This isn't exactly Smith and Wesson related since I was shooting my Ruger MK II, but this seems to be the best place for this.

In the Monday Night Bullseye League I had a dud round of CCI Standard Velocity tonight! Next I suppose you'll tell me there's no Santa Claus.

In over 25 years of using these for NRA Bullseye, I have NEVER EVER EVER had a dud. This is the one and only rimfire ammo I can say that about. That's the very reason I settled on these so many years ago. I've NEVER needed an alibi with these. I am beyond flabbergasted.

In fact, it so threw me that I messed up, and couldn't get an alibi. According to the rules, you are supposed to freeze and put your non shooting hand up to call the RO so he can verify the alibi is legit. You are not supposed to touch the gun. I was so shocked I racked the action to see if somehow I didn't chamber a round. Dope!!! Had I left it alone it would have been the best possible conditions to shoot an alibi since it was the first round of the string. I wouldn't have had to throw out any shots.

Might as well switch to Thunderduds now...

It happens.

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Made it, Ma! Top of the world!

To my surprise, the same thing happened to me recently. I bought three 100 round nose, lead standard velocity 2 years ago and shot them out of a stock Buckmark last month. They were stored inside tge entire time. I had a total of 5 duds. All fired the second time I put them through. I clean my gun after every outing, including removal of the slide and recoil spring. I have had good luck with CCI std velocity in the past, but it has been 5 - 8 years since I last shot them.

It happens. In over 5 decades of shooting, I can only recall three misfires. Two of those were LC M118 match ammo in the 7.62 NATO in the M14 and the third was a 45 ACP in my 1911 match pistol.

I'd keep on using your chosen ammo for match shooting and not worry too much about it. If you get a production lot of ammo that does misfire, just use it for practice.

Now older surplus military ammo is a different story, but that really doesn't count due to the age of most of it. When those rounds misfire or hang fire it's a good flinch check.

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Keep your powder dry.

I've had some issues out of cci stanfard velocity in the past year or so.... have had several duds in multiple firearms, one of which is a revolver.... so no mag issue... no issues with any of thier other offerings

I don't think I have shot any make of .22 rimfire ammo with any regularity that hasn't had at least one dud in the bunch. Some are better than others (CCI, Ely), but it happens. The fact you have shot bullseye so long with CCI without a single issue is great, speaks volumes about CCI reliability, but me thinks you have been on borrowed time...

Larry

Larry,

Sadly I think you nailed it.

Oh well, hopefully I'll go another 25 before it happens again...

It would be interesting to pull the bullet and see if it was lack of powder or primer that caused the dud. I have seen some recent complaints of CCI SV ammo. I would also check the firing pin strike and see if it looks good. It could be an indication of a problem with your firing pin or other issue with the gun.

It Happens ... Sorry !
And the "Tooth Fairy" ... may be a large guy who looks like Dwayne Johnson !!!!
Gary

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Certified Cajun
NRA Member

commercials like to use the word "perfect" in their advertising......it just aint so.....

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There's nowt so queer as folk

Don't ever recall a dud in CCI ammo. But never say never!

My fail to fire with CCI has been very rare until recently. I have had 3 mis-fires out of one brick in the last two weeks.

I participate in a number of shooting contests where 22 LR ammo is used(not Bullseye comp). Many in the shooting group are devout users of CCI Standard Velocity. The people involved in these gun games would agree that CCI Standard quality has declined, but duds are still very few. We have also noticed inconsistency, i.e. one cartridge in a string sounds/feels weak and another seems hotter than normal.

I had a poor cartridge last night during a string using Federal Champion 36gr. JHP. The round fired but recoil was too weak to eject the brass clear of my S&W Victory semi-auto.

This kind of failure is more common currently than it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

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Bob.
SWCA 1821

BEMike,

I did pull the bullet, and there was the infamous "horseshoe" of primer compound. My FP hit was right where the bare spot was!

Stuff happens...

I would send CCI the lot number. They might send you a replacement for the entire lot.

CCI Ammunition - Home

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Ret. LE, FA Instr, S&W Armorer

Excrement occurs. If you make a couple of zillion of something every year one or two will be bad.

I never had a dud with anything CCI, but I don't think I ever bought a box of Thunderduds that DIDN'T have a few duds out of 500. My first experience was about 20 years ago, so I swore I'd never buy any more. Then, there was a sale about 10 years ago so I bought another brick and had the same problem, so I swore off of them again. Then, I bought a few boxes of unprimed 38 brass and half the caces split when I seated the bullets. From then on I WILL NOT buy ANYTHING that says Remington on the package.

On another note, during the recent .22 shortage I bought sevaral bricks of Winchesters and each brick had several primed cases (but no powder or bullet). Also, a count showed 3 or 4 rounds less than the expected quantity. Of course I called Winchester with the lot number, etc. and they wanted to send me a replacement. But, living in NY that ain't possible.

Federal all the way. Just this morning at the range I tried out a new .22 revolver using several flavors of ammo. Federal Valu Pack 525's gave the best accuracy, as usual.

Had 2 duds and a hang fire out of the same box of CCI 22 mag last week. The 2 duds shot the 2nd time. 3rd bad one was a hang fire, so that’s it with that box

Just consider yourself very lucky(on having just one dud). And move on.

