M&P 15-22 Broke After 6 Rounds

I bought a 15-22 at Gander Mountain about a month ago. The gunsmith wanted to shoot it while I was filling out paperwork. He did shoot it, one cartridge at a time between jams. They tried different ammo. Still was a single shot. Tried a different magazine from the only other 15-22 that they had. Still jammed. They offered to send it back to S&W for me (I still had not left the store, but I had paid for it). Thankfully, the manager came over and refunded my money. I bought mine based off of the nearly 100% positive reviews that I read on this site. Maybe I just got a lemon. I also have a Ruger Charger 10-22 with about 10 of the 25 round mags, and it has been totally flawless thru about 5,000 rounds. I have three sons that I take shooting with me all the time. They love shooting the Ruger. I really was buying the 15-22 for them to shoot. I think I would buy another Ruger Charger before I risk my money again on another 15-22. Not bashing S&W because I have about 25 different semi-auto pistols and revolvers. Never a minutes trouble out of any of them.

While we were shooting the other day, all three boys wanted to shoot one of the S&W .357s. They took turns shooting it with some .38 special loads. My youngest is 8 years old and weighs about 48 pounds (tiny guy but he will whip the 10 and 12 year old when they mess with him). I had been shooting a Model 629 with full house .44 mag loads. He got pretty mad at me for not letting him shoot that gun. He thinks he is 6'4" and about 260 lbs. I am trying to find a S&W 460 XVR. My youngest will probably want to shoot it as well.
 
I think Smith and Wesson just produced a few lemons. I bought my 15-22 because a friend of mine had one and I loved his. His dad had one also, and neither one of them had any problems with them. I bought mine about a month ago and I have put 800+ rounds through it and it has jammed twice. I absolutely love my gun.
 
patrickm1587 said:
I think Smith and Wesson just produced a few lemons. I bought my 15-22 because a friend of mine had one and I loved his. His dad had one also, and neither one of them had any problems with them. I bought mine about a month ago and I have put 800+ rounds through it and it has jammed twice. I absolutely love my gun.
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Thats great to hear!!!, Love my 15-22 aswell,and i agree, i dont think there all lemons, just some here and there, theres a members brotherinlaw that has over 5300rds through his 15-22 without issue.
 
Cptslick said:
I fired mine for the first time today. It shoots pretty well though I had about five jams. The problem I am having is, it shoots low. I raised the sights as far as it will go and it still shoots low. The grouping is good. I shot 100 rounds.
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Don't raise the front sight, lower it. And put the rear down a few clicks so you have some adjustment available there. The top should be approximately even with the sight base top.
After reading this and other threads here and other forums, this sounds like a product rushed to market and the resulting teething problems. S&W is apparently able to easily fix the trouble, and sounds like the magazine glitches smooth out with use. I expect some of this on a first model of most anything, usually cars and electronics. I usually buy the second or third one hoping most everything is fixed by that point, but I was so taken with the 15-22 I bought the first one I saw on the shelf, at my favorite local gunshop. So far, I've had only 2 failures to feed with Federal Champions out of 2 different magazines, otherwise zero issues in 175 rounds out of 7 mags with the Federals, MiniMags and Blazers. Hopefully my luck will hold.
 
yeah, i just happened to see the 15-22 in a magazine, went to Academy, just to look really, and get there price, wasnt planning to buy. They let me hold it, and i had to have it!!!! 4 days later, back to s&w it went. But ive had it back for awhile now, got bout 400rds or so, i lost count..but its been loads of fun, and worth the wait to get it back from S&W.
 
Second Verse, Same as First

So after two weeks at the factory, I received my 15-22 back from S&W on Tuesday (with an extra mag). If you recall, the first time out it sheared the feed ramp off after 6 rounds.

Well, I took it to the range today with just about every .22 brand made (except Remington, since everything I've read says it doesn't like it). And so the moment of truth arrived. First clip, 2 FTF's. Second clip, 1 FTF, etc. Pretty much every clip had at least one failure to either fire or feed. This included, Federal, CCI and Winchester. And it was out of four different mags.

Then it really got interesting. Mags of Federal, and Winchester would not fire after the initial round. Second round feed properly, but would not fire. Mags of CCI were fine. Mix the Federal and Winchester in with CCI and they were fine. Fire an entire mag of CCI and you could fire an entire mag of Fed. or Rem. But after that, it was back to failure to fire for the Federal or Remington.

The last straw was an out of battery round (Federal I think). I guess it's back to S&W yet again! Man I wish I had never bought this gun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I'm really sorry to hear some of you guys having so many problems, especially with some of us having few or none. I wonder if there is anything involving the barrel not being aligned vertically being a factor in this, like slightly canted to one side? Anyone having trouble see anything like that? I think this would mainly effect feeding (misaligned feed ramp). Speaking of that, is the feed ramp glued on or welded or what?
 
