Rim-fire reliability

Status
Not open for further replies.
I have had about half a dozen FTFs with .22LR, and all but one were Remington Thunderbolts (the other was Winchester Wildcat). All were in my S&W 622. The Wildcat fired on the second try.

I also had a FTF with the very first round in my new Savage 93 in .22WMR. Again, it fired on the second try.

Honestly, in over 35 years of shooting and 10s of thousands of rounds, I don't really consider that a reliability problem (well except for the Thunderbolts, of which that was my only box).
 
I had several boxes of Remington .22lr (the "golden" ones) that ran about 5% misfires. I bought the boxes at a gun show, and I wondered whether some kind of solvent had been poured onto them. You could re-chamber them and they still wouldn't go off, even with VERY pronounced dents in the rim. They were just bad. No idea whether they came that way from the factory or what.
 
ATLDave said:
I had several boxes of Remington .22lr (the "golden" ones) that ran about 5% misfires.
Click to expand...

That was fairly common prior to release of the "new and improved" golden bullets. It varied of course, but they did have an excessively high failure rate. It was never enough for me to stop shooting golden bullets since they always seemed to have pretty consistant accuracy for HV rounds.

Maybe that's whey Remington added 25 rounds to make their 550 packs for walmart? :)
 
Can't say I've ever had a failure-to-fire with any Eley or SK in thousands of rounds. Wolf and CCI very rarely. Federal Automatch, some. Remington 22lr = total crap, tons of FTF.
 
I can always tell when my shooting buddy has cleaned his gun.... It misfires because he didn't put it back together correctly:D
I've had bad batches of ammo from time to time. That's just the way of it I guess.
About 10% of the thunderbolts barely crawl out of the barrel but they do make it to the paper. Never had a misfire though.
Never had a misfire with anything from CCI.
Steer clear of this latest run of Winchester T22. Had numerous FTF in 3 different guns last Saturday. Never had a problem with it before.
 
I've never had a .22 misfire that didn't go off with a second firing pin strike in a different area.
That makes me conclude the primer compound wasn't applied all the way around.
 
Sometimes it's the firearm. My Sig Mosquito is well known for it's finicky-ness, and my experiences reflect that. CCI Mini-Mags shoot perfectly through it - 2000+ rounds without any type of failure. But use something else and it turns into a crapshoot (pun intended).

However, my Remington 550 has had countless rounds of LR, along with some L and S fired through it without a failure in 40 years of use.
 
I don't think I have had one in 20+ years of shooting a 22LR or 17HMR. The closest I had was a Remington Golden bullet that had a total case head separation in my model 597. It blew the mag out but worked fine until I dropped it and broke the receiver..
 
Bulk .22 LR costs, what, no more than $0.05/rd. (or $2/rd. at the gun show), and that's your cost. How much QC do you think they'll put in, per round? With most people just plinking with that stuff, a 95% reliability rate is probably acceptable. It gets a little more serious on higher priced hunting rounds.
 
I don't live in the USA and there is NO shortage here. 22LR here costs between 4-7c per round. What do you expect, exactly? The more you spend on it, the more reliable it gets. Some of the match stuff is absolutely flawless.

Rimfire ammo has a wet priming compound put in and is then spun out to the rim where it dries and sets. Obviously, this process is a little less reliable than a primer.

In my experience, Remington rimfire ammo is the WORST.
 
I think it's a combination of increased fouling from dirty ammo and the cheap mass produced ammo. I've seen many rimfires that had issues due to lack of maintenance, I used to have a walther g22 that I got cheap because the owner thought it was broken, I cleaned it up which was a huge pain and it worked flawlessly since. I also used to own a 17hmr that I only shot quality ammo out of and never had a dud that I remember, but I have had plenty of duds with bulk .22
 
While I have had a few duds, even after multiple hammer strikes (only in .22LR), I have yet to have a squib load in any of the calibers I shoot.

One accuracy "killer" with .22LR that I have noticed is the so-called "hyper velocity" stuff, esp. if it is any shape other than RN. Standard or target velocity is usually the most accurate followed by the high velocity stuff. Boxed ammo is also usually more accurate than the bulk packed (loose fill) stuff as the fronts of the bullets are less likely to be damaged by rolling around in the box.
 
