22LR Bullet a Wee Bit Too long

[Craig_AR]

Brother and I were at the range last week with a selection of favorite guns. He brought a 550 count brick of Winchester JHP (bought at Academy), and I had a similar 550 count brick of Federal JHP from WalMart. His High Standard Supermatic Citation kept jamming with the Winchester, while my S&W Model 41 was smoothly going through my Federal. We swapped ammo, and discovered that the Winchester also locked up the Model 41, while the Federal worked just fine in the Citation.

Close inspection and comparison of the two brands showed that the Winchester bullets were almost imperceptibly longer than the Federal. That length difference was the cause of the lockups in both semi-auto handguns. Further testing showed that the longer Winchester rounds were just fine in a Heritage Rough Rider revolver, as well as in both the 10-round and 25-round magazines in a 10/22.

So, rather than discard over 400 rounds of Winchester 22LR, I'm just reserving for the Rough Rider and 10/22.

Has anyone else run into this problem with Winchester or any other brand of rim-fire rounds?
Is it possible our 550 brick was just form a slightly out-of-spec run at Winchester?

 

[MarshallDodge]

No problems here.

 

[Jack B.]

See if the bullets wiggle a little bit in the Winchester cases. I have some Remington golden bullets that do and they jam in my 10/22.They work fine in revolvers but not so well in a semi- auto. I also have Federals and they don't wiggle around in their case and they fed just fine in semi-auto's.

 

[patmccoy]

Both your pistols are target pistols. There are about 25 different chamber designs, and some "match" chambers are shorter. You might find out the specs for your chambers, and the specs for that ammo. Google .22 chambers and you should get a bunch of info on chamber specs.

 

[jeepnik]

.22's are notorious for being fickle about ammo. A third firearm may have fed the Winchester just fine but balked at the Federal. One thing you should do is find out what "your" .22 likes and when you find it buy as much of the same lot as possible.

 

[.308 Norma]

This is an extreme example, but I tried some of that Aguila, 60gr SSS (Sniper.SubSonic) ammo in my Kimber bolt. While they functioned fine, the bullets must have began tumbling shortly after they left the barrel. I couldn't hit a rabbit, standing still, no more than 25 feet from the muzzle. Normally with that rifle, using regular old Federal "Classic" 40gr bullets, I can put 5 shots on a nickel at 25 feet.

 

[22250Rem]

See if the bullets wiggle a little bit in the Winchester cases. I have some Remington golden bullets that do and they jam in my 10/22.They work fine in revolvers but not so well in a semi- auto. I also have Federals and they don't wiggle around in their case and they fed just fine in semi-auto's.

........... I've had ammo like that but was firing it in a CZ bolt gun. Worked O.K. in that but with insufficient tension on the bullet it could move slightly and affect the overall length getting cycled through a semi-auto. I probably wouldn't even try it in my 10/22. I'd bet that all the rounds in that lot number may have been like that.

 

[LoonWulf]

Brother and I were at the range last week with a selection of favorite guns. He brought a 550 count brick of Winchester JHP (bought at Academy), and I had a similar 550 count brick of Federal JHP from WalMart. His High Standard Supermatic Citation kept jamming with the Winchester, while my S&W Model 41 was smoothly going through my Federal. We swapped ammo, and discovered that the Winchester also locked up the Model 41, while the Federal worked just fine in the Citation.

Close inspection and comparison of the two brands showed that the Winchester bullets were almost imperceptibly longer than the Federal. That length difference was the cause of the lockups in both semi-auto handguns. Further testing showed that the longer Winchester rounds were just fine in a Heritage Rough Rider revolver, as well as in both the 10-round and 25-round magazines in a 10/22.

So, rather than discard over 400 rounds of Winchester 22LR, I'm just reserving for the Rough Rider and 10/22.

Has anyone else run into this problem with Winchester or any other brand of rim-fire rounds?
Is it possible our 550 brick was just form a slightly out-of-spec run at Winchester?

I hate most bulk .22s
Winchester, Jams or missfires.
Federal bulk, jams
Remington bulk, jams and missfires
Only decent bulk ammo I've used is cci blazer.

The .22s I've used them in are
Marlin model 60 (2)
Remember 597
Browning buckmark
Nylon 66
Mossberg 802
10/22

Now I buy bricks of aguila, wolf, federal (above bargin grade), or cci. I used to use alot of Remington standards, and green tag?

 

[troy fairweather]

i stick with CCI for reasons.

 

[mokin]

Interesting thread. I've noticed some ammunition is a lot more dirtier than others, which eventually causes stoppages, but nothing like what is described here. Evidently, my .22s aren't that picky.

 

[LoonWulf]

Interesting thread. I've noticed some ammunition is a lot more dirtier than others, which eventually causes stoppages, but nothing like what is described here. Evidently, my .22s aren't that picky.

A friend of mine has this dinky Mossberg Blaze and it digests everything besides minimags for some reason....now he get all my old bulk .22s
Some guns are just like that.
Oddly enough my least picky .22 was my well broken in 597, only thing that choked it reliably was Winchester xpert hollow points. It even fed and fired the federal crap that my bolt gun won't eat or set off reliably.

 

[22250Rem]

Let me echo what LoonWulf said about CCI Blazer..... It's currently, (and has been for years), my favorite bulk 22lr. In general use in a few different guns it pretty much works well no matter what gun it's in. Very consistent over a chronograph also.

 

[bearman49709]

A friend of mine has this dinky Mossberg Blaze and it digests everything besides minimags for some reason....now he get all my old bulk .22s
Some guns are just like that.
Oddly enough my least picky .22 was my well broken in 597, only thing that choked it reliably was Winchester xpert hollow points. It even fed and fired the federal crap that my bolt gun won't eat or set off reliably.

My 597 loves the xperts, over the years I've shot a least 10,000 of them. Go's back to find ammo your gun likes.

 

[Good Ol' Boy]

My only add to this conversation is most of my bulk .22 ammo tends to be "loose" as someone else stated. Meaning the bullets have some play in the casings.

That being said the .22's I own currently are one revolver, one bolt action rifle and one semi rifle. I've never had a problem with the bulk stuff feeding. I use the bulk ammo for plinking and squirrels. If I want accuracy I use my CCI stash. I haven't run across any loose bullets with CCI so far.

 

[Riomouse911]

I posted several days back about getting two types of .22 ammo, Remington Golden Bullet 40 gr solid and Aguila Interceptor 36 gr hp, that both seemed to have slightly oversized diameter bullets.

These jammed my Mk II on almost every shot and had to be stuffed into the chambers of a M-17 and a M-317....extraction of the fired cases from the revolver cylinders was effortless so the bullet seems to be the issue.

Other Aguila Suoer Extra, Blazer and Mag Tech 40 gr solid ammo I had on hand that day functioned fine.

As the earlier poster said, some .22 guns are really picky so it’s best to find one or two loads it really likes and use them exclusively when it matters most.

Stay safe!