Jester65 said:
So after two weeks at the factory, I received my 15-22 back from S&W on Tuesday (with an extra mag). If you recall, the first time out it sheared the feed ramp off after 6 rounds.

Well, I took it to the range today with just about every .22 brand made (except Remington, since everything I've read says it doesn't like it). And so the moment of truth arrived. First clip, 2 FTF's. Second clip, 1 FTF, etc. Pretty much every clip had at least one failure to either fire or feed. This included, Federal, CCI and Winchester. And it was out of four different mags.

Then it really got interesting. Mags of Federal, and Winchester would not fire after the initial round. Second round feed properly, but would not fire. Mags of CCI were fine. Mix the Federal and Winchester in with CCI and they were fine. Fire an entire mag of CCI and you could fire an entire mag of Fed. or Rem. But after that, it was back to failure to fire for the Federal or Remington.

The last straw was an out of battery round (Federal I think). I guess it's back to S&W yet again! Man I wish I had never bought this gun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Sorry to hear about your issues. I have known your frustration.

I am a little confused about the ammo you used. You said at first you didn't bring any Remington, then in a later paragraph you stated that you had failure to fire on both Federal and Remington.

I understand you expect the rifle to feed and fire any and all types of ammo. But in reality, .22s are known to like some types of ammo over others. If you read the posts over on ar15.com, you will find owners of .22s with conversion kits for their ARs and also owners of dedicated .22 uppers that have ammo problems. These are guns that cost as much as twice the price of the 15-22.

Since I got my gun back from S&W, it has fed and fired 300 rounds of Federal bulk with no issues. Since the gun likes that ammo, I will continue to use it. I know that other brands could possibly cause me problems. Yeah, I will no doubt tempt fate and try other brands, but will not be surprised if the rifle has some problems. We are dealing with ammo that costs less than .01 a piece to manufacture in some brands here. Quality control is difficult to maintain at 100% with high speed production.

.22s also are known to create a lot of dirt and gunk buildup, especially if you shoot your gun with a lot of lubrication. Dirt in the feeding area or magazines can cause problems.

Did your failure to fire incidents show a hard hit on the cartridge? If so it could be bad ammo. Or dirt in the firing pin area.

Did the out of battery incident break something? Out of battery is not uncommon in the .22 semi autos. I wear shooting glasses at the range as a precaution.
 
My bad for saying Remington later in the post. The brands I tried were the CCI MiniMags, Federal bulk and Winchester (both Wildcat and XPertHV).

And while I'm happy that you tried Federal and had 300 rounds fire perfectly, I fired 300 rounds and had over 30 malfunctions! I loaded full clips of each brand and ALL had malfunctions! Later, when neither Federal or Winchester would fire, the CCI's started to work better.

I realize .22s are not perfect and I'm willing to accept that. I do not expect every round to fire flawlessley. But I do expect that when I pay $500 for a gun, ANY gun, it will not have a 10-15% failure rate.

As for the out of battery incident, that was just the not-so-perfect end to the not-so-perfect day. I've shot .22s for a number of years and this was my first instance of this type. I'm glad that my 9-year-old daughter didn't have it happen to her (she's not keen on debris hitting her in the face). She would quit shooting!

At this point I just don't have confidence in the gun and that's why Academy is shipping it back Monday for the second time!
 
+1 on what Beck said.

.22lr ammo performance is all over the map. The ability of .22lr firearm actions to reliably function are typically limited to a select few. Even the flagship of .22lr pistols, S&W Model 41, chokes on more varieties of ammo than it reliably functions with (my personal experience only).

One area that may be causing problems is free movement of the bolt. The Colt/Umarex has a bolt speed adjustment (spring tension) to help compensate for variations in ammo performance. The S&W does not. All we can do is make sure the bolt assembly operates smoothly. My bolt assembly felt like is was riding on sandpaper rails when I squeezed it by hand. I sprayed it abundantley with cleaner and then applied very little Rem Oil with Teflon. As well, the tube needs to be free of debris. Mine was filthy after just a couple hundred rounds at the range. After wiping out the tube with a rag wraped around my finger (no lubricant afterwards), and a clean and very lightly lubricated bolt assembly, it was definitley smoother when pulling back the charging handle. There was a noticibly louder WHACK when letting the charging handle rip (my sonic scientific methodolgy to determine correct bolt speed and funcion).

In any event, I hope you can get things worked out to enjoy your rifle without having to send it back to S&W again.
 
