Jennings j-22 paper weight

[Joe the Redneck]

I was cleaning out the gun cabinet the othere day and found my old J-22. It was just a plinking gun so the fact that it only "semi -semi-auto", mostly single shot, didn't matter.

Anyway, I was thinking that the situation could be inproved. I seem to recall that one (of the many) feeding issues was caused by the chamber. That there was a rigde that the nose of the bullet would get hung up on.

Does anyone else remember that? Or was that just something the aliens implanted in my head one night?

Joe

 

[Desslock]

I'll admit: I have one, too. It actually shoots fine if I A) only put five in the magazine, B) keep it reasonably clean, and C) use CCI Mini-Mags in it. It's fun for plinking and I've had it for about 12 years so it's pretty battered, which makes it look kinda cool. Even though it has choked before, I have never broken anything on it. And I've put a couple of thousand rounds through it in those 12 years. I must've gotten a Tuesday gun!

P.S. - brand new, $75.

As far as tinkering with it, well, I've never had to. I think most people are more inclined to discard one of these than fix it. I feel I've gotten my money's worth out of mine! Lots of cans and bottles have fallen to my *ahem* mighty J-22.

 

[Rimrod]

The magazines are usually the trouble with them, and they are designed to work with the CCI mini mags, they may work with others but make sure you try mini mags before trying to diagnose it. The only ridge the bullet nose would get hung up on is the chamber mouth, which would be more of a problem with the angle of the feed lips on the magazine.

As for aliens planting things in your head, do you live in a mobile home?

 

[gordo_gun_guy]

Got mine to spite Al Gore and his "Ring of Fire" scare.:barf:

Tried to feed it lots of CCI Stingers, to make it at least better than a .25 ACP. That led to the cocking indicator portion of the firing pin seperating.

I ran many hundreds of mini-mags through it until I could afford a Ruger 22/45; I won't sell the thing on principal.

Sad fact: mine shoots almost as tight as the Ruger to 15 yds, as long as the ambient light is such that there's no glare on the chromed sights

No glue would hold that coking indicator on; but it shoots fine without it.

I agree; try mini-mags and a different (lighter) lube oil before tweaking the mechanics

 

[FS2K]

I agree with the Mini Mags.

I've put stingers through the little J-22 and the shells would sometimes swell and explode. The plain lead headed bullets work great.

The J-22 is probably the best disposeable gun I have ever owned as far as accuracy and reliability went. I had no problem with any problems associating the magazines and ammo.

I wouldn't use one for much plinking after it's broken in, as they tend to wear out quickly.

 

[Taxidermist]

I have had my j22 for close to 30 years. I took it out a few weeks ago and it was shooting rem. hp's from wal-mart just fine. same thing here thoough. I load it with 5 shells which seems to stop all jamming, atleast with the rem ammo I always use.

John

 

[Phelptwan]

My j-22 doesn't shoot the best but it doesn't jam that often.

 

[KChen986]

My J22 jams every or every other mag--but it's old. And cheap. It's more or less just a fun gun to plink with.

 

[gunsup0331]

My J-22

My buddy gave me an old black J-22 a few months ago,

It consistently failed to extract and was no fun to shoot, so i

spent some time polishing the chamber
stretched the extractor spring out a bit (gun was free )
cut down the little notch where the extractor claw sits against the chamber (with a sharp knife! LOL)
sharpened up the extractor claw a little
and cleaned the **** out of the entire gun
removed safety (lost the little BB, oops) besides, i think it helped

and proceeded to shoot a ****-ton of Winchester SuperX (pretty cheap) through it with moderate Lube. (did not like CCI Subs BTW, at first i thought that the chamber was allowing the casings of higher powered rds to expand so i tried a lighter load and it stovepiped more often so i went back to winchesters)

Gun seems to like stronger loads to get the action to cycle properly
I shoot with a full (6) rds in the mag and 1 in the hole, and i was shooting 2" groups at 15 yards offhand . Only one stovepipe out of like 500 rounds after some of my Ghetto Gunsmithing.

 

[Phelptwan]

I took mine out last weekend (jeeshe does everybody own one of these) to plink a little with it with Win Super X's...every round was a fte until the last two in the mag.

 

[deanodog]

I was lucky. Mine worked 99% of the time but got traded anyway.

 

[pgg]

I have one too. It cost me under $100 brand new. I noticed that when it starts jamming up at the range (after a couple of hundred rounds) I just spray some breakfree in there shake it off and its ready to go. All its good for is plinking but I laugh everytime I bring it out and it lasts longer and is more reliable then my buddies berretta 22.

