Stove Pipes, FTF and FTE all in one rifle

[brighamr]

Long Post Alert!

I need some help. I really love this rifle, but as of right now I can't shoot it for safety reasons (stove pipes).

I'll try to describe this as accurately as possible:

The rifle: 10/22 reciever, Volquartzen hammer, sear, and trigger. Butler creek bull bbl. I bought the rifle this way, and all the parts appear to be new.

Mags tested:
stock ruger 10 rounders
Eagle Accessories 30 round (plastic lips)
Butler Creek 25 (steel lips)
Butler Creek 25 (plastic lips)

Ammo tested:
Federal Bulk
Remington Bulk
Hornets
The Gold Bullets
CCI

The problem: This rifle has several issues, which can be very sporadic. Somtimes the ruger mags will function fine for about 3 uses, then the issues appear. (I'd say 4/10 failure rate). With all of the hi-cap mags, the issues are pretty constant. (8/10 failure rate).

Issue #1: Sometimes the rifle will load and fire correctly for a few rounds. Then for some reason it will FTF. I'll take out the mag, rack the bolt, and the round will fire fine.

Issue #2: After shooting a few rounds, the rifle will FTE.

Issue #3: The rifle double loads (stove pipes). This happened once when I first got it, so I tried all the different ammo. It happened 1 more time, and that's why I really want to fix this rifle.

I'm thinking the following might fix these issues, but would like to confirm.
headspacing (Can someone give me the correct measurements?)
bullet guide (do any 10/22s have these? my higher power rifles do)
softer spring on the bolt

I mention the softer spring because the current one is actually harder to compress than the spring in my XD9.

In addition to the above issue, another anomolea I've had is with hollow point ammunition. (The middle of the bullet cavity will catch on the upper ring of the bbl chamber, causing the bullet to bend in half.)


I appreciate helpful comments!

 

[Sunray]

Relax. Stove pipes are annoying, but not terribly dangerous. Stove piping on feeding is usually a mag issue. Upon extraction/ejection it's usually the extractor/ejector or the ammo. Plastic mag lips don't work well and aren't fixable. Steel mag lips can be tweaked open a tick with long fine needle nosed pliers.
When you have feeding issues with all mags, it's usually the ammo. The HP feeding issue is a mag issue. Mind you, the spring might well be the cause. Wolf Springs sells factory weight recoil springs for $9.99. http://www.gunsprings.com/RifleShotgun/Ruger_RsNF.html#10/22
Extraction issues may be fixed with a bath. Have a look at the extractor and chamber too.
Headspace is a manufacturing tolerance only. There is no correct measurement. Brownell's sells .22 rimfire guages for $25 each for the Go and No-Go. I doubt you have a headspace issue though.
I'd change the recoil spring and tweak the steel mag lips open a tick. That is easier to do than it sounds. Just a wee bit of pressure with the pliers will do it.

 

[brighamr]

Sunray - thanks for your response. I will work on the steel mag, I gave the plastic ones to my brother (they all worked fine in his stock 1022).

The thing that gets me is all the problems happen, no matter how expensive the ammo is.

What worried me with the stove pipe is that a round will fire, wont eject, new round is loaded (double load) and then will fire out of battery. (This happened twice. Now I use it as a single shot until I can get these issues fixed).

I'll try the spring first, with the stock mags and Gold bullets to see what happens.

Thanks again!

 

[Chief-7700]

When was the last time you did a detail cleaning job on the 10-22? Mine has problems after about 500 round. A good cleaning and she is good to go again.
Chief-7700

 

[brighamr]

Since I got it, I've cleaned it at least once every 200 rounds. thanks for the tip though.

 

[gb6491]

What worried me with the stove pipe is that a round will fire, wont eject, ...

You might want to look at an after market extractor such as the Volquartsen exact edge extractor (there have been some good reports posted about them on THR) or try tuning your extractor:
Extractor tuning page 1
Extractor tuning page 2
Extractor tuning page 3

It's also possible that the after market barrel has too tight of a chamber.

Speaking of after market barrels; check that the v block is tightened down evenly.

Regards,
Greg

 

[gsw-survivor]

First, there is no adjustment you can do to the feed lips of a Ruger factory magazine, nor is it necessary. Many of the plastic feed lip aftermarket mags are junk and wear quickly. Ruger mags usually cause problems when dirty or out of adjustment. Check with the folks on rimfirecentral.com for tips on "retuning" the magazines. The extractor is usually not the problem as it is unnecessary for proper function when fireing as the gun is a blowback operated arm. I'ts main use is to manually remove unfired rounds. My first suggestion is to check to see if the barrel is properly aligned with the extractor and the cut in the barrel. Headspacing only affects the annoying habit of flyers, not FTF or stovepipe, Etc. A "softer" spring will not cure any of your problems and might lead to others. The spring and bolt weight work together to keep the bolt locked untill pressure reduces to safe levels. Brad

 

[Sunray]

"...no matter how expensive the ammo..." The price of the ammo means nothing. Some .22's will shoot cheap stuff and not the expensive stuff. Some won't shoot cheap ammo, but will shoot mid-priced stuff and some won't shoot anything but expensive ammo(rarely though.).
"...as it is unnecessary for proper function..." A blow back action without an extractor will leave the empty case in the chamber.