Retmsgt.

Been thinkin about this since we talked about it last week in another post Snake. Back bafore the mid-80s duds and ftf were very rare. Now think, what happened to rimfire ammunition in the mid-80s? Everybody went to 'Eley-type' priming. Now, Eley priming, if done correctly is both more reliable and more uniform( I have never, in over 25 years of match-shooting and informal shooting, had a dud with Eley Tenex and I've shot thousands of rounds of it. Man, I'd like to have all that money back!). However, when applied to bargain ammo, they're not going to use the exacting care that this type of priming requires. Hence the high dud-rate. The only rimfire fodder that I know doesn't use Eley-priming is CCI( Stingers and Mini-Mags) and upper-end Winchester(T22 and such). both of which have a very low to non-existant dud-rate.

Not saying this is definitely the reason, but....

Steve M1911A1

Please educate me:
How does "Eley-type priming" differ from any other rimfire priming method?
Different formula? Different means of insertion into the case? What?

Retmsgt.

I'll try, don't know the formula but, it has to be uniformly spread across the entire casehead at a specific thickness. Eley had a patanted process and a special machine that insures this uniformity and thickness. Now, the Formula is now Public-Domain for one reason or another but, the devil is in the details. It's the exact process and settings on the machine that're thwarting American ammo makers. Even Eley's cheapest rimfire, Eley Practice , is dud-free. Although at about $6.00 for fifty rounds, it's not bargain-basement ammo. The priming process is why Eley Ammunition(Rimfire) costs so much. What they're calling Tenex(EPS, I think) now is almost $20.00 for fifty rounds. The priming system is also what gives it unparalleled accuracy. I have 5-1/2 Bricks of the older Eley Tenex I've been carefully husbanding for the last four years. I shoot about 100 rounds a year through my Supermatic, unless I have a Match to shoot in.

Joe Forte

Wow Sarge! You'll have that gun worn out in no time. (Te, he, he.)

Steve M1911A1

Thanks, Sarge!

Retmsgt.

Joe, at the prices it sells for now, who could afford to? Besides, I tried the new stuff already. I think the older stuff is more accurate in my Trophy.

Tom C.

I suspect another aspect of the dud rate is related to OSHA changing safety rules that then required changing from dry primer mixing to wet mixing of the primer explosive in rifle and pistol primers back in the ‘80s. Reliability went down. I suspect it also made its way into rimfire production.

Joe Forte

Sarge, I hear what you're saying. I've been very conservative on my ammo this year. You never know what the future holds in this sport nowadays.

HankB

Hmmm . . . I first tried T22s 'way back when they were introduced under the "Western" label, and they were very good. After using them for a couple of years, I bought a case, but these were Winchester brand.

Dud city.

I was getting several duds in every single box, no matter what gun I shot them in. Winchester replaced the ammo, but the new stuff still gave me about one dud in every six or eight boxes.

Haven't used it in years.

Charlie Petty

I put this in the wrong place before but just to clarify:

Eley priming is a two step process that is a pretty closely held secret as to the exact nature. To my knowledge it is used only in the UK and licensed to Aguilla in Mexico. It is not used by any US maker.

The first step is a dry mix that is supposedly inert until "activated" by a liquid second added as the second step.

I can't even begin to guess how many rounds of .22 I've fired since I started competitive shooting but misfires were exceptionally rare until I started shooting the Remington bulk ammo a few years ago. I think the issue is sensitivity but have no way to prove it.

Charlie Petty

I sent a batch of bad rounds back to Remington a couple of weeks ago and received a reply today.

"A primer assembly issue caused an insensitive primer mix to be inserted into the rim of the shells you returned."



Would it be too crass of me to say I told you so...

Al Thompson

Charlie, my experience agrees with yours. Prior to 2007 (spent 2008 overseas), I rarely had duds with even the cheapest .22LR. I still have a bunch in stock. After I returned home, picked up some bulk packs and it was snap, crackle and pop! The steel challenge shooters here (Columbia) report the same issues. Just picked up 4 boxes of CCI, so hopefully I'll see if the sickness has spread.

steve marshall

I've been shooting a fair amount of .22's lately and finally had a failure to fire with Thunderbolt. I don't remember when I bought it but it was from K-Mart and I bought many thousands. It came in a cardboard tube-type box with 375 rounds per can.
The only other duds that came to mind was Remington Target in the early 80's. That stuff was horrible. I started pulling the bullets and you could see where the voids were in the priming. An interesting, perhaps, sidenote. You could EASILY set of the priming compound by dragging a paperclip across it.