I think everybody has covered all areas, but man...I bet you are PIST. And I'm not being sarcastic. I had probs w-a Kimber left and right, and I can't just go shoot in my backyard. In other words, it's not just the gun frustration, you also have to drive to the range, pay the bleepin fee, then get pist all over again. Good luck to you man, sorry to hear this.
 
Well I hate to hear about the problem's ya'll are having. But I'm having a blast with mine!! I've got over 1,000 rounds through mine and I have had 2 miss feeds :D I lovvvveee love love my gun. Try shooting some Centurion ammo through the gun if you can find any. That's all I have ever shot through mine.
 
patrickm1587 said:
Well I hate to hear about the problem's ya'll are having. But I'm having a blast with mine!! I've got over 1,000 rounds through mine and I have had 2 miss feeds :D I lovvvveee love love my gun. Try shooting some Centurion ammo through the gun if you can find any. That's all I have ever shot through mine.
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Thats great to hear!!! Having fun with mine too since i got it back from s&w. I pretty much lost count of how many rounds ive shot, but over 400 for sure.
 
Got mine back from S&W, put 500 rounds through it no problems. Received two free mags.
 
called on a friday they sent e-mail for free postage in a hour called fed ex they picked it up on monday got it back 10 days after.
 
It sounds like buying a M&P 15-22 is pretty much a toss up. Some people seem to get great ones that run like a top, while others can't get it to run through a single mag without something breaking. I spent more on each of my Spike's ST22 dedicated uppers than a complete Smith 15-22, but I've been very happy with their performance.

spikes-lilhunter1.jpg


spikes_sbr2.jpg
 
relic1522 said:
called on a friday they sent e-mail for free postage in a hour called fed ex they picked it up on monday got it back 10 days after.
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10 days makes it look like they got it, fixed it, and sent it back all in one day. Usually takes a week to go one way at the standard ground speed.
 
NordicG3K said:
It sounds like buying a M&P 15-22 is pretty much a toss up. Some people seem to get great ones that run like a top, while others can't get it to run through a single mag without something breaking.
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I don't think it's actual breakage as much as feeding issues. Some of it might be something off with a mag, some might be not loading the mag properly. The feed ramp taking off is sure breakage. As long as Smith is standing behind their product and making improvements, the 15-22 still sounds like a deal to me. Light, all the controls in the right place, and cheaper than a dedicated upper.
 
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GEE,
I just joined here...I bought a MP 15-22...Lots of jams....that seems to be the norm....whats up with a quality piece...SW should be ashamed!!!
 
yeah, but if you send it off, and get it back, you'll be so happpy, i only had mine 4 days before sending it back, 500rds or so since, and im a happy camper!!!
 
I haven't tried Remington since I don't have any. However, my 15-22 does not like Winchester Wildcats. So far, Blazer, Federal 550 Bulk, Federal Champion and Federal Automatch have all worked great. Over 500 rounds and counting.
 
32hibo said:
GEE,
I just joined here...I bought a MP 15-22...Lots of jams....that seems to be the norm....whats up with a quality piece...SW should be ashamed!!!
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Look at your ejector. It may need to be moved slightly to the center of the gun.
 
Awhile back I posted in a thread that I couldn't see buying one of these but would rather get a 10/22 and buy ammo with the money saved. Wasn't met with enthuisiam. Still think the same thing. FWIW
 
CAJUNLAWYER said:
Awhile back I posted in a thread that I couldn't see buying one of these but would rather get a 10/22 and buy ammo with the money saved. Wasn't met with enthuisiam. Still think the same thing. FWIW
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If that is the way you feel, then stay with the 10/22. No arm twisting from me.

The great thing about all the new .22s coming on the market is buyers have choices.
 
JonahStark said:
I haven't tried Remington since I don't have any. However, my 15-22 does not like Winchester Wildcats. So far, Blazer, Federal 550 Bulk, Federal Champion and Federal Automatch have all worked great. Over 500 rounds and counting.
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So far, my DSX3xxx example doesn't like goldens but will feed Wildcats like it does Federals and CCI.

27 Beck said:
Look at your ejector. It may need to be moved slightly to the center of the gun.
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I double checked my ejector and it appears it was bent that way from the factory. Might explain my low jam rate so far (6/600 rds)

CAJUNLAWYER said:
Awhile back I posted in a thread that I couldn't see buying one of these but would rather get a 10/22 and buy ammo with the money saved. Wasn't met with enthuisiam. Still think the same thing. FWIW
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Keep an eye on this. I haven't cleaned mine yet, kept oil away from the barrel end of the upper, and all's good so far. Things may change for the better with the others as they get a handle on function problems. I've got no regrets so far and wish I had the money to relieve a couple guys of their heartaches.:D
 
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