Grizzweed

Okay so heres sort of a range report of the SR22 I got on the 4th. Keep in mind this is my first pistol and I'm just starting to dive into the hobby.

Anyway, I picked it up at Gander Mtn for 320 bucks out the door and got a 525 pack of Remington hollow points (the guy knocked 70 bucks off the top which kind of makes you wonder why the sticker price was 369 to begin with.) The SR22 fired every Remmington flawlessly. I tore it down and cleaned it every 50 shots or so for the first few hundred and gave her a little oil every now and again. Toward the end of the box I started running her pretty dry and dirty and opted not to clean her up right away.

Which brings me to today. I stopped at Wallyworld and grabbed a 555 pack of Winchester, 550 pack of Federal, and a little box of subsonics (which sounded the exact same as the federal to my ear btw). I take it out back before dark and start putting some rounds through her. First up, I filled a mag alternating Federal and subsonics to see how they sounded, and even though I wasn't expecting much of a difference I was still disapointed. Well that mag shot flawlessly somehow! (you'll see why thats odd in a minute.) Next mag is filled with straight federal and failed to feed after each of the first 2 shots, the rest of the mag shot fine. Next bunch of mags do the same thing (tend to FTF during first couple shots of a mag). Tried the Winchester bulk out and it performed roughly the same way (about 15-20% failure rate) only at more random intervals.

The more I shot both the Federal and the Winchester the less frequent the failures became but it was still safe to assume that you would get a FTF in nearly every mag. It seemed like the gun may have just needed a little oil as it would occasionally studder while pushing the slide forward but the main issue was that after firing a shot the slide would spring back to position without grabbing a bullet from the mag. The gun never jammed or anything you just had to keep racking the slide every now and again. I still have no idea why the subsonic rounds shot so well though or how they were helping the federal rounds go through; they never missed a beat.

Anyway, I tore the gun down and gave her a very thorough cleaning, oiled her up really nice and It does feel so much smoother now (definently smoother than it was out of the box). Unfortunately its a little late now so we'll have to wait untill tomorrow to see if that solved anything but on a side note this gun is dead on accurate once you get the sights where you want em (I was pretty proud of myself for putting a hole in a 20 guage shell from 80 feet away. Lol)
-Grizz

Twoboxer

I think you've already found - as I did - that if you run the gun a little "wet" it will eat almost anything, even non-copper-coated rounds.

After cleaning and putting a light coat of oil all over the innards, I can run a few hundred rounds of CCI Blazers through it. After 300 or so, the pistol will start to FTL the second round of full mags.

I can run more copper-coated rounds through before seeing the problem (though I had problems with Winchester 333 early on, too) . . . depending on how much "dirt" they leave behind lol.

Clean and wet !!

Grizzweed

Boxer, if federals didn't cycle the gun while it was dry n dirty why/how do you suppose the subsonic rounds cycled it fine? And I couldnt believe that loading a subsonic round after every federal/winchester one in the mag would make the whole mag shoot fine....beats me.

rimshaker

I've learned that the muzzle energy spec (not velocity) is of utmost most importance to .22 pistols such as ours that rely on blowback to fully cycle the slide.

That's why stingers and velocitors run flawless, but they're too costly. I mostly use the federal 525 blue box and have had the same FTF issues as described, but not so bad at times.

The new winchester M22 1000rd box runs perfect for me so far and not that expensive either. Muzzle energy is rated at 140 lbs/ft which seems to be the sweeet spot.

Grizzweed

Hmmm the Remingron subsonics have 93ft-lb of energy at the muzzle and the Federals have 125ft-lb.

geezerdave

This is weird! I bought ans SR22 about 3 weeks ago and so far have put about 1,300 rds. or more through - wet or dry MOST all of the ammo fed. I had problems right away with the Winchester 555. Almost every mag a FTF. Since then I shot w/o any problems the following:

Winchester X (red box) 40 grain, JHP, 1,300 FPS (FABULOUS)
Remington Thunderbolt
CCI Mini Mag HP 36 gr, JHP (had just a few FTF).
CCI Stingers HP, 32 gr, 1,640 FPS (THE BEST so far)

Yesterday I got my NEW ammo from an online store and took it to the range. I decided to shoot the Federal 36Grain 375 rd. per box HP. FIRST cartridge literally blew up in the chamber propelling the bullet downrange, but blowing the rim of the casing into the top of the ejection port and into my face. I did not get hurt - thanks to the glasses! After dropping the mag I noticed that the casing less the bullet and rim was jammed in the barrel. I immeadiately took the pistol to the gun store and the owner and I gently removed the casing. Upon inspection I noticed some damage to the face of the barrel at the feed ramp. I went back to the range and tried the Stingers again - SWEET! I did have a couple of FTF, but I found that the recoil spring was in backwards and that might have been the issue (While at the gun shop the owner put in back incorrectly). Easy to do if you did not read the manual.

I have called the seller and filed a complaint - I cannot take the chance of shooting these again. All in all, I do not want to see anyone getting hurt due to ammo issues.

Grizzweed

Update**
After cleaning the gun both the Winchester white and Federal red shot fine. FTF once or twice but thats a far cry from the way it was shooting dirty. However, I'm a little concerned about the wear on the slide. I assume that it's from the hammer scraping it. Heres a picture... Is this normal?

gmsoapy

Grizzweed
The picture didn't come thru. Were is the wear? Some people are getting wear on bottom of the slide on the mag stop side. This is usllay caused by the back end of the slide having a sharp edge which most people have been gently sanding a little smoother. Hope this helps PS welcome to the forum as you can see people here are always trying to help one another. Also I run Federal Red box Walmart thru both my SR22's and my 3 MKIII's with no problems at all. There is no diff between the Red box ar the Blue loads 745 & 750 other than the packing. That's right from Federal tec support. Red box Walmart, Blue box sporting goods stores.

Grizzweed

Can you see it now?