Ed Fowler

I believe it was 1956, Gambles store started selling 22 ammo called Hiawatha. Has to be the cheapest and the worst ammo I ever fired, some Remington bulk Walmart ammo about 10 years ago came close, I wrote them, they naturally wanted me to send it to them. I gave the remainder to some kids who where shooting cans and left them a stick and instructions to knock out any bullets that stuck in the barrel.

About 1966 I found some very accurate Remington 22 standard velocity ammo that shot better than any I have ever compared it to since. I purchased two cases of that ammo and only shoot it on the 4Th of July annual Willow Bow Ranch target shoot in which I compete against myself and smile. Rest of the family and competitors long gone! I have enough to last me 4 years.

No Joke - shot a called kill on a fly eating peanut butter smeared on a paper target at 100 yards with my 513 T Remington (my second most accurate rifle) with a 20 power Lyman target scope on it. The sun was behind me and I watched that bullet to the target and observed the kill! No one believed me until they saw the hole with six legs glued to the target with fly goo around a hole. The target is framed and still hangs on the wall. Call it bragging rights, most folks at the range thought I was crazy!

Steve M1911A1

What kind of peanut butter: smooth or chunky?

Joe Forte

Ah the good old Remington 513T. I have 2 of them. They are real tack drivers. I love shooting them.

Charlie Petty

I got a newer model of the S&W M&P15-22 and have been shooting various brands of ammo to compare the reliability of this gun with the earlier version.

Both leave major dents in the rim and there does not appear to be any difference in this respect between them.

Remington continues to have a 1-2% misfire rate with fresh ammo. There are occasional misfires with both Wincesher and Federal bulk packs but so far there have been NO misfires with CCI Blazer in well over 500 rounds.

During the worst of the shortage I wasn't able to find any Blazer so I didn't shoot much in the first gun but some limited shooting did not show any misfires.

Snake suggested cleaning the bolt and breech face and I did on the first one with no noticeable difference. The new one has yet to be cleaned since it arrived in early March and now has something around 1000 rounds through it.

Snake45

I also recommend cleaning out the chamber of a semiauto .22, especially one that's been working fine and suddenly starts giving FTBs, particularly with more than one type or lot of ammo. Some .22 chambers can become crudded up, the next round doesn't chamber fully and the hammer's impact gets soaked up forcing the bolt home--if you're lucky. If you're not, the firing pin hits the rim with the round OOB and the case lets go and then all sorts of bad things can and often do happen. I have guns that will go all year (2K to 5K or more) without this problem, but others, like my DPMS .22 AR with tight (and accurate) chamber need to have the chamber cleaned out in as little as 400 rounds or I get problems. No need to strip the gun completely, or even do a full bore cleaning; some Hoppe's on a bent Q-tip or bent .22 swab will do the trick.

It can be a real trick with .22 malfs to know if you have a gun problem or an ammo problem. I shoot a couple dozen different .22s every year, usually at least six different ones in any given range session (and often eight to ten), so it's usually not too hard for me to pin down where my problem is pretty quickly. If you have just one gun and one kind of ammo, it's much more difficult to tell which one of them is giving you the trouble. And with today's spotty quality control on cheap .22 ammo, it's not uncommon to have problems with two or more types or lots of ammo at the same time, which is really frustrating.

Dan01

I won't touch any type of Remington ammo...I guess it might work ok in bolt actions and revolvers, but it is really unpredictable in semi autos like the newer 22 cal military look a likes. and my semi auto pistols.........I use the Winchester and Federal (36 and 40 grain) bulk packs for economy and have very few failures......CCI is on par with the Win and Fed...........I can't tell any real difference in accuracy, but then again I am old, feeble, and twitch a lot.

I won't touch the expensive 22 cal stuff for the same reason I quit with my Bushmaster 5.56 and my two 7.62x39 Bulgarian milled receiver AK 47s....I love to shoot too much and ammo costs were getting too high......The only person I try to impress with extreme marksmanship is me and plain old 22 cal gets it done

whatsit

tenx is wasted in an autopistol. All you have to have is 3" groups at 50 yds, for a perfect score. x's just break ties, and 2/3rds of the BE course is shot at 25 yds. Tenex is for when you need 1/2" groups at 50 yds, from a rifle. if there actually is such a need, of course. Which I don't think exists, for the rimfire.