22 LR Case Splitting

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Olon

Olon

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Bear with me as I don't have any pictures at the moment. I'll upload them as soon as possible.

Today the weather was really nice so my gf and I went out to do a little plinking. She brought a Marlin model 60, which has previously only seen CCI mini mags but today we had some Remington "Golden Bullet" ammo. I assumed by the packaging and price it was one of Remington's more "premium" .22LR loads.

Well, she was shooting it and everything was going good until I heard one shot which sounded like a squib. Noticeably more quiet than the rest. I had her stop and I cleared the gun. Shined a light through the muzzle and saw it at the breech. Not a squib. We continued shooting and I noticed an unusual amount of smoke coming from the receiver, and then one FTE. I pried it out with my knife and noticed that the case was split almost all the way to the rim. We stopped shooting that ammo.

There was no apparent damage to the gun but I'm left with the question: is this anything you folks have noticed with this ammo? With the consistency issues noted earlier it wouldn't surprise me if the QC was bad enough that we were getting a significant enough spread in the charges that some were overloaded.

Even with this garbage ammo, she was ringing an 8" plate at well over 200 yards with irons on a windy day, so hats off to her lol.

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I experienced a 10% failure to fire rate from one carton of Golden Bullets, while a second carton of same worked 100%. I have heard others complain about this ammo too. Seems that the Golden Bullet 500 packs are a crap shoot so to speak. I'll never buy any more of that stuff!
 
I'm not a gunsmith but that sorta looks like maybe a damaged chamber could cause that. How much other ammo have you put through it since then?
 
The Golden bullet goes back decades. Could not begin to guess how many my family has put thru various rifles and hand guns. No problems I recall.
In the past decade or so however, quality control has given way to “meet the demand” production.

Either that particular batch is faulty or the rifles chamber is oversized or non concentric.
 
bearcreek said:
I'm not a gunsmith but that sorta looks like maybe a damaged chamber could cause that. How much other ammo have you put through it since then?
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We stopped shooting the gun at that point. Visually, the chamber looks fine but I'm not a gunsmith either. It hasn't done this with any other ammo which is what I find odd. I contacted Remington and I'll send the rest of the box to their ammo plant so they can look at it. I'm hoping it's not the gun; that one has been 100% since day one and she's only put about 500-600 rounds through it.
 
total recoil said:
I experienced a 10% failure to fire rate from one carton of Golden Bullets, while a second carton of same worked 100%. I have heard others complain about this ammo too. Seems that the Golden Bullet 500 packs are a crap shoot so to speak. I'll never buy any more of that stuff!
Click to expand...

Me neither! I get that rimfire is inherently less reliable than centerfire but like I said when you pay 7.99 for 100 rounds you expect at least decent quality lol. Call me a sucker. I'm going back to the mini mags for this gun.
 
Olon said:
7.99 for 100 rounds you expect at least decent quality
Click to expand...

At $0.08/round you would think, except that a GB is a GB, whether it is packaged in a bucket, box, or plastic tray.

It's ironic that I just dealt with this issue this past weekend. I've got a finicky practice slide for a handgun that doesn't cycle the cheapest bulk ammo well. With GB's, Win Xpert, or Federal Bulk pack, I get 1-2 problems per magazine. Bump up to something with just a little higher quality, like CCI SV/MM/AR tactical, Federal Automatch / 510, Blazer, or even "Federal" bulk with a CCI lot number - and those problems reduce to one in every 4 or 5 magazines.

Any of these can still have light charges. All of them, even the blessed CCI in the plastic boxes with full color graphics of your favorite shooting sports celebrity, are still "bulk" ammo. The chronograph and testing in a capable rifle easily reveals that. For everyday plinkers, "no one ever got fired for choosing IBM." And the same principle applies here.
 
Olon - if you have a gunsmith that you know and trust, I believe it advisable to show him that split brass, tell him about the "smoke" from the receiver, and ask them to do a close exam of the chamber. Under magnification, they might just find a small burn area that causes the chamber to be microscopically mis-shapen. If there is an area with slightly more wear, this could leave the side of the brass unsupported which would then expand too much, split down its side, and jam in the chamber, causing the FTE.
 
Some years ago I purchased a bulk pack of GB and had a 40% or so failure tate. Would not fire with multiple firing pin hits in different areas. Some squibs or split cases. None of the other ammo brands even had a one in 200 failure rate in any of my .22 that the GB failed in. Haven't purchased any since. But I have been watching you all as beta testers to avoid hassels and see if things are better. Hopefully you just got a bad batch. Things are better with ammo purchased in the last year or so from what I read on the net---- but still. YMMV
 
Were they split along the length or at the base of the case?
Could be the difference between a bad chamber or bad headspace.
I know you said a Marlin 60, but as a side note, shooting a .22lr through a magnum chamber will split cases alot :D
 
I think that case is just a split case. Not always is there something dubious to look for, especially when the ammunition is Golden Bullet.
I bought a bucket's worth of malfunction clearance practice myself, so don't feel bad. Unless you paid a lot for it. I routinely see these buckets for a hundred or more. I overpaid when I got mine for fourty bucks...

A thousand rounds of Armscor is thirty dollars at the same place. I laugh as I pass the Remington rimfire display. But I do buy Remington centerfire ammunition. Thankfully they are two separate beasts.

