Was It The Gun Or The Ammo

AzShooter1

AzShooter1

Member
Joined
Dec 6, 2006
Messages
1,151
Location
Surprise, Az
Today I brought my vehicle in for service. I was right across the street from Shooter's World, and indoor shooting range, so I asked if I could borrow an electric wheelchair so I could visit the range. They gave me a new chair and sent me on my way. It was a short ride but exciting. These new chairs have lots of speed.

Well, I made it to the range. Picked up a Ruger Mark IV Target, a box of Aguilla .22 ammo, eye and ear protection and I was off to the range. I only bought 50 rounds because I only had a half an hour to shoot.

I had 14 failures to fire. Some fired on the second try and 8 fired on the third try.

Range guns are notorious for not being cleaned but was it the gun or the ammo? I've had bad luck with Aguilla before..

It was a satisfying visit. At least I got out and shot..
 
No expert here, as often as I say that I think "NoExpert" should have been my username. But I would have to say the Mk IV is a reliable firearm and would only fail if routine maintenance wasn't observed. I've shot probably 4K-5K rounds of Aguila SV .22lr. Never had a problem with it.....

During covid I was paying $18-$20 for 225rd boxes of Aguila and shot alot through my G44 and 10/22. I have found it to be as good or possibly better than Federal Auto Match. It's good ammo.
 
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I have had occasional issues with the Aguila Suoer Extra in the bulk packs, the 50-round individual boxes have been much better for me in my guns.

The issues I have had seem to be from bullets and cartridge cases being slightly oversized, so they don’t like to feed/extract in both semis and revolvers. If you were shooting the smaller boxes of Aguila ammo, those are probably not as hit or miss as the bulk ones. (250-round pack)

IMG_3792.jpeg


Since the maintenance of a rental gun is unknown, I will only guess that it was most likely the gun. I am pretty good at maintaining my stuff, but then again I (and a select friend or relative) are the only ones who shoot my guns. A rental may get hundreds and hundreds of rounds fired between cleaning/inspection so in this case it may have been the gun.

Stay safe.
 
I get 2-3% duds with Super Extra and accuracy is minute-of-tin can but not much better.
It seems to to work as well in my Ruger Mark pistols as anything else.

Its ok if nothing better is at hand. Id still take a box of Agulia over one of WWB any day.

Man, I wish we had a range across the street from our shop! 😁
 
As a guy who worked a rental range back in the day - it was the gun. That pistol has had the outside wiped down several times, but internals were merely sprayed with GunScrubber, IF that! Especially guns that are even slightly difficult to break down, yeah, they get shuffled to the back of the line. Betcha a huge pile of deer guts that the gun is filthy, AND having been rented daily for the last 5 years, the internals are beat to death. A range gun gets a lifetime of abuse in a year, especially if it's a popular rental. When the HK USP came out, we had six. When I left a year later, we had one - all the others were back at HK being repaired.
Was gun.
 
I pick up the duds from our range all the time & in the last two years or so the .22lr quality has dropped very much. I pull the bullets from the dud .22s, dump the powder & use a butane lighter on the bottom of the case to pop the primer. Most of it doesn't have priming compound it it because I don't get even a fizzle.
Are Aguila the ones with a big A on the head stamp? I get a lot of those.
 
I carry a sandwich size bag with a little bottle of CLP, Q-Tip's and an old toothbrush just for those rental guns.
A quick clean of the chamber, feed ramp, bolt face, extractor and magazine feed lips usually helps.
Don't get any speeding tickets with that new chair AZ, it'll dent your ammo budget! :)
 
A shallow primer dent is usually the giveaway of a weak striker/hammer spring, worn firing pin or just a dirty gun, but there are also ammo variables. Insensitive or inadequate dispersion of priming mixture, or the use of a slightly over-hard brass alloy.

If you are interested in the vagaries of ammunition making, George Frost wrote a very readable book about his adventures at various factories. It's available as a download here:

archive.org

Ammunition Making NRA By G. Frost ( 1990) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

One of the few books on step by step manufacture of ammunition, 176 pg. lots of diagrams and charts.
archive.org

Even an otherwise unsatisfactory range session beats sitting around the waiting area while a vehicle is being serviced! I wish I had that option -- my mechanic is located in a crummy neighborhood.
 
No way to tell but my experience with Aguila has been great. I'd like to see if the chamber is peened out or the firing pin has been damaged. No telling how much has gone through a rental.
My Mk I and Mk II both have had tons of every kind of ammo through them and have only failed a few times with Remington Golden Garbage.
 

Was It The Gun Or The Ammo​


Yes/no all of the above/none of the above. Really in this instance I would blame the range gun because as mentioned they seldom see cleaning. Fouling in the firing pin channel will make for light strikes.

Generally when I get a .22 LR fail to fire I start by looking at the firing pin strikes on the rim before I try again.
AzShooter1 said:
I had 14 failures to fire. Some fired on the second try and 8 fired on the third try.
Click to expand...
That's also about 28% and I seriously doubt it was the ammo.

Just My Take....
Ron
 
I’m working my way through a 500 pack of Aguila. My vote is to blame the gun. I’ve had one dud in about 300. They are really waxy and leave a good bit of dirt in the action of my Buckmark. Nothing a toothbrush dipped in Hoppes can’t fix, but I could see it gumming up a gun fairly fast.
 
All I could think after reading the thread title was, In my past experiences, Kimber will always blame the ammo, Benelli will always blame the ammo. Springfield and Ruger answer question's with…. “how about you send us the gun and we’ll check it out?”

In your case, being a range gun, it’s a good chance it’s just dirty, weak springs wouldn’t surprise me either. I admittedly have little experience with Aquillia
 
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