sr22 pistol becoming less reliable over time

Billy2

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All, I have a sr22 that I shoot the hell out of. Got to have close to 10k rounds through it. It use to eat bulk pack like rosie odonnel at a buffet but I am getting frequent failures to fire and chamber. Also getting fired shells stuck in the barrel that I have to knock out with a cleaning rod.

Should this be happening with this round count? It will still feed mini mags with out an issue and I know that's what ruger suggests. If I send it to them I dont think they will find any problems because thats the ammo they use.

I clean it regularly and I dont think it an issue with being dirty...

Should I just cut my loss and buy a new one?

Any parts I should replace to attempt to bring it back to 100 %

Thoughts, questions, insults... Let me have it.
 
I have the same exact issue with mine, will not shoot bulk stuff at all anymore that it use to eat up. Probably similar round count. Mne is most often failure to feed issues though. If I manually rack the slide it will feed.
 
Sounds like an extractor and/or extractor spring that's causing shells to get stuck. Firing pin may be worn causing light strikes. If you can get some good pictures of those, that might help. Worn recoil spring might be the reason it won't chamber.

Alternative: it's junk, send it to me for disposal.
 
Figure out which parts are worn out and replace them.

This, 10k ish rounds is a lot of shooting, shooting means heat, heat is the death of springs and metal.

Watch a youtube video on how to strip it to basic parts, replace the springs, mostly.
 
If you are having to knock cases out with a cleaning rod, I would be looking for a carbon ring or heavy lead fouling at the front of the chamber. I have a Savage MKII that likes to do this and I have seen it in a Ruger 10/22 with spectacularly bad ammo.

This might also be your failure to fire and chamber. If the ring is bad enough that the cartridges don't seat all the way, the bolt may not fully close and you get a failure to fire. The failure to chamber might be related to low slide movement if a whole lot more energy is going into extracting the case than it should.
 
Are those safe to dryfire? if cases are stuck could be a little peening of the chamber making it tight.
 
send it in.
My SR22 which I gave to wife and now will be my little ones soon has been pretty good using CCI and the Auto Match 325 packs all have been 99.9% reliable. I use a Galloway Stainless rod but doubt that did anything
 
My SR22 is pickyAF. One day it will blow through a Federal AM 325ct pack no issues at all. Next range session, I have 5+ failures per mag. Failures consist of extractions issues (including stuck cases) failures to feed, stove pipes and failures to fire. I already sent it back to Ruger once and they replaced the entire upper half. This was over 2k rounds ago. I just chalk it up to it being a ".22". Its picky. Admittedly I don't shoot the CCI stuff as its generally more expensive. I'm a bulk pack kinda guy and I totally get that some of these issues could be QC between bulk packs of ammo. One lot to the other gives you a different experience. YMMV but I still love the little gun, my son was 6 when he learned to shoot on it. I will never get rid of it.[grin]
 
Give it a really deep clean and treat it to some new springs and wear parts. 10k rounds is a lot today for rugers inexpensive manufactured parts.

It's a little sad that the new 22s are so picky.
I have 22s that are 50 years old and cycle shorts.
My oldest 22 semi pistol has 30k logged rounds from previous owner and still going strong.
Mags where rebuilt at 15k.
Also compare your 22lr ammo you have been using.
There are several bullet profiles and these different profiles cause fouling in the chamber and the bore. If you where shooting a cartridge with a shorter bullet profile then cram a longer profile bullet in there it hangs up on the fouling. This causes all sorts of fun stuff to happen.
Also the "fouling" in a 22lr chamber can be so hard and packed when you try to look in there to see if it's clean its packed and almost polished in appearance making it hard to "see"

Clean it as good as you can then have it cleaned in a ultrasonic cleaner
 
believe it or not, 10k rounds isn't too much out of a 22. it should live much longer than that! would definitely give the barrel a good scrubbing particularly around the chamber, but as you said if it's been properly cleaned shouldn't matter.

1) have you replaced the recoil spring? if not i would start there. it's a blowback gun so if the springs are weak it may unlock too early. with a browning action it's less relevant because the slide doesn't travel rearward until the bullet is out the barrel. but in blowback the spring is necessary to keep the breech locked up. the hammer spring also plays a role there, so might be worth swapping that out too.