I would not, and did not, shoot that through another gun however.
It's not like it just isn't accurate, it's bad ammunition. Cases splitting are bad. Cases splitting in an expensive pistol's chamber is very bad. Even the lowly Double Deuce.

I still have an unopened five hundred round pack and the remainder of the bucket.
I keep saying I'll find a rimfire clunker to run them through, but every one I find ends up to be such a good shooter I won't chance it.

film495 said:
some guns just don't like some ammo. shoot it in another gun
Click to expand...

Now where's your diatribe about doing dangerous things against book rules?:D
It is standard operating procedure to stop using bad ammunition, not just use it in another firearm.

But yeah, it's just twenty two. And if I paid that much for it I would try to use it up too!:)
 
I swear that those cardboard bulk "value packs" sold for cheap are the way to sell assembly line culls/ mistakes that are inevitable with .22 ammo. Much cheaper than taking them apart. Just throw some good and bad in the same box then sell for cheap. Wide velocity swings and poorly primed rimfire are not safety issues as long as the bullet leaves the barrel and there are no proof loads. Just my thoughts.
 
If I was packing boxes like that, I wouldn’t put any good ones in at all.
Which mirrors my experience with "Thundercrap”.;)

Strange that their centerfire ammunition is well revered. I like it for the few things I don’t handload for, and have never been displeased. This does not seem to carry over to the rimfire line.:confused:
 
I migrated away from remington .22 bullets40 years ago. Even back then they were not as reliable and very dirty. Today I prefer Federal or CCI. Winchester 3rd place. For accuracy I go Wolf match target for reasonable priced .22. for real match ammo you must spend a lot more money.

The panic that began in 2008 screwed up all of the mfg's and quality went downhill. You can find it on the shelf now at somewhat sane prices, but I haven't bought enough to tell if quality is back to pre 2008 standards.

For centerfire, as I was learning to shoot I couldn't get Remington ammo to shoot well, which was lowering my confidence. Bought some Federals, found out the problem wasn't me. Now the core lockt bullet is a fine deer bullet, if it will shoot in your rifle.
Today I shoot Hornady if factory, but mostly I reload for centerfire.
 
I rarely shoot .22 anymore. I used to shoot them between hot larger caliber loads to give my hands a rest. That was up to about 2012 when the first real shortages started, I was able to buy several boxes of 500 of the Rem Gold and have never purchased such junk in my life. FTFs were numerous and it wasn't just one gun, its was with 3 different rifles and 4 pistols. Next time at the range I took the chrono and fired off several hundred, Velocities were mostly normal but there were at least 15% that were all over the place. QC must have been practically non existent!. I quit shooting 22s and pretty much only shoot my heavy calibers now. Smallest is 9mm up to 45 Colt with hot loads. I reload for all my calibers and they are extremely consistent.
Not sure the .22s will ever go out again. I can load hard cast 9mm for about the same as .22!
About ready to sell all the 22s off and just keep my M99 carbine. Pity really, I used to love plinking with a 22. now ??????
 
Olon said:
Bear with me as I don't have any pictures at the moment. I'll upload them as soon as possible.

Today the weather was really nice so my gf and I went out to do a little plinking. She brought a Marlin model 60, which has previously only seen CCI mini mags but today we had some Remington "Golden Bullet" ammo. I assumed by the packaging and price it was one of Remington's more "premium" .22LR loads.

Well, she was shooting it and everything was going good until I heard one shot which sounded like a squib. Noticeably more quiet than the rest. I had her stop and I cleared the gun. Shined a light through the muzzle and saw it at the breech. Not a squib. We continued shooting and I noticed an unusual amount of smoke coming from the receiver, and then one FTE. I pried it out with my knife and noticed that the case was split almost all the way to the rim. We stopped shooting that ammo.

There was no apparent damage to the gun but I'm left with the question: is this anything you folks have noticed with this ammo? With the consistency issues noted earlier it wouldn't surprise me if the QC was bad enough that we were getting a significant enough spread in the charges that some were overloaded.

Even with this garbage ammo, she was ringing an 8" plate at well over 200 yards with irons on a windy day, so hats off to her lol.

View attachment 892574
Click to expand...
That happens with my Ruger Single 6 when I forget to change out the mag cylinder, but with a 22 Lr rifle, it's got to be the ammo!
 
Had the same issue with 22 GOLDEN BULLET from Remington. This was during the ammo crunch during Obamas second term. Call Remington and find out when this ammo was made. If it is ammo crunch era ammo its crap.
 
rodinal220 said:
Had the same issue with 22 GOLDEN BULLET from Remington. This was during the ammo crunch during Obamas second term. Call Remington and find out when this ammo was made. If it is ammo crunch era ammo its crap.
Click to expand...

You could be right. I've shot some bad .22 ammo before. 10s of thousands of rounds of bottom shelf ammo through my savage bolt action growing up. Nothing has come close to the inconsistency of this box lol. Hopefully they give me a decked out model 700 and an apology letter ;)
 
The panic that began in 2008 screwed up all of the mfg's and quality went downhill
Click to expand...
Actually it seems to be that the quality has gone up a little along with the price.

I gave up on Golden Bullet bulk pack (too many duds and blown rims) and Thunderbolt (leading) well before then. During the panic I shot a few Golden Bullet 1400 round buckets when it was a "bargain" at $80 Much better than what made me give up on it, but still too many duds compared to Federal. So I don't buy it unless I'm desperate. Thunderbolt I don't buy at any price.
 
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