New 15-22 - Stove Piping

Picked up a new 15-22 sport the other day and it's stove piping. Gun appears to have been built within the last two weeks per the box. Does these have a break in period, do they need lubed excessively?

Cleaned and lubed it and took it to the range today.

First 100 - CCI Mini-Mags - Flawless

100 Aguila Super Extra - Multiple stove pipes per magazine

200 CCI Tactical AR - At-least one stove pipe per magazine

No misfires but the stove pipes are greatly annoying.

Besides the obvious, it likes CCI Mini Mags, it sounds like a velocity issue. This can be a break in thing, i.e. the gun needs to find it's happy place, or maybe the chamber is getting dirty, reducing the clearance between the fired case and chamber walls. I have that issue with the M&P 22. Works fine until I've fired a few rounds, then it gets dirty and starts with the failures. Running a .248 brush clears up the issue for a while.
The Aguila Super Extra is a HV round, but I don't run the stuff so can't comment on how dirty it might be. It is about 5 cents a round in bulk, so it might not be the top brand available! I'd say shoot another 4-500 rounds, clean thoroughly, clean and lube, and get back to us. Oh, and run CCI Mini Mags.

RV4driver said:

Besides the obvious, it likes CCI Mini Mags, it sounds like a velocity issue. [...]

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They're all fairly close in velocity and they're all the same weight:

CCI AR Tactical - 1,200 FPS
MiniMag - 1,235 FPS
Aguila SE - 1,255 FPS

I'm going to clean it well and try again as I'm sitting on 400 CCI AR Tactical rounds, hopefully they will run.

I did order a Volquartsen Exact Edge Extractor since it was a whole $13 shipped and I'd rather try that before it sits at S&W for a month.

There are a few things to take into consideration regarding stovepipes on your 15-22.

There is the dreaded spinning of the barrel in the upper caused by incorrectly removal of the flash hider, the barrel needs to be clamped and not the upper when performing any work on the barrel of the rifle. Tacticool 22 has all the necessary tools for work on the 15-22. Seeing as this is a new rifle I doubt that is your issue.

The first would be how you are loading the mags. I have never had an issue or find it particularly difficult but some on here have reported issues if the mags are not loaded in the correct fashion. The rounds should be staggered in the magazine, this can be achieved by pulling down on the load assist button and applying opposite pressure to each loaded round. If they are not staggered they can present issues. There are many threads about this in the forum you can research.

The second would be the position of the ejector, this very exposed part can cause issues if not in the correct position, there are youtube vids and threads on here describing the correct angle and position of the ejector. It is also highly recommended to place a drinking straw over the ejector when snaking or rodding as it can be easily snagged and moved out of position. This causes more problems than any issue with the extractor, I have the VQ and it does eject much more positively but I never had any issue with the factory extractor, I just like having a spare. According to things I have read on here, the rifle functions without an extractor...but the VQ is a good upgrade.

Thirdly....and most important to the daily running and reliability of the 15-22. DO NOT OVERLUBE the bolt. This rifle unlike a regular AR prefers to run almost dry. The only parts of the bolt that need any lube applied are the bolt guide rails, these being the only part that actually have anything to do with the movement of the bolt. Clean the bolt face but make sure you remove excess oil/lube and do not get any in the firing pin channel. Be careful when cleaning the bolt guide rails as they are probably easily bent if dropped, give them a light oiling, not dripping wet. They make a lovely tuning fork....ping .

Lastly, make sure your chamber face and feed ramp are free from any built up crud from the dirty 22 ammo. I used to clean after each use, but am running an experiment at the moment to see how long I can go without cleaning or oiling before I feel it may hamper performance, about 2000 rounds so far so good.

It is also my recommendation to get a tacticool 22 barrel nut wrench tool, this can help you make sure that the barrel nut on the 15-22 is tight, which can lead to accuracy deviations if it is not tightened correctly. It will also future proof your rifle should you want to swap out the handguard.

I hope this helps, these are things to consider before you ship your rifle back.

When testing my AR I found that "wet" ammo, mostly Eley, caused the stove piping. I believe it was letting the rims ride through the magazine lips rather than letting it be aimed at the chamber.

When I say wet, one of the tests had oily wax running down the magazine after dumping 25 rounds.

The Volquartsen extractor will fix it. Mine did the same thing. Funny that it doesn't have a better extractor from the factory. Haven't had one stovepipe since. And I'm talking thousands of rounds.

Installed the Volquartsen extractor and tweaked the ejector a hair (1/16" at best vertically towards the bolt, can't imagine it helped much).

Ran about 200 rounds as quick as I could get them out - no issues. The Aguila that I couldn't get to run last time, ran perfectly this trip.

Great news. Good job.

Ran an additional 250 rounds through this today, more Aguila and CCI Tactical, no issues at all - ejection is much stronger. Definitely recommend the extractor upgrade, mine was only $13 shipped from ebay.

Technical said:

Installed the Volquartsen extractor and tweaked the ejector a hair (1/16" at best vertically towards the bolt, can't imagine it helped much).

Ran about 200 rounds as quick as I could get them out - no issues. The Aguila that I couldn't get to run last time, ran perfectly this trip.

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In my opinion the adjustment of the ejector was far more important than the extractor.

Ricrock said:

In my opinion the adjustment of the ejector was far more important than the extractor.

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Could be but I doubt a subtle bend makes that much of a difference. The ejector is a bull**** design that's clearly going to get tweaked when cleaning, etc...

Technical said:

Could be but I doubt a subtle bend makes that much of a difference.

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You could have made one change at a time to see what did make your rifle eject properly. Ejector adjustment matters. It needs to be 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.

My 15-22s have been used for Rimfire Challenge for 4+ yrs now with the original extractors. I just shot Rimfire Challenge Worlds with zero malfunctions. Original extractors and ejectors adjusted yrs ago when I got the rifles that have been fine ever since.

I guess I was lucky for once because I don't know how many thousand rounds I have put through it and I can count on my fingers the number of FTEs I have had. A friend bought a 15-22 and first day at the range it would not fire five rounds without a stovepipe. I adjusted the ejector as tomcatt51 described and that was over a year ago still running great.
Dan

I put the Vol. ext. in and never adjusted it at all and the SP problem was completely eliminated. well worth $13.

Rifles from the last couple years should not need any adjustment on the ejector. I had the same issue until I replaced the extractor with the volquartsen.

I can also vouch for the VQ extractor. My new 15-22 had constant FTF and FTE issues with various ammo until I upgraded to the VQ extractor. I was going to send the rifle back to S&W but thought I would try the new extractor first. I'm glad I did.

Like your rifle, mine also performed well with CCI Mini Mags from the start,but not other ammo. As soon as I installed the VQ extractor it now shoots anything with virtually no issues.