2) the slide is aluminum with steel inserts. over time the pressure at such spots will eventually lead to wearing of the aluminum. the SR22 was designed very well from this perspective (checkout the notch on the slide where slide lock grabs; even that spot is steel reinforced). however they still wear out. i would look closely at the breech, which may not longer be lining up correctly with the barrel if it's been dislodged or pressed into the slide.

3) since these are blowback pistol design, the extractor doesn't "extract" the round. rather the pressure pushes back on the breech. the "extractor" just helps hold the case in place as it hits the ejector.

overall if your'e getting stuck cases and failures to fire, I would hypothesize the issue is at the breech itself and possibly the firing pin as well.
 
I've been having failure to feeds lately on my SR22, which is probably at about the same round count - where does one buy new guide rod springs? I can't find them anywhere online...
 
Yeah even if I spend 80 to replace all the internals its cheaper than a new gun. Thanks!
 
I've been having failure to feeds lately on my SR22, which is probably at about the same round count - where does one buy new guide rod springs? I can't find them anywhere online...

Yeah, I'm surprised that even Ruger doesn't sell parts. I checked Midway, Brownell's and a bunch of others with similar results. What the heck?
 
I also have an sr22 10K+ rounds same type of failures. I contacted Ruger and then sent me springs, firing pin, no cost, the sent me what ever I asked for. give them a call, they have great customer service.
 
I had some FTF and FTE’s yesterday after going through 500-600 rounds at the range. Finally discovered what the issue was during cleaning today. The ejector was bent. Super flimsy metal. Only used my fingers to bend it back in place. Eventually I’ll contact Ruger to see what they say. They really should use a hardened steel for the ejector.
 
It's most likely time for a rebuild. Firing pin, firing pin spring, recoil spring, extractor spring. A really good cleaning making sure the chamber is really clean . Inspect the extractor, replace if needed. Clean the extractor channel and the firing pin channel. Also have to check magazine springs.
 
Many .22LR firearm owners do an ok job cleaning their barrels but the real problem with dirt in .22s is the chamber. Especially after a lot of fast shooting, when the barrel is heated up, a ring of hardened carbon will form just ahead of the case mouth, in the chamber. As this ring grows, cases begin to stick on blowback causing FTE problems; they also will stick when chambering causing the round not to chamber fully resulting in a FTF.

The solution is to clean the chamber extremely well with a carbon-dissolving cleaner and a brush. I use a borescope to make sure mine is thoroughly cleaned.
 
All, I have a sr22 that I shoot the hell out of. Got to have close to 10k rounds through it. It use to eat bulk pack like rosie odonnel at a buffet but I am getting frequent failures to fire and chamber. Also getting fired shells stuck in the barrel that I have to knock out with a cleaning rod.

Should this be happening with this round count? It will still feed mini mags with out an issue and I know that's what ruger suggests. If I send it to them I dont think they will find any problems because thats the ammo they use.

I clean it regularly and I dont think it an issue with being dirty...

Should I just cut my loss and buy a new one?

Any parts I should replace to attempt to bring it back to 100 %

Thoughts, questions, insults... Let me have it.

I have an SR22 and that pistol did the same thing since new. I would get stuck shells and I would also take a cleaning rod when I went to the range to poke out the stuck shells. My solution was simple. I bought higher quality .22 and I rarely have any problems with it at all. I keep the cheap .22 for my Henry which doesn't seem to care at all if the ammo is cheap or expensive. Since I've switched to the higher quality ammo, I will occasionally get a stuck round but to be honest it's pretty rare. My SR22 seems to run fine with CCI or Aguila .22 interceptor.
 
I recently started having issues with my wife’s SR22 extracting rounds. I replaced the extractor spring and still no luck. I took a flat file and removed a small amount of material on the barrel where the extractor grabs the shell to give it a bit more clearance then I took a file and cleaned up the extractor it was a bit beat up. Now it works great. I believe most of the issues were with the extractor being worn and probably the quickest fix would just be to order a new extractor and spring if you don’t want to put the time into cleaning up the old parts.
 
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