Very Disappointed **First Range Session**

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RAMMAN2002

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Hello All, I bought a new S&W M&P 15-22 Rifle this weekend at the local gun show. I took it out today to my local club for some fun. I have been very excited to shot this gun and was like a kid on christmas morning when I got to shoot it today. We'll I loaded up the magazine with some Winchester M22 40 Grain ammo. I run this ammo in my remington .22 fine with no issues. So I was shooting the gun and at round 15 I hear this big pop. The rim of the shell came off the casing of the brass. So I feild strip the gun and get the casing out the chamber. I got to cycle another bround and it wont go in. So i feild strip the gun agian and hold it up to the light. It looks like something is stuck in there. I can see some light coming through. What the heck happened here? Will S&W cover this under warranty? Guy at the range said it could have been a defective barrel. I took it home and tried to knock it out with the cleaning rod. The object didn't bidge at all. I was very very excited to shoot this gun but now it's kind of a bummer. I own a nice s&w sheild 9mm and have no problems out of it. Just hoping S&W will have my back as I hate to put more money in a gun I just got. Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.
 
That is a real bummer for a first time shooting, I will say. Sounds like a squib or bad round. Best to give S&W a call. I'm sure you'll have to send the gun in, but they're pretty good about getting them back to you quickly.
 
after knocking the squib out.....throw that ammo out!
 
Sorry to hear about your issues. Be assured that you have a lemon. A vast majority of 15-22 owners do not encounter any issues. Mine has been very dependable. I have over 8,000+ rounds through my 15-22 and I would buy a 2nd one if I had the money. I hope S&W takes care of your problem real fast. Be glad that you didn't get hurt, someone up high was watching over you.

Sent from my Kindle Fire
 
I would actually doubt it was the ammo per say. Definitely an OOB. All rimfire semi autos are blowback action firearms. That means among other things the action becomes live (trigger is reset and ready to fire) while the bolt is still a finite amount of distance above the breech (fractions of inches or millimeters). This was an issue in the early 15-22s that S&W fully addressed with an upgrade in the springs. Have not seen any since myself. But it can happen on any of them. Have had 4 happen on my Rem 597. None on my 15-22s. If the trigger is pulled at that time the round will fire and if the case it not fully inserted into the chanber the case will blow out at the unsupported section. If enough gas is diverted it will not put enough energy into the bullet to get it fully down the barrel. Also in a rare case you can get a slam-fire. This is where the bolt hits the round it is chambering hard enough to cause the firing pin to hit the rim enough to set the primer off. Fairly rare in .22LR guns but not unheard off. Any kind of solid crud in the chamber could also cause an issue.
Personally I would not send it back as unless it is an NOS gun that did not get the OOB fix and they could tell you that from the serial number. Otherwise poke the bullet out, clean the barrel and chamber, and shoot it some more. One thing those of us who are competition shooters do, regardless of the firearm, is if we hear something that does not sound right when we fire the gun, we immediately stop. 2 of my 597 OOBs happened in major competition, one of which left a bullet in the bore. I just went to a work table, poked the bullet out, inspected the bore with a light, then went back into the match.
As for the ammo both Win M22 and CCI Tactical are the 2 types I use in my 15-22s, one of which likely has a much as 20k rounds in it since July of 2011. An OOB won't damage anything as long as it does not blow the extractor out of the bolt (early OOB issues often did that). If in doubt buy a boresanke at WM and run it through the barrel to clean it. I rarely use anything else in the bore of my rimfires these day.
What ever you do please have the serial number checked and look and see if the spring on top of the bolt is blue colored (the correct color). Everything else is up to you.
The guy that said "defective barrel" is full of it. Probably said the first thing that came into his mind. Do not pay any attention to him whatsoever.
 
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S&W Customer Support are about the best you can find. I recently sent back a used 15-22 for repairs and while I was expecting to pay for it I had the weapon back in just under 2 weeks with zero cost.
 
photoracer said:
I would actually doubt it was the ammo per say. Definitely an OOB. All rimfire semi autos are blowback action firearms. That means among other things the action becomes live (trigger is reset and ready to fire) while the bolt is still a finite amount of distance above the breech (fractions of inches or millimeters). This was an issue in the early 15-22s that S&W fully addressed with an upgrade in the springs. Have not seen any since myself. But it can happen on any of them. Have had 4 happen on my Rem 597. None on my 15-22s. If the trigger is pulled at that time the round will fire and if the case it not fully inserted into the chanber the case will blow out at the unsupported section. If enough gas is diverted it will not put enough energy into the bullet to get it fully down the barrel. Also in a rare case you can get a slam-fire. This is where the bolt hits the round it is chambering hard enough to cause the firing pin to hit the rim enough to set the primer off. Fairly rare in .22LR guns but not unheard off. Any kind of solid crud in the chamber could also cause an issue.
Personally I would not send it back as unless it is an NOS gun that did not get the OOB fix and they could tell you that from the serial number. Otherwise poke the bullet out, clean the barrel and chamber, and shoot it some more. One thing those of us who are competition shooters do, regardless of the firearm, is if we hear something that does not sound right when we fire the gun, we immediately stop. 2 of my 597 OOBs happened in major competition, one of which left a bullet in the bore. I just went to a work table, poked the bullet out, inspected the bore with a light, then went back into the match.
As for the ammo both Win M22 and CCI Tactical are the 2 types I use in my 15-22s, one of which likely has a much as 20k rounds in it since July of 2011. An OOB won't damage anything as long as it does not blow the extractor out of the bolt (early OOB issues often did that). If in doubt buy a boresanke at WM and run it through the barrel to clean it. I rarely use anything else in the bore of my rimfires these day.
What ever you do please have the serial number checked and look and see if the spring on top of the bolt is blue colored (the correct color). Everything else is up to you.
The guy that said "defective barrel" is full of it. Probably said the first thing that came into his mind. Do not pay any attention to him whatsoever.
Click to expand...

