Lately I have seen mention of the unreliability of 22 rimfire ammo in several threads. I have over the years shot a bunch of it, different brands in in different guns and don't recall ever having a misfire caused by the ammo. Is it more common than problems in Centerfire ammo? If so, is this something new or has it always been so?
Thanks!
Steve W

It has always been so. In loading the rimfire cartridge, the liquid primer is dropped in to the case and the case spun to distribute it around the inside of the rim. The possibility that it may not be well-distributed is very real. But also, the firing of the round requires the case rim to be crushed, and this takes more hammer energy than a CF primer requires. This is the reason small .22 revolvers often have such heavy triggers -- a heavy mainspring is mandatory for reliable ignition. Considering the billions of .22 rounds loaded, and the inherent problems of loading reliable ammo, it's amazing that inconsistent ignition isn't a bigger problem than it is.

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Pisgah

I have never had a .22 rimfire misfire. I recently shot some manufactured in 1944 just to see if it would still work. No problems. I will say that my firearms are all quality manufacture produced prior to about 1955. Perhaps the frequency of misfires has something to do with the firearm.

It's always been that way with the cheaper (bulk) 22 ammo as far as I remember it.The more expensive stuff is a whole different thing


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Wow, I must be the most unlucky shooter around. I have had handfuls of misfires in about any gun. A major manufacturer has the nickname "thunder duds". At any time I can go the our range and find a number of duds laying on the ground. Most with very definite firing pin marks.

We had a few recently. Nice big dent from the firing pin, but no bang. If I remember correctly, it was CCI which is normally better than the cheaper ammo.

I must confess, I've never had a 22 misfire.

That's from 1962 to the present.

I've always preferred Remington standard velocity.

I'm still working on a case of surplus 22 Remington from1979.

I don't own a 22 manufactured after 1952.

Quality guns make a difference.

The common practice with a 22 misfire is to load it back after turning it 180 degrees and hammer it again. I don't bother with that, I want to know why. So I take along 2 pairs of cheap pliers. I grip the case forward of the rim with one pair and the bullet with the other. Then I bend. The bullet smears out. Look down in the case and see what there is to see. Over the years they color the priming mix different colors, but its easy to see. If the firing pin made a decent dent, and the round didn't fire, you'll almost never see priming compoud all the way around the rim. Sometimes you see a lump of it on one side, opposite the firing pin mark. But usually you'll see none at all. Oh, the powder. Pour it on the grass, its good fertilizer.

I just can't believe anyone who fires much 22 has never had a misfire. They must be right with God.

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Dick Burg

I have had misfires with a few of the cheaper 22s. I switched to 3 brands that I like that are 100% reliable, Federal AutoMatch, Aguila Supreme and the best is anything by CCI.

My current favorite is CCI 40 grain Mini Mags. They shoot real well, great groups, no misfires and no jams.

over the years cci and Remington yellow jackets 22's of choice. notice in 22 semiauto pistols, when they get "dirty" from the lub and power, they start to misfire. crud on the bolt face likely the cause. never had a 22 misfire on rev.

I usually have a 22 rifle with me at the range. When I see a dud I pick it up and nearly all the time it goes off in the rifle even with a prior strike. Some rims on different 22 ammo are thicker than others if you measure them. Some brands will not chamber in a few of my bolt guns. If the bolt is hard to close switching brands fixes this.

So my Winchester Model 52C isn't a high quality firearm? As it had some misfires just last Friday. Federal ammo. With big indentations on the rim afterward!

I've even had Wolf match ammo misfire on occasion.

Seems lot specific, usually, except with the aforementioned "Thunderduds". Those ought to be renamed "Maypops".

As a kid, dad taught me about "hang fires" with my Winchester single shot. "Keep it safely pointed down range and count to ten." .22's were at a premium to me and every one got rechambered and more often than not, fired on the second try. Pure duds got lined up on the fence rail and used as miniature silhouettes.

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There has been some discussion about the newer .22's being less reliable than earlier ones. Many have concluded that during the Great 22 Drought manufacturers were ramping up production which caused quality control to drop which in turn caused the increase of duds.

Over the years, I've had some actual FTF 22LR duds, but they've usually fired when chambered again. Chalked it up to faulty spin priming.

The only other problem I've run into has been some lots of Federal AutoMatch "bloopers", where the report was very different when fired and, in some cases, you could actually see sparks out of the barrel when fired. Happened about 3% of the rounds. I thought this was due to light powder charges, but the engineer I spoke to at Federal said they see this happen when their crimping operation gets off-spec. Apparently 22LR ammo needs a heavy, consistent crimp in order to get good ignition.

They sent me a check for all the bricks I had purchased and sent UPS around to pick up what I had left. I've since switched to using CCI SV and haven't had a problem since then.

I wish everyone would quit switching to CCI SV, I can't find any locally for my own use. For the price CCI SV is great ammo.

An occasional miss fire with .22s is to be expected. Pretty much always has been and most will fire the second time around.

However, I've noticed in the last year or two that the number of miss fires per box of even name brand ammo has increased. I suspect that in the rush to catch up from the "shortage" that some manufactures may have cut some corners.

My experience with misfires has been heavily weighted toward the Remington bulk pack .22 ammo.

For the last three years my only misfire problem has been with Thunderbolts.

Now with the TAC 22 standards they did misfire in the SW22 until I had about 500 rounds through it. Now they also work fine in the SW22.

Thunderbolts misfire too much, are very dirty and leave an incredible amount of lead in my barrels.

I've got about 300 left to burn through and I fire ten rounds of them per 50 rounds of any other ammo. Then the cleaning is not so bad.

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Mike
S&WCA #3065