not pull them out of the semi autos. After 6 weeks, I recved the replacement from Winchester. Found them to be as bad as the ones I sent back.

 

[justice06rr]

The bulk Winchester 22lr in 333rd boxes have usually given me duds even in a reliable 10/22.

I'd still buy it if its cheap and available, but be aware they're not the best ammo.

 

[heeler]

My SR-22 loves Winchester M-22 a lot more than it does what is known as the gold standard CCI Mini Mag ammo.
Go figure.
Does quite well with Aguila too.

 

[LightningMan]

Yes, the last bulk box of Winchester M-22 I bought had many failures to fire and it was a rare thing to fire a complete magazine without having a dud. I also had several extreemly weak rounds, not only did they not eject the empty case, I had to stop shooting to check my bore as I didn't think the bullet made it out the barrel. It burns my butt that I paid $30 for that junk ammo, and will think twice before buying it again. For cheap bulk ammo, I prefer Federal 525/550 boxes or the Remington 525rd golden bullets. LM

 

[powwowell]

M-22s performed poorly for me. Duds and various power sounds. Pow, pow, poof!

333s are very accurate in my Ruger RAR rifle. The 333s suck with my Ruger 22/45 Lite and my MKII. They fail to cycle the bolts, at times. Ejection is erratic.

 

[Eb1]

My model 60 shoots best with Winchester Expert 36 gr lead HP. I wish I could find some. Zero failures and most 100 yards consistently. I have a thread about it somewhere

 

[Kiln]

I've had lots of problems with Federal ammo lately too.

Specifically slam fires (no marks on the primers, rounds went off when the action closed on them) with the J22 and with a buddy's Sterling. Just uncool. They work safely with everything else I've used but when we loaded the Federal into them we were getting 2-3 round bursts randomly during firing. I examined the second and third shots fired and there were absolutely no marks on either side of the rim.

 

[Buzsaw]

I have a lot of extraction problems with Winchester ammo in my granddaughter's cricket, and lots of failures to fire with Remington. that being said, I buy what I can find these days, which is not much