Anyone else having QC problems with 22 ammo ?

[Wagwan]

Yup, problems here too. Recently acquired several bricks of CCI Blazer that’s running about a 15% dud rate. I save the duds and try them again in other guns to eliminate the possibility of light strikes in one but the duds really are duds. They won’t go off in any gun. I can hammer the the rims flat with multiple strikes in my CZ Kadet to no effect. Very disappointing as it seems to be very accurate when it does work.

[Hi-Wall]

As a bullet caster I leave no lead un gathered. Last Summer I was shooting Federal Auto Match I had purchased in August of 2016. I date my components/ammo when I purchase it.

I had a misfire, rotated it and tried again, nothing. After my session with the steel was over, I pulled the bullet to toss into a pot of range lead. Huh, no powder. I tapped the case on a piece of white paper and a micro minuscule amount of yellowish dust was barely visible.

By the time I finished that box of 325, I had 4 rounds that had no powder and possible no priming compound as the interior of the disassembled case was shiny and showed no evidence of anything having burned in it.

I have 3 boxes of 325 of the same lot number all purchased at the same time. There have been duds in each box. One obviously had a priming charge only as it pushed the bullet just into the throat of my 513-T. When I extracted that dud there was no bullet so I looked into the bore, black!

I contacted Federal just to inform them knowing that 4 plus year old ammo had little bearing on their current production, but I felt they should know there was no powder in several rounds in each box of 325. They were good enough to send me 4 replacement boxes and did not require me to send in the suspect boxes with the remaining ammo. I have shot almost all of the 2016 ammo up by now. The duds make for good practice to evaluate my off hand consistency.

[Al the Infidel]

Originally Posted by Empe

Now that's a solid strike ...if one of those rounds don't ignite I would say it's surly an ammo problem .

Yer dern tootin!!

[BadaBing11]

My last two bricks of SK Rifle Match have been terrible in terms of accuracy. This stuff used to shoot fantastic in all my guns. I can only surmise the production pressures due to the recent ammo shortage are causing the variation.

Recent batches of Center X, Wolf Match Extra, seem to be shooting as usual.

Right now, I'll shoot what I can get as long as they are not price gouging.

[Test_Engineer]

Originally Posted by bandit1250

I believe tuning the shape of the firing pin profile is one of the best things you can do to eliminate miss fires and help improve accuracy even with some lower grade ammo.
.

Done right, it absolutely helps. Done wrong, I've found it can actually destroy accuracy.

I started FP shape testing with a shallow wedge shape attributed to Bill Calfee. It made a huge improvement in reliability, but accuracy tanked. I believe it only worked for Bill because he uses match chambers and mine are sporting. So I went thru several shapes before determining what works best.

A Ruger Mark3 was my test bed (and made the hits in the photo).

1) Whatever FP surface hits the brass should be parallel to the breech. Any tipping of the surface will destroy accuracy.

2) The FP strike should be far enough inside the thick outer brass ring so it doesn't alter it's shape. If the strike is compressing the ring, or bending it outward - the strike is being slowed and will be less effective. You shouldn't be able to tell where the strike occurred when viewing the brass from the front or side.

3) The strike needs to be close enough to the thick brass ring to allow the priming pocket to collapse as the FP tip passes by. You're basically folding brass over the priming and stretching it into the pocket. A strike too far inside the ring will fold the brass, but not stretch it into place against the anvil. See the pic with arrows pointing to the anvils of CF and RF primers.



Now you should see the real problem with rimfire reliability: the anvil is at an angle to the FP strike & is protected by the thick outer ring. A slow strike can push the priming mix out of the pocket & into the powder chamber. A FP hit further in will be faster and will capture at least most of the priming mix. That capture action is where you make huge gains in reliability.

Thanks for all the nice comments. I hope this helps encourage you to try FP shaping. It's no replacement for cleaning your gun, etc. But it has helped to improve my misfire rate to well below 1/10,000 rounds. I doubt I've fired 10,000 centerfire rounds in my life, so rimfire ammo now appears to be just as reliable. YMMV.

[lovetobike]

The last few trips to the range I have had a FTF every 50 or so rounds using Federal black pack bulk 38 gr CPHP. The cases show a good primer strike. When I reload the bullet at a different rotated position it usually will fire indicating poor distribution of primer. I bought this batch early last year at the beginning of the COVID crisis knowing that ammo will become scarce. I figured better to have bulk that was available rather than no better quality rounds.

I do not know if this is typical Federal black pack dud rate or worse than in the past. I have not had primer problems with American Eagle 40gr or federal auto match bought before 2020.

I am relatively new to rimfire, but enjoy my TCR22 and MP22c for training and plinking. Great guns to introduce new shooters to the sport.

[91B40]

I have had very few misfires over the years and the rate has gone up slightly recently. I have NEVER had any misfires with any ammo in my Smith and Wesson Model 18, Ruger Single Six, Winchester 9422, and Advantage Arms Glock conversion unit.

[samven]

I just had a first happen today. 3 FTF from 1 box of Eley Slow pistol Match. It is fresh ammo that I just bought last week. I fired it side by side with old Fed Auto Match from my S&W 17. The only other time I have ever had a FTF in this gun was with some Vostok Target that has to be pushing 40 years old. I shoot a fair amount of Eley but mostly Contact, Action and Force and never had a FTF in any gun. Even worse is that it is the most inaccurate ammo of any non bulk I have shot, so it may not just be the stuff on this side of the pond.

[denso]

You guys are all wrong! Those FTF's are put in there on purpose. The purpose is to check for flinching. Think about it.




Gotcha!

[Digital Dan]

Couple years ago I launched into a project that led me to disassemble a variety of US and European .22 LR ammo. It was one of those epiphany moments. In very general terms the US stuff QC was pathetic, mostly due to aberrations with the primer compound. Read that as rim voids and compound smeared to various degrees within the case, sometimes up to the bullet base. There were also variations in bullet form/dimensions and charge weights. None of this was apparent on the Euro ammo.

I have a small quantity of CCI SV ammo which, when used will not be replaced although it shoots better than most other US production ammo. Only exception is a brick of old WW Power Point that my 10/22 loves. It also loves the Euro SV ammo quite a bit. Other than that, the only US manufactured .22 RF ammo I will ever purchase again is CCI CB Shorts.

[52DH&R12]

Watch this video, then think about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rCZHG_eEak

IF CC was as good as it needed to be to never get a FTF the price of CCI and others would be nearer to Lapua and Eley prices ( during normal times )

[Al the Infidel]

Originally Posted by denso

You guys are all wrong! Those FTF's are put in there on purpose. The purpose is to check for flinching. Think about it.

I thought about it and practicing clearing your firearm.

The bigger question is who doesn't have troubles with today's ammo, including uncalled flyers in the better stuff.