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Expect the unexpected

Shoot .22 rimfire long enough and you will encounter one of these primerless dud rounds. It's been years since I saw it, but CCI once opened their production line for one of those "How It's Made" documentaries. I recall the priming process was an incredibly crude affair with a technician using a multi-tipped injection fixture to simultaneously apply priming compound to a square array of .22 cases. Surely they've figured out how to automate it by now, but maybe not. More to the point, how would a quality control operation work to verify that there is both priming compound and powder in a case with a seated bullet. With such low incidence of duds, it doesn't seem that pulling finished rounds at random and either shooting or disassembling would be likely to catch bad rounds. Does anybody know how they prime .22's these days, or better yet how they do in-process quality control?

I assume it is a liquid mix, and spinning cases to distribute it using centrifugal force, then the mix dries.

Again I am just assuming. I could be totally wrong.

Has Remington .22 Target ever solved their problem? Quite a few years ago it was the favored ammo, until there were misfires of up to over 10 per box of 50. A Remington Rep at the time used to come by and shoot in Police PPC match's. We kept saying were going to collect a months worth of misfires and give them to him. It's probably been 25+ years ago. About 7 or 8 years ago I had heard people saying good results with Remington. So I bought a single box and had 3 FTF in the first two clips. Last time I bought any Remington ammo.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

Use mostly CCI or Federal but recently bought a 100 round box or Remington Golden bullets (round nose) to try as they were on sale for 3.99. Shot about half the box thought the 15-22 and an older Remington 572 fieldmaster. No problems with the ammo. As a matter of fact they were very accurate at 50 yards. I was impressed as the last box of Remington 22lr (thunderbolts) I bought during the shortage were so bad I have them away

I use CCI standard velocity in my mark II for bullseye and never had a dud either

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-Matt

one dud in 25 years isnt too shabby

I can't remember any duds with CCI standard velocity, mini-mags
or stingers. There are several other loadings of CCI that I haven't tried,
but would think they would be as good as the ones I have shot.

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CSM, U S Army(Ret) 1963-1990

The Horror of it all!

I shutter at the mere thought .......

Randy

Sounds like the day a bar of soap sank at Proctor& Gamble

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Pete
I ain't no fortunate son

1960-1970 era I shot Bullseye Matches. My .22 ammo was Remington Standard Velocity only. Never a misfire.

I have also noticed problems with CCI SV. It seems the newer ammo does not have the same quality control as the older ammo. I have had a few misfires along with low powder charge and some over powder charge. I don’t use CCI SV for competition anymore, just practice. I have found TAC22 to be very reliable and accurate.

I always had good luck with Aguila Super Extra Standard Velocity .22 LR ammo, as an alternative to CCI SV. I've shot a lot of their Match Rifle and Match Pistol ammo, as well. I found it very reliable and accurate. It was economical.

A few years ago I had several boxes of Winchester .22. It was the stuff in the red plastic box. I had a 90% failure rate in multiple guns. I contacted them, they sent a return label and refunded the purchase price.

I had nothing but problems with Thunderbird fouling barrels. I was able to sell that off during the .22 shortage of a few years ago, but it was junk.

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Can open, worms everywhere.

I bought a few thousand rounds of CCI sub sonic's that came in the 100 round plastic cases.

Had one 100 round case that had about a 6 or 7 rounds that wouldn't fire.

All the rest were fine, and I still only buy CCI SV or sub's. Their the cleanest I've found so far to shoot suppressed.

I've always kept an obscene amount of 22 ammo on hand, and 95% of it is all CCI. Only had a problem that one time with that one box.

So if the USA ammo is bad...............

what do the other country's use for the gold medals ?

Do they have magic .22 ammo ?

Nevada- it is pretty much gospel that European made .22 ammo is superior in every way to anything domestically made. I will agree cci is the best domestic produced .22 ammo ( not that Remington Winchester or federal set the bar very high) but the higher grade European ammo ( priced double to triple or more the cost of American .22 ammo) is far more consistent accurate and reliable.
When I shoot steel challenge I pick up rounds that other shooters drop due to malfunction and out of every 10 picked up only one or none will be cci. Federal Winchester Remington about equal amounts. I pick them all up and by the end of the match will usually end up with near
Y a whole box of ammo I burn up in a revolver

They most likely are using Eley Tenex, RWS R100/R50, etc.

Why? Because it wins. Tenex is in the winners circle more than all others combined.

Winchester MK III/IV was great ammo, as was Remington's 6600 and Federal UM-1/900.......so the US at one time did make premium ammo, and then discontinued it probably because not enough was sold to justify it.

Randy

I have been following the reports of the new Ruger LCP II 22 . Most have had light strike issues even with CCI. That surprised me as I never saw any issues with CCI.

Albeit unusual w/my Model 63 I’ve had scattered duds w/CCI.

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Old Cop
LEO (Ret.)

Mostly Lapua(Midas) and Eley(TenX). And yes. They are far better than any American ammo I tried(old Winchesters were great too but not anymore).

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Expect the unexpected

Thank goodness someone brought back this issue. Sounds serious!

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Still Running Against the Wind

Actully, I never got around to posting this but...

I had a SECOND dud with CCI Standard Velocity! (I'm the OP.) The original dud was on 1/28. Then, about two weeks ago (3/7) I was shooting in a 900 match and I had ANOTHER dud. Fortunately it was in slow-fire, so it didn't cost me anything. I actually re chambered the dud round 180 degrees so the firing pin hit the opposite side, and it went Bang!! no problem. But man, 20+ years with never a dud, then two within about 6 weeks.

Sorry, it was right about then we got caught up in the current excitement, so I sort of forgot about it till I saw the thread re surfaced.

With 9 explanation points by the OP I thought this would be a revelation of information that would change the way CCI engineers manufactured rimfire ammunition... but, even as bored as I am, there is nothing to see here...

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S&W factory revolver armorer