Guys,

First thanks again for all of your great comments. They’re very helpful.

But I can assure you that whatever problem I’m having is not temperature or humidity related. My 15-22 was kept indoors, the range was indoors, it was climate controlled in my car, and for the 30 seconds the gun was outside in my driveway or parking lot, it was enclosed in the case. 30 seconds, while protected inside of a gun case, just isn’t enough time to cause a significant temperature or humidity differential. That can’t be the problem.

After listening to all of you I’m leaning toward it being cleaning related. And to underscore that, I note that it worked before I gave it the first cleaning, and after that it hasn’t worked right.

I do have a few follow-up questions for you however. I noticed that several of you suggested keeping certain parts dry of oil (e.g. the firing control group). I didn’t avoid that when I cleaned it. My SOP is to lightly wipe all internal metal surfaces with a LIGHT coating of oil. I’m not talking dripping wet, but I did pass a cleaning wipe that had oil on it across all surfaces including all surfaces of the bolt.

In addition to reading your posts tonight I checked out the YouTube video linked off of the “Notable Thread Index -> Instructional Videos -> How to Clean and Lubricate” links. It surprised me how little brett248vista applied oil. In that video he didn’t lube anything related to the entire bolt group assembly other than the rails themselves. Is that right? There are sliding pieces in here: bolt assembly rails both against the polymer upper receiver sides as well as the bolt itself, spring against the guide rod, etc. Really am I to clean that only and not lube any of the associated parts other than just those internal rails? No light sheen of oil to protect against metal corrosion if the guns sits for a long period of time? (That would be a first for me if so, among all of the guns I currently own.)

And as to the question from Ghost_Soldier, no I didn’t try firing any of them a second time. Good suggestion though. I’ll try that the next time I go to the range. Instead I was trying to save every bullet/shell that I could, in case I needed to take this to a gunsmith. I thought it would help him diagnose the problem. But for sure this is worth checking out, should a another cleaning (with less lube) not solve the problem.

As for the questions from bobermo:
* The bolt and rails do appear to me to slide smoothly. While this is my first 15-22 this isn’t my first semi-auto gun, and nothing out of the ordinary seems wrong with this slide to me.
* I examined my rails and that whole assembly and don’t see any burs or imperfections that I noticed
* The mags seem to load OK. Again I haven’t noticed anything unusual. BUT one problem with the “it’s too much lube” hypothesis is: Why would it work better if I dropped the mag (significantly so) and work worse if I left the mag in? A light strike is a light strike – why would the presence or lack of a magazine change how hard/fast the firing pin impacted the bullet rim?
* The bolt spring is mostly the silver color of the metal but if I look at it from the side I can tell that yes there is a light coating of blue on parts of the spring.

For yugowego: No I didn’t remove the FCG. I just went with the standard cleaning as in the S&W manual. I didn’t even take the bolt assembly group apart, as suggested in the brett248vista video. I hadn’t seen that video yet and was trying to go “by the book” the first time out.

NOTE: As I was just now typing this in and playing with my gun, I checked on the hammer springs as yugowego suggested. The hammer was cocked and I accidentally pulled the trigger so it sprang forward. At that point I noticed the hammer had a bit of a wiggle, and discovered that the pin it rotates around had come loose from the right side! What I don’t know is: Was it that way all of the time, or did I just mess it up by “firing” it while separated from the upper receiver? I honestly don’t know. If the former, perhaps that is the cause of the light strikes? Anyway I wiggled the hammer around and got the pin to realign, and then used a pen to push the pin back into the polymer receiver hole on the right hand side. I was surprised that pin isn’t longer, since it not being flush on both sides contributes to it coming loose. It’s back in now, but I’m going to have to keep an eye on it now to make sure it doesn’t work its way back out again in the future. Really I was also surprised at how freely it moved in the two holes.

So I have two things to try now: a clean (but not lubed bolt assembly group), and a reset hammer pin. Hopefully between the two of these things I’ve solved the problem. Alas I probably won’t be able to get back to the range until next week, but I’ll certainly let you know how things go!

Thanks much for your help and suggestions, and by all means please shoot me some more ideas if something else pops up as possible contributing factors, or if you want to reply to what I said in here.

Thanks again.