 

[redgrapes]

making my J-22 reliable

When I first bought my Jennings from a friend it had all the traditional problems.
One magazine had more issues than the other. I looked at both mags with bullets in them and made the bad one look like the good one and that took care of the feeding issues.

I then modified the firing pin a bit and that took care of the mis-fire problems.

I then modified the extractor and that fixed the jamming issues.

I use a light spray on lube of slick 50.

Now I have a little J-22 that has had no errors for the past 550 rounds except for one mis-fire. I have shot every brand of ammo that I could find from cci, federal, remington and a few brands I never heard of. Every thing from 50 dollars a brick to 11 dollars a brick ammo. It has fired every round of every brand with no errors.
My little Jennings is now extremely reliable!

 

[gunuser]

How do you take it apart for cleaning?

My buddy owns a J-22 and has never cleaned it. He says it jams alot. I said I would take it apart and clean if for him. He has no manual for the pistol. How do I take it apart for cleaning??? Thanks for any info!

 

[HighValleyRanch]

peened chamber edge

I tried searching for that discussion you were referring to, but couldn't find it.
It was about the edge of the chamber being peened by a dry fire.

I posted that I just filed mine peened edge back out, but others rightly responded that there is a more correct way to "draw" back out the metal and put it back to place. Need a special tool to do this or take it to a smith.
If it were my cheap jennings, I would just file off the peened portion.

I did that on a couple of my .22's and they are still going strong.
The peened edge was causing lots of misfires, but now they are working great. Take magnifying glass and check the edge of your chamber.
On my TP22, the extrator spring came out, so check that too.

 

[kym]

The one I have will shoot CCI yellow box all day with no problems. It won't shoot anything else including the new CCI blue box ammo with out jamming.

 

[vox rationis]

This is great! I too am a member of the exclusive Jennings 22 club!

I haven't shot mine in 10 years, but I used to shoot it with CCI stingers and it was like 99% reliable with them. Now I'm wondering if that was unsafe to do so! Can it take the Stingers safely (if ever decide to shoot it again)?

 

[DBotkin]

I have a pair - got them for my wife and I quite a while ago. Neither will eat anything other than Stingers, and one won't feed them more than once or twice in a row either.

The good part: She does like to shoot once in a while. The last couple of times she's asked to take the Jennings along so she can shoot it some. After struggling with them both, she's so disgusted with the things I think getting her to try a PPK or PPS will be pretty easy. She's making noises about getting a CCW permit, and neither the Jennings nor the S&W 28 (nor the 29, the Ruger Mk 1 or the 1851 Navy) would be a good choice for concealed carry.

I, of course, will be looking at something with a tad more authority. So in the end, the Jennings' greatest accomplishment may well be to justify another pistol or two.

 

[1tfl]

Brings back memories.

I got one back in the mid 80's when I was in University for self defense purpose. I lived off campus in pretty bad part of town and one night I had a crack head trying to break into my house through the bathroom window while I was taking a crap (I didn't turn on the light because I had just woken up from sleep and I didn't want to wake up too much so I can go right back to sleep) and had to beat him off the window with a mop handle.

Next day I got a J-22 Jenning from the local hardware store for $59 and they gave me a free box of winchester ammo. The choice was based on the fact that it was the second cheapest gun they had (Raven 25ACP cost more than the Jenning). Cheapest was a Davis Derringer. That pistol worked great with CCI Minimag solid ammo but nothing else. I used to drive out to a dirt road out in the woods on weekends and shoot 1 or 2 boxes of ammo. I used to practice shooting old metal cooking pots that I had on wooden post. I would keep it clean and carry it in my front or back pocket in a home made leather pocket holster. I took the safety out of the pistol and carry it with empty chamber so I didn't accidently put the safety on while racking the slide. I got really good at drawing and hitting the metal pot with it. I even had 2 spare mags for it.

I kept that pistol for about 8 years when I started having FTF anf FTE problems. As time went by it got worse. One day while cleaning it I found that it had developed a crack on the slide. By that time that pistol must have fired about 10,000 rounds. The pistol was useless and I didn't want it to fall into wrong hands so I took it to the beach one night and threw all the major pieces into the water.

 

[DrLaw]

Yep

My father-in-law has one. Never had a problem with it.

Never shot it, either.

The Doc is out now.