I have been having great fun weekly at the range with my toy! Lately though, it has started catching an empty sideways on eject, and double feeds behind it too often for my liking. My husband keeps it nice and clean for me, and says the ejector appears fine and straight. Where should I begin replacing parts? I've read all the threads, and the suggestions are all over the place. Ammo has been various types, mags are all stock S&W. Where would you begin? BTW, accuracy is dead on, I love this gun! Thank you!

Have you changed Ammo types? If so/not what do you use? Does this happen with one mag in particular or with every mag? Have you checked the feed lips on them? I've had magazines with roughly the same round count start to split at the welded seam and cause issues. Are you correctly staggering the rounds in the mag?

At 2,000 rounds nothing should be worn out with the bolt or barrel. Have your husband check the ejector and extractor. Sometimes, while cleaning, the ejector can get bent.

Also, you may want to strip the bolt down and give it all a good cleaning. If you are still having issues you'll need to send it in for warranty repair. Smith won't usually sell you parts alone. There is an aftermarket extractor by Volquartsen that people are finding success with.

Agreed with Jagular, the ejector may have snagged on a patch during one of the cleanings and should be checked for proper alignment.

I have told him to be careful of the ejector from the very beginning. He's very competent with guns and mechanics, so I am trusting that is ok. Ammo has been everything, from Minimags, to Remington, to Win. This last large buy of Federal seems to be the worst. I will check the mag seams, but out of the 4, 2 are just 2 weeks old. I am using that hyper trick plastic loader with the squueze trigger on it, (forgot the name!), and the rounds stagger perfectly. Thanks for the ideas, we will check them all, including another look at ejector.

McFadden Lightnin' Grip speed loader??

Yepp, that's the one.

Mine get a steady diet of various CCI loadings and Remington Golden Bullets. The CCI is most reliable, but the Rem isn't too far behind. I have had more issues with various Winchester and Federal loadings. The two 15-22s average about 200 rounds a week through each of them. The older one has been in for repair once after about four years of use to have it's extractor and bolt springs replaced. I estimate it has between 40,000 and 45,000 rounds through it now. The newer is about two years old and has yet to have any issues besides the very occasional failure to fire that will happen now and then with any rimfire ammo. I would estimate it at near 20,000 rounds so far. Magazines do wear out after a couple of years. The feed lips erode enough that they no longer hold the rounds at the proper angle and promote misfeeds. And yes, I have had one come apart at the seams as well.

All that to say that your problem may very well be ammo related. Try some CCI loads. Minimags, standard velocity, or even the low cost Blazers have been far more reliable in my two than anything Winchester or Federal makes.

Thanks, TX-Dennis! At first, it would feed and cycle *anything* I fed it, except for subsonics. Lately, I've been buying cheap and plentiful because I do love shooting it so much. The range tosses bunches of golf balls out, and it's so entertaining to watch them pop up. I bought some spinner targets to play with too. I just got bored of shooting at paper, I guess. I'll try going back to better ammo, and see what happens. I'm also feeding an integrally suppressed Ruger Mk 3, so I'm sure we'll have a use for the cheap ammo too, as it eats anything.

Although by no means a necessary upgrade the Volquartsen edge extractor for the 15-22, does seem to present a more positive extraction/ejection cycle, my rounds fly out about 10-15ft from the rifle.

I never had an issue with my stock extractor but it is always nice to know that i have a spare extractor hidden away in my grip storage compartment. For a cheap price the VQ extractor is a very effective replacement. I also only really shoot CCI through mine and I have no issues at all.

Make sure the ejector doesn't wiggle at all. This is a common issue with the S&W M&P 15-22 and causes erratic ejection. It can be fixed either under warranty service at the factory or with specialized tools available online. There are several threads on this forum detailing this problem.

The older injectors had issues, replace it with a volquarsteen extractor and be done. Its about 20 bucks. If you still have problems it sounds like the mags.The extractor is an improvement anyway....

Ejectors are not extractors and are not interchangeable.

Took it out again yesterday, and shot better ammo. Same thing happened, 3 to 4 failures per mag. It's definitely the gun, not the ammo or mags. Ordered the Volquartson extractor and hope this is the fix. Ejector is fine and perfect, compared it to a brand new one at the shop. Apparently we already have the blue springs, except for one red one. Odd that it started this nonsense only after about 1,500 rounds, I thought we had lucked out. Will advise after new extractor is installed. I really hope this fixes it, I just love this gun and want to buy it a suppressor. Thanks for the suggestions, greatly appreciated.

One thing that sneaks up on you is carbon build-up in the chamber. 22LR tends to leave a hard carbon build-up that many cleaning techniques just polish the surface of rather than remove.

I use a .243 rifle bore brush (Brownells special line brushes with the brass cores) on a piece of cleaning rod spun by a variable speed drill motor going in thru the upper.

This and your favorite powder solvent will get your chamber clean. It's amazing what comes out of "clean" chambers doing this.

Clean ONLY the chamber this way.

The other thing can be wrong is ejector adjustment. It should sit high enough to almost touch the underside of the bolt and the "tip of the hook" should almost touch the rib on the underside of the bolt. By "almost touch" I mean sheet of paper thickness clearance or less.

It's been my observation that S&W planned ahead to firmly locate the ejector in the correct position. When a magazine is inserted it lifts (or holds) the ejector so it "almost touches" the underside of the bolt. In other words, vertical movement of the ejector is limited by the top of the magazine and the bottom of the bolt. Horizontal movement is limited by the sides of the groove in the bolt bottom. This is a pretty clever design.

The Volquartsen extractor is a sound investment. My own 15-22 was reasonably reliable with the stock extractor. It's been absolutely reliable after many thousands of rounds with the VQ extractor.

I totally agree with Tomcatt. Mine started double feeding and fail to eject just like the OP. I saw the info about checking the ejector adjustment and mine APPEARED to be ok at first glance. Upon closer examination I noticed the it had a small gap on the underside of the bolt. It didn't seem like it should matter but i adjusted it to just miss touching it. On my next trip to the range everything fed and ejected perfectly. I can now use everything for bulk Federal to CCI mini mags and no problems. I think I must have accidentally bumped it with the bore snake.

Yay! It works perfectly again! Installed the Volquartsen extractor, tweaked the ejector up *just a bit*, and scrubbed the chamber clean. It's back to eating anything and shooting the wings off flies RELIABLY! Thank you VERY much to all who replied with good suggestions and took the time to do so. Y'all ROCK!

I second this - I had the same issues as the OP with FTE/Stove-pipes with my new 15-22 and put the VQ Extractor in and now have put 1000+ rounds through it with a wide variety of different ammo and have not one single FTE or stove-pipe since replacing the stock extractor. The replacement extractor has turned my 15-22 from being a frustrating gun to one that is incredibly reliable and fun to shoot. It literally eats any ammo I now feed it.

I've got ~3k rounds through mine and the only times I had any issues were with magazines that my kids loaded. I run CCI AR 22 bullets mostly, sometimes just regular CCI 22 LR's.

Amazing what cleaning your gun will do, any kind of gunk under the extractor will limit the engagement disassemble and clean the bolt. Also make sure your mag is seated correctly and clean so the ejector can function as intended.
A lot of folks blaming their problems on the gun, the gun works fine, learn to clean the firearm correctly and you'll have no problems.
I have VQ Extractor's in all 4 of my 15/22's and one in my Victory 22, I added them just for tinkering, I never had problems with the stock 15/22's extractor.