I grew up shooting .22s and still do quite a bit. You will get an occasional bad round, but that's the exception rather than the norm. I have had more issues with bad primers in factory center fire ammo than with .22s.
 
In my experience, the most most unreliable .22 ammo has been the Remington bulk pack stuff, which had failure rates around 10%.

Federal bulk pack has a much, much lower failure rate, being consistent enough to use in Steel Challenge matches.

CCI Standard Velocity runs with a failure rate so low it's not even worth bothering about, and higher-end target ammo from places like Eley are just as reliable as center fire ammunition.

In many cases, the cleanliness of the gun is over-stated as a reason for failure. My two main target .22s will continue to shoot reliably and accurately well after building up a disgusting amount of fouling.

I've found that my rimfire AR upper, however, will get much more finicky as it gets dirty, and will start to suffer out-of-battery detonations if it isn't regularly cleaned, or if it gets run too quickly.

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 4
 
One additional factor is that the bulk packs are generally have the bullets just dumped into the box, so if the box is mistreated anywhere on its path, some of the bullets can be easily damaged. This is the most common reason for FTF issues.
Of the bulk packs, my experience is that Federal 550 bulk packs just do not have any failure to fire, Winchester White Box 555 bulk pack will have maybe 1 in 500 but is slightly more accurate. Remington seems to be better with the latest "new improved" version, but the older versions did not do so good for me. I have been shooting .22LR in Ruger MKiii 2245, 5.5"
 
Of the bulk packs, Federal and CCI Blazer seem to be the best in terms of reliability.
 
Keep in mind that rimfire ammunition is based on a cartridge design over 150 years ago in the evolution of firearm development. Subsequent developments included centrefire cartridges and the separate primers in cups developed for that system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimfire_ammunition

From a production quality control point of view, it is much easier to ensure consistent priming for cup-based versus rim-based priming compound systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centerfire_ammunition

If a designer / production engineer were starting from scratch today it's fair to say they would not happily create a design such is used for .22LR and similar cartridges.
(Yes, there are other "new" cartridges derived from .22LR).

It's only the lower unit cost, existing production machinery and large numbers of existing firearms why .22LR continues to enjoy such popularity. (It all feeds back on itself).
 
I hadn't had a dud round in quite some time up until yesterday. The culprit was Winchester X HP. Sent it through a second time and still only a "click". Both strikes were solid. The other 49 rds in the box had no issues. All other brands(CCI Blazers, mini-mag and SV; Federal bulk and AM) that I have used lately have worked just fine.
 
Most of the reliability problems I have had with rimfire ammo could be directly attributed to my using Remington ammo. Most consistent, accurate, and trouble-free would be CCI Mini-Mags and Wolf Match Target.
 
It's only the lower unit cost, existing production machinery and large numbers of existing firearms why .22LR continues to enjoy such popularity. (It all feeds back on itself).
Click to expand...

And that is likely why it will never go away.
 
I have 6 bricks of PMC 22LR and have had no issues. Been thru 2 bricks in the last 15 years. They were bought in the mid to late 90's. I have read that there are a lot of issues with 22LR of many types made in the mid to late 2000's. I also have a 1000 rounds of WMR 22 from 4 manufacturers, bought in the same time frame that I have had no FTF with. The 22LR is shot in a Ruger 22/45 and the WMR is in a 5 shot pocket gun.
 
i have usually 1 or 2 misfires out of 500rd cheapo boxes

and basically ZERO misfires with the CCI velocitor/stinger stuff

either is acceptable reliability for me... but then again, I carry 9mm / .45
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

B
  • Locked
Duds in 22 WMR ammo?
2
Replies
31
Views
3K
texlaw67235
T
kanook
  • Locked
17 HMR recall
Replies
15
Views
2K
searcher451
S
John Ross
  • Locked
JR at SHOT
Replies
0
Views
605
John Ross
John Ross
D.B. Cooper
Most Reliable Guns
2 3 4
Replies
93
Views
3K
Buzznrose
Buzznrose
T
  • Locked
Tuarus tracker .17 HMR???
Replies
5
Views
781
JImbothefiveth
J
Back
Top