Evening everyone.

I’ve got a strange problem with a new rifle and I’m hoping you wise Gentlemen may be able to shed some light on it.

From new, my rifle has had a reduced power trigger spring and an extractor upgrade kit, both from Black Rifle in the UK. It’s had 200 rounds of CCI Mini-mag through it prior to this shoot without a problem.

Last weekend, after about thirty rounds, it was firing normally then ‘click’. First thought was misfire so I followed the safe path and waited 30 seconds before removing the mag and carefully unloading the round from the chamber so that it fell on to the bench.

Careful and close inspection of the case showed no marks of any description from the firing pin and only a slight mark from the extractor claw. A quick look in the breech/bolt area showed nothing obvious so, thinking it might be just ‘one of those things’, I loaded the round back into the mag whereupon it fired as it should.

Halfway through the next mag (10 round) the same thing happened. Another round with no indentation. Then after 7 rounds from the next mag, it happened again.

I called it a day at that point and when I got home stripped the rifle expecting to find either a broken firing pin or a hidden piece of crud preventing a clean hit on the rim.

Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Everything’s clean and seems to be in perfect working order. I checked the firing pin carefully, compared it’s overall length with a spare and it’s only 0.1mm (0.003937”) shorter than the spare so I can’t see that being the cause of the problem.

Has anybody experienced this before or have any suggestions on possible causes? Anything would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Iain

Assure the staggering of each round in the magazine. This is critical to complete cycling of all 25 of them. This is also easy to get wrong; even when applying seemingly due care. There was a thread a few days ago about proper technique. There always is. That is proof of the commoness of this issue.

If this is a different brand of ammo than you have used previously that could be the culprit.

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Bob P.

I agree with sigmundsour about checking the staggering.

Bugger

Didn't think about that ....... and I was reading exactly the same thread thinking 'what a simple mistake to make'

Thinking about it now, hindsight being the wonderful thing that it is, prior to this happening, all my mags were filled with a Mcfadden speed loader (brilliant bit of kit). This time I'd filled them by hand...............oops!!!

Mr Sigmundsour & Mr Coachray, I prostrate myself at the feet of your great wisdom

Thanks guys. I'll be back at the range at the end of the week so I'll let you know if the problem returns.

Iain

From the description I would've had my money on a broken firing pin!

I regularly hand load one of my mags (well, i have two clipped together and because the right one needs to be set about 1" lower than the left one to let the brass clear you can't use the McFadden loader on it) and i've never had the problems that are regularly described on here. I don't load it any different to any other .22 mag i've ever loaded either??

Anyway, hopefully that will sort it!

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D V C

Please explain how "improper staggering" would cause a fail to fire on a round that was properly chambered? Also, IMO this 15-22 staggering issue is nonsense, my 11 year old daughter loads her own mags without any assistance or instruction in "staggering" and has never had a FTF or chambering problem as IMO the only real issue in the slight offset of the case rim is whether you can get 24 or 25 rounds in the mag.

Seems that you have it all figured out. Thanks for sharing.