LR 22 ammo is not the highest quality ammo, the two OOB's I have had was with the Winchester 555 white box and I do have the newer spring other then that I agree with photo on the rest of his post :D
 
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Like stated, take a wooden dowel rod and drive it out. Go from the muzzle backward. Likely have a projectile or part of the brass stuck. No use sending it back to S&W for that. Try some different ammo and see what happens. I use CCI 40 gr pretty much for everything. Good luck and keep us posted.
 
****Update****

I called S&W and spoke with a nice woman. She informed me it sounded like a squib load. They will be sending me and shipping label to my email in the next 48 hours. She stated they would try to remove the obstruction. It should take 2-3 weeks. I really wanted to take it hunting this weekend for my brother birthday. When I get home I will try to pund it out some more. Would a drill work at all? I'm just getting upset and want my gun back to working order. But I don't want to screw up the rifling either.
 
****Update Agian****

Winchester just called me back and wants me to send in the box of ammo for testing. Should I send the whole box of ammo back?
 
Would a drill work at all? I'm just getting upset and want my gun back to working order. But I don't want to screw up the rifling either.
Click to expand...

STEP AWAY FROM THE DRILL. No need for drastic measures. You should be able to dislodge the obstruction yourself with something relatively soft (like the dowel rod mentioned earlier) inserted from the muzzle end of the barrel. Tap the rod with a hammer and you should be able to drive out the obstruction. Just be careful not to damage the ejector when the obstruction finally does come out.

I think if I were given a 2-3 week timeframe for removing the squib and did not want to do this myself, there has to be a gunsmith or someone close by that would take a look at it for you.
 
RAMMAN2002 said:
Winchester just called me back and wants me to send in the box of ammo for testing. Should I send the whole box of ammo back?
Click to expand...

Well, they said to send the box of ammo back. Sounds to me like they want the whole box - including all the ammo. :)
 
Take a metal cleaning rod and not a wooden dowel to hammer out the obstruction. A wooden dowel can splinter and clog things up further.

Send the box of ammo back to Winchester, if they test it and determine that that lot is not up to snuff they can send out a notice. They more than likely will offer to send you equal or more than you sent in.

Just for giggles, what is the first three letters of your serial number? that will help us figure out if it needs the new springs.
 
FINAL UPDATE

Came home from work day before yesterday and the whole issue was eating away at me. I took the brass rod and put the barrell in the vise wrapping it with leather. I pounded the clog out of the barrel. It unded up being lead that was stuck in the barrel. Due to the only round I put down the barrel was M22 ammo I'm thinking the ammo is faulty. I was able to get the big majority of it out but there was still some stuck. I took it to my local gunsmith and after 3 hours he was able to get the barrel free of obstructins. He also said in his 15 years of gunsmithing he never seen anything like this before. He also stating the rifleing is in good shape. I took the gun out to the gun and put 200 round of CCI MINI MAG down the barrel with no issues and no cloging. So leason learned never use M22 ammo.
 
RAMMAN2002 said:
So leason learned never use M22 ammo.
Click to expand...

I am happy you got things fixed, but your statement is an invalid assumption. You have a problem with ONE round, and therefore you condemn a whole brand of ammo?

This kind of defective round can happen with any brand of ammo, even top of the line CCI.
 
The gunsmith with mutiple years of seeing rifles under his belt stated "This is caused by low quality ammo". Since the only ammo this gun has ever ate is M22. My assumption has alot of merit.
 
RAMMAN2002 said:
The gunsmith with mutiple years of seeing rifles under his belt stated "This is caused by low quality ammo". Since the only ammo this gun has ever ate is M22. My assumption has alot of merit.
Click to expand...

Your gunsmith is full of it! There's nothing "low quality" about the ammo. It's just as good as Federal and CCI. This kind of squib can happen with any brand. In reality, there's not really any "low quality" ammo from any of the major American manufacturers; the competition is simply too fierce to produce deliberately low quality ammo. It won't stay on the market long. .22s are the most finicky firearms around, especially semi-auto rifles. Some will eat anything and some will only run well on one of two brands. Some won't run worth beans with some particular brand. You have to put a few thousand rounds through a firearm to find out what it likes best.

If you don't like M22, that's fine, just don't fall into the trap of condemning ammo on the basis of ONE incident and what some gunsmith says. I've yet to meet one that didn't have his own prejudices. :)
 
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I'm curious to know what made the lead stick.

I've had a couple of squibs in different calibers and you can get them out easy enough with a brass rod and a swift whack with a hammer.

KBK
 
Kayback said:
I'm curious to know what made the lead stick.

I've had a couple of squibs in different calibers and you can get them out easy enough with a brass rod and a swift whack with a hammer.

KBK
Click to expand...

I had the same thought, but decided not to make an issue of it. I've never seen a .22 bullet come apart in a barrel. Makes one wonder ... :)
 
Lets not even start talking about swaging (sp?) the barrel to get the proper ID for a custom load :p
 
Kayback said:
Lets not even start talking about swaging (sp?) the barrel to get the proper ID for a custom load :p
Click to expand...

That's slugging the barrel ...

Yea, I've done that a couple of times. I was never sure it was worth the effort for anything but bench rest bullseye. It sure wasn't for what I was doing. :(

I feel the same way about lapping a barrel. :)
 
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