603Country
New member
I've got 2 lever action 22's, a 39A and a 9422. Both are accurate and fun to shoot, but I've had a long time gripe about the 9422. I've said that it's finicky about ammo and occasionally will just NOT feed a new round. I've had several theories on the cause, but every time I thought I had it fixed, it would fail to feed again. Frustrating. Well, it happened again a couple of days ago when I had some friends over to plink cans. After they were gone, I took the rifle apart one more time and cleaned it real well and put it together and it still wouldn't feed. Took it apart again and took Qtips to the furthest reaches of that action. When disassembled and when I move the cocking lever outward, the feed arm rises, as it should. I always do that with the grip in left hand and holding the action upward. This time I laid it down and moved the lever and I found a 22 short case under the feed arm. I bought the gun used and have never fired a short in it. The case was grimy and black and oily and bent up a bit and must've been in there for years. When I held the rifle muzzle down, the case must've moved forward just enough and at just the right angle to block the feed arm from going down far enough to pick up a fresh round from the feed tube. Shoot upward and the case moved back into a cavity and would be no longer in the way. Well, as much as it shames me to mention that I missed the obvious (or not so obvious) for a couple of years, at least I can tell you that a small fired case can somehow get into the cavity below and behind the feed arm. How it gets there is something I cannot explain.
