Hello - a few months ago I installed a volquartsen barrel on my 15-22. It really lightened up the gun, and improved groups at 25 - 50 yards (I don't shoot past that at home).

Recently, though, my gun was running into a lot of Fail-to-Fires. 5 to 7 rounds out of 10 would be FTFs with ammo that has historically shot well. If I loaded one bullet at a time and made sure the bolt slammed home, I would usually get ignition.

In an attempt to isolate the issue I changed out anything I could (1 thing at a time, of course) - magazines, trigger springs, trigger group, extractor, firing pin. None of that made any noticeable difference. the RA-SST140 trigger was a huge upgrade over the stock trigger, though.

The primer strikes seemed to be getting too far to the rim/outside of the case. The barrel nut was still snug.

I put everything back to stock minus the RA trigger and barrel. Still no luck.

Finally, today I decided to put the stock barrel back on. I got a few (like 2 or 3) light primer strikes/FTFs in the first 20 or so shots, and then shot about 75 more with no FTFs. All the same ammo. I ran out of daylight to further test.

I don't know what happened. As I look back, though, I'm not sure the gun ever shot as flawlessly with the VQ barrel in it, but it wasn't causing 50% FTFs from the get go.

So where the gun stands right now - The ONLY non-stock item on it is the RA trigger.

Has anyone else experienced something like this with their 15-22?

Did you check the firing pin and the firing pin channel? Make sure there's no debris holding the pin back from going all the way forward. Just a thought

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Sadly, yes. I checked all that. Cleaned it all out. Tried running wet and dry. I even changed out the firing pin with a TK firing pin. Ran wet and dry. No difference.

It's running great with the stock barrel back in. Which clearly points to something with the barrel and/or the built in ejector (not the extractor). As I think through it more, I suspect it's related to the ejector.

Not sure why an ejector would cause a failure-to-fire? Unless it was bent so far up it was rubbing on the bottom of the bolt enough to slow it down so that it wasn't chambering the round properly?

1/ Have you tried different/a variety of ammo?
2/ Have you reinstalled the VQ barrel to see if it was the way it was installed the first time that could be causing it?
3/ Check the barrel spacing with the 'barrel collar' (they are press fit and are separate pieces) between the standard and VQ barrels to see if there's a difference. Theres a video on here that shows a 3rd party tool set that has been made that allows you to remove the extractor from the barrel (but i can't for the life of me find it on Youtube!) which explains about the required gap between the collar part and barrel itself

EDIT Here you go:

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Thank you for the thoughts and the video.

I may at this point now put the VQ barrel back on as the gun is shooting well again.

Stay tuned...

Every time I've experienced an issue like that it was a broken firing pin. The first time S&W sent me a replacement pin and spring. The second time they were out of stock so I bought an aftermarket pin. The new firing pins fixed the issue every time. Mine is bone stock, though; not modified at all other than the now non factory titanium firing pin.

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Or something like that . . .

The barrel extension tool and the nut removal tool from H&W steel look really nice but I can't get an answer back from them on how much they are and where to get them, I can't find them for sale anywhere.

If the VQ barrel has a tight chamber, the rounds might not be seating fully. Try the plunk test with your preferred ammo. If it doesn't punk satisfactorily, thoroughly clean the chamber with solvent and a stiff brush to remove the dreaded carbon ring.
The firing pin could be at fault, they either break or get short around 10,000 rounds.
I am not familiar with your trigger, but I have seen many ftf's with aftermarket triggers. I personally run CMC 3.5# triggers in my 15-22's. No problems with them, a ftf's with the 2.5# units however.

Clean the chamber. Use a .243 bore brush on a piece of of cleaning rod spun in a variable speed drill motor. Use copious amounts of your favorite powder solvent and go in thru the upper receiver. Just run the brush into the chamber. Don't run it down into the rifling. You'll probably be surprised how much crud you get out.

I use Brownells' brushes that have brass cores, no steel, so you can't hurt anything.

The usual .22 bore brush isn't big enough to really clean the chamber, bore snakes are worse and crud slowly builds up.

I will give this a try before I even put the VQ back on. Thanks for the idea.