10/22 Fte

Garys

Garys

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Taking advantage of the nice weather today I decided to do some shooting. I took my SS Ruger 10/22 and a box of American Eagle .22 ammo. The first 50 rounds fired okay. After that, I experienced several failures to extract. For back of a better description, the empty cases stove piped. In some cases the new rounds fed properly, although the bolt didn't close all the way. When I cleared the stove pipe, the rifle fired okay.

I also had one case where the round fed into the chamber, but didn't fire. It also stuck in the chamber and had to be extracted manually.

I checked the extractor and it looked okay. When I got home, I stripped the rifle down and cleaned it thoroughly. Again, everything seemed okay.

Anyone have a experience with this sort of thing with the 10/22? Is it possibly the ammo?

Thanks,

Gary
 
How old is the rifle?

I'd bring a variety of ammo with you next time. Almost all .22 LR autos
are finicky, wether theyre rifles or pistols. See what works best and
stick with it.

My Buddy's 10/22 seems to eat just about anything though... although it
would choke on some of the weak federal 22s from walmart. It seemed to
like rem golden bullet (bulk stuff) and cci mini mags.

-Mike
 
I don't think it's that old. I bought it used, but it's in pristine condition. I have a different brand of .22, although I can't remember what, that I'll try next time.
If it's just a matter of ammo, that's not a problem. I'll just try different brands until I get something that the rifle likes. As long as it's not a problem with the rifle, I'm happy.

Gary
 
Could be a number of things, ammo, extractor, dirty chamber (22lr residue leaves some pretty hard to clean crud behind, especially on the bolt), etc.
This book that I posted a link to in another thread: http://www.booktrails.com/Guns_Rifles/Ultimate Ruger 1022.asp
gives you by far the best understanding of a 10/22 rifle. Everything is covered in it, even topics to improve reliability like polishing the bolt and reshaping/lightening it for sub sonic ammo.
 
+1 on the try different ammo

I have 2 10/22s. one is a 1982 model. the spring on that one is so worn that it does not stove pipe. The other was purchased new in 2004. The new one will stove pipe on undercharged ammo. I had a box of bulk Winchester X from Wal-mart that would stove pipe regularly. got to be that I could tell when it fired that the shell had less of a pop and knew before looking that it had stove piped. The Remington Golden bullets work the best. A buddy who bought one the same day has similary problems.
 
Tweed said:
+1 on the try different ammo

I have 2 10/22s. one is a 1982 model. the spring on that one is so worn that it does not stove pipe. The other was purchased new in 2004. The new one will stove pipe on undercharged ammo.
Click to expand...

My old one was built in 1976 and it never ever jammed. I'm not sure of the build date on the newer one, but it sure is a tight weapon.

I had a box of bulk Winchester X from Wal-mart that would stove pipe regularly. got to be that I could tell when it fired that the shell had less of a pop and knew before looking that it had stove piped.
Click to expand...

I noticed the same thing. In fact, I noticed that even the rounds that ejected okay had different sounds and trajectories. Some were loud with solid ejection, others were not so loud and just sort of fell out of the rifle. And some just didn't.

As long as it's not a structural problem with the rifle, I'll work it out.

Gary
 
Milsurps 4 Me said:
Could be a number of things, ammo, extractor, dirty chamber (22lr residue leaves some pretty hard to clean crud behind, especially on the bolt), etc.
This book that I posted a link to in another thread:
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'll see what the combination of a good cleaning and different ammo do.
I'll look into getting the book, but I have other stuff on my list right now.

Gary
 
10/22's are renound for stovepipe problems until they are broken in (500+ rounds give or take). Another possible solution could be to clean and adjust the tension on the magazine spring. A VQ extractor made a huge improvement on the fte's on mine too.
When it comes to 10/22's rimfirecentral.com is the place to go for mods and trouble shooting. I'll post some links later.

http://www.rimfirecentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=123409
 
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I had a similar experience, after I installed an aftermarket bolt auto-release thingy. Turns out a spring had come loose in the trigger assembly someplace. I forget what it would be called, but it wasn't a helical spring, it was more like a piece of wire bent in a circle. If you have had the thing apart for cleaning, look carefully around the trigger group for a spring that is not seated anymore.
 
hminsky said:
I had a similar experience, after I installed an aftermarket bolt auto-release thingy. Turns out a spring had come loose in the trigger assembly someplace. I forget what it would be called, but it wasn't a helical spring, it was more like a piece of wire bent in a circle. If you have had the thing apart for cleaning, look carefully around the trigger group for a spring that is not seated anymore.
Click to expand...

