Reliable Ammo In a .22 lr revolver

[Master Blaster]

Greetings all,

I am wondering if any of you have had the same experience with your .22 revolvers that I have had. I own 3, ruger single six, taurus 94, and s&w 43, all of them experience a problem reliably firing match grade ammo. Federal, tenex, cci standard velocity, green tag, PMC match. None of these fire reliably in any of my revolvers. I think it is because of the slow burning powder and different priming compound used in low velocity match grade ammo. All of these types of ammo fire reliably in my semi autos. In my revolvers it is typical to have two misfires per cylinder full, pull the trigger a second time and they all fire usually.

Remington subsonic hollowpoints fire reiably in all of my revolvers as does any type of high velocity ammo.

I think it has to do with the smaller firing pin size in my revolvers. You need to use ammo which employs a faster burning powder for relaible firing in a .22 revolver.

What has your experience been???

 

[Intel6]

The burning rate of the powder in the case has nothing to do with ignition of the case. I admit to only having one .22 LR revolver (10 shot 617 w/stainless cylinder) but I have not had many problems with rounds going off. I have fired a bunch of different ammo out of it and the only problem I have had was with the cheap bulk stuff. I get about the same # of misfires as I do with my autos.

This s a strange situation? If it was one of your weapons then I would say it might be a mechanical problem but with all of them? Strange?

 

[Master Blaster]

The one common characteristic all revos I won share is that they have a small round firing pin. My autos all have a regtangular firing pin which is about 3 times the size in surface area of the revolver firing pins.

The burn rate of the powder in .22 target ammo is slower than what is loaded in the cheap stuff (thunderbolt federal bulk) I know because I have taken apart the .22 rounds and examined and burn tested the powder. rounds loaded with the fast burning charcoal bricket like powder fire relaiably in all my revos. The target type ammo has a shiny flake powder which burns much slower.

This leads me to believe that the smaller firing pin in a revolver ignites less of the primer which is not sufficient to ignite the slow powder. I have examined cases that did not fire and the firing pin mark is deep and consistant, just like the mark on the rounds that do fire.

 

[Intel6]

Aaaah! Now I understand your connection to slow burning powder, never thought about it that way.

Something else I was thinking of as a possibility would be a sort of headspace issue. You description of the problem made me think about misfires in centerfire revolvers when primers are not seated completely and/or also when using auto cartridges in revolvers with clips.

You know how when you don't have the primer seated completely you can get misfires? The first FP hit seats the primer in the pocket and then the next one fires it because it is seated correctly. Or when you use pistol ammo in revolvers with clips. If they are bent, they act like a spring and soak up the inertia from the FP hit.

Anyway, on to what I was thinking about. If the rimfire case, when it is formed, has a rounded juncture where the straight sides transition into the rim. This would keep the round from seating completely (including the rim being seated against metal) and not give the FP a proper anvil (rim of the chamber) to smash the priming charge. When the FP hits the rim, the round soaks up some of the inertia by being seated completely resulting in a misfire. Now that the round has been seated, another FP hit will result in ignition.

Don't know if this made sense or has any merit but it seemed to make sense to me.

Good luck in figuring out the problem.

 

[Master Blaster]

I have figured out the problem. I don't use target grade ammo in a revolver. Remmington subsonic works great in all my revolvers and it does not lead the cylinder face.

Accuracy is also very good.

I was just curious if anyone else who owns revolvers had tried the target grade .22 and found it to be unreliable in a revolver. Thanks

 

[Chris McDermott]

Push those target grade rounds in firmly so the rims "seat" all the way down on the cylinder and your mis-fires will go away. Target grade ammo usually has a slightly larger case/bullet diameter as it is made closer to the maximum size specification - it's more accurate that way. (Can't "rattle" as much in the chamber, leading to inconsistancy that leads to in-accuracy) The first strike of the firing pin is just pushing the round all of the way into the chamber, then the second strike can set it off. Just dropping the round into the cylinder isn't enough to get the rim seated firmly against the edge of the chamber so the firing pin can set it off. It has to be pushed in - like your semi-auto's do.

 

[Master Blaster]

Thanks Chris,
I will give it a try, as you mentioned, I did notice that the target ammo was harder to seat. I didnt think about the firm seating as a factor in ignition.