I will do that, as I did some work on the rifle a while back. There is a spring that is circular in shape and has two "legs" that engage other parts in the trigger assembly. Is that the one you mean?

gary
 
I 've ressurected a couple of balky 10-22s by adding a couple more "clicks" of tension to the magazine spring.
A few well placed drops of lube can help sometimes. No semiauto likes to run dry.
If someone has been shooting cheap, dirty ammo, check the bolt face, chamber and magazine for accumulated crud. Don't forget to clean under the extractor and the extractor recess in the barrel and make sure that the extractor moves freely.
 
Garys said:
I will do that, as I did some work on the rifle a while back. There is a spring that is circular in shape and has two "legs" that engage other parts in the trigger assembly. Is that the one you mean?

gary
Click to expand...

Yes that is the one. It had slipped out of position, and I got tons of stovepipes.
 
Garys said:
I checked it, and it looks fine.

Gary
Click to expand...

Actually it wasn't so much that it had slipped as that I had put it back in wrong. But anyway, the symptom was similar to what you described, with the bolt not travelling properly on recoil.
 
hminsky said:
Actually it wasn't so much that it had slipped as that I had put it back in wrong. But anyway, the symptom was similar to what you described, with the bolt not travelling properly on recoil.
Click to expand...

Interestingly, the bolt seems to move just fine. The round is pulled from the chamber, but doesn't exit the ejection port completely. I'll try it again when I get a chance, but I think that dirt and no great ammo might be the culprits.

Gary
 
+1000 on the ammo

I have used the same brand, under the best conditions it will run just so so.

Just not enough bang for the buck!
 
I took the rifle out to the range again and tried a couple of different brands. First I ran some PMC Sidewinder through it with no ejection problems. I did have some loading problems with the ammo and a couple that failed to fire the first time. I then ran some American Eagle and had the same type of problems I first reported. So, ammunition does matter. Anyone have any recommendations for .22 ammo?

Also, the rifle was shooting high and I played with the sights a bit. I move the rear sight up, figuring that this would "push" the line of sight down, but it made it worse. I then dropped the rear sight down, and that made the rifle shoot lower. This seems a bit counter intuitive to me, but I think it more proves that I need to learn a lot more.

Gary
 
In our 10/22 we use CCI standard velocity, and
Federal standard velocity and it seems to work well.

We had bad luck with Winchester and Remington .22 stuff, the wax lube was too thick or something, and caused it to be hard to seat the cartridges sometimes.
 
For the low volume high quality I like the CCI MiniMags

For high volume low price I've had good luck with the Federal 550 round bricks from WallyWorld
 
Thanks, I'll try those out next. I think that the wax thing might be a factor with the PMC ammo.

Ooops, that timing thing. Thanks to both of you. I'll give both the CCI and the Federal stuff a try.

I should have re read this before buying ammo. Anyway, I bought two 500 round boxes of the Winchester White Box Winchester .22 today.

A friend and I went to the range and he brought his Browning Bull Mark along. We fired both the PCM and the Winchester. In the Ruger the Winchester is much better, but there were a few FTEs along the way. No feed failures in either the Browning or the Ruger with it. The PMC was a different story. It seemed that every other round FTF in the Browing. Whatever they use for a lube caused the rounds to hang in the magazine and the weapon cycled too fast. No problem with the Winchester ammo at all.

The Winchester ammo will be okay for the Ruger if I can figure out why 1 in about 50 rounds won't eject all that way. I plan to strip and clean the rifle with special attention to the extractor.

Gary
 
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