Pistol Ammo Failure-To-Fire Rates?

Question

I'm looking into buying my first gun and I'm reading up on different types of ammunition. I'd like to start with a .22LR pistol because I'm brand new to shooting and don't want to train bad habits like flinching. However, I'm getting a lot of feedback on failure-to-fire rates with Long Rifle. I'm told this is a common problem with LR but it seems even worse in certain pistols like the Walther P22. My question is, how common is failure to fire in any form? FTF May mean something else technically but what I'd like to know is: how often with ANY kind of pistol ammo and ANY kind of pistol can you expect it to misfire/fail to chamber/fail to eject/etc? From what I've seen with the P22, people are having FTF anywhere between 1-10 bullets per 100 rounds of quality ammo ( such as CCI MiniMags or CCI Stingers ). Any comments, links or experiences? I can't find any charts online of different hand-guns compared by FTF rates so I'm coming here and asking you guys. Anything helps! Thanks.

Answer 1

Many people have trouble with cycling in the .22 LR. It seems that the more sophisticated a pistol is the more finicky they are about there fodder. But once you find the right ammunition the problem does get a lot better.



The Failure-To-Fire to fire problem isn't so much the pistol as it is the ammunition. I purchase the cheap stuff that Winchester, Federal and Remington puts out. But I only shoot the .22 LR for fun now, so it doesn't matter if I have a few misfires, it is worth it for the cheaper ammunition.



When I shot Steel Silhouettes with the .22 LR I used 8 to 10 dollars a hundred high dollar ammunition, and of the thousands of rounds I shot I never had a misfire, so you kind of get what you pay for in .22 LR ammunition.



But in closing I would like to recommend you find a certified firearms instructor and take courses in firearm safety, shooting and cleaning of your firearms. He can also answer many of your question that will arise while you are learning the sport of shooting.



I suggest you go here to find an instructor:



http://www.nrainstructors.org/



Enjoy.

Answer 2

So, let's separate a couple of issues here.



First, let's talk about kinds of malfunctions. One of them is universal - Failure to Fire. This means that the hammer/striker/whatever hits the primer and the round doesn't go off. This can occur for two reasons:

1) The round itself is a dud or poorly made. - This is common in .22LR bulk ammo. The rate of incident is generally low, probably in the neighborhood of 1% in most bulk ammo brands - I tend to see something like 4 to 5 per brick almost regardless, some bricks have zero, some have more. Oddly enough it doesn't seem related to cost - Remington Thunderbolt has had very few and I'm probably 5,000 rounds into that, Federal Champion has been pretty good as well, but some other brands have been worse - Remington for one. But all in all, about 1%.



The way .22 is manufactured the primer powder is "spun" into the rim and crimped. So if the powder isn't distributed uniformly, or doesn't spin into the rim it won't go off. Often a second strike, or rotating the round will get it to go off.



2) Whatever is striking the round is hitting it too lightly. This is a gun problem and usually easily fixed. Either the firing pin is too blunt or too short, or the spring has worn out.



Second major type of failure is Failure to Extract - this is only relevant to semi - autos and generally has more to do with the shooter and the gun than the round. Essentially, you can limp wrist and absorb too much energy out of the gun for it to cycle, or the recoil spring can be strong enough to prevent the gun from cycling with the energy of the round. Again, given the variation in .22 rounds, this can be a problem.



Now, let's talk for a minute about the carry side of a .22LR. I don't have any problem with it personally. It's significantly better than nothing, and most people are willing to practice with a .22. The issue is reliability. With more expensive higher grade ammunition the incident of ammunition related failure definately decreases. If you get into the rounds like the Aguila Interceptor, or the Federal Game-shok or CCI Velocitor rounds they are higher performance, more expensive and better made rounds. Most brands have a more premium higher performance game round.



Still that leaves open the issue of the reliability on the firearm side. - This is where the question comes in about the P22. Glock Doctor aside, for what it is, the P22 not an unreasonable little pistol. All of the versions I have shot run the best on high velocity rounds, it is of average accuracy, and is a very simple little gun, mechanically and to shoot. Still I probably wouldn't carry it. I would be significantly more likely to carry something like a Scandium J frame S&W in .22LR with the high visibility sights. Equally as light. Very compact, and in .22? Much more reliable than the Walther without particularly giving up much capacity.



However, if I were pretty set on carrying a semi - auto, I'd still probably look at some other options. I'd see if I could find a used Walther PPK in .22LR for example. There are a few others. Ultimately I might come back to the P22 in this group if I felt that one was really reliable, but it would be something I would consider carefully. Beretta made a .22 version of it's Cheetah frame (not the tip barrel version) that ran well. I might even look at something like a SIG Mosquito - which stock has a terrible reputation for reliability - and spend the money to have a custom gunsmith work it over to make it a reasonable carry piece. I've shot some Mosquitos that have had that sort of work done, and it is definately night and day. The same could be said for the Beretta tip barrel .22's - the 21A Bobcat is the latest incarnation. However, that is adding another $70 - $100 to your purchase price, right off the top.



Range guns aren't the best way to address the reliability of a .22, but alot of ranges will have a P22 to shoot, so I'd get some time on one. I'd also consider that possibility that while you may only own one gun, you may need to buy and sell until you find the one you want.



Thinkingblade

Answer 3

I don't think you will find a chart with fail to fire rates. There are many factors that cause this kind of problem. A dirty gun is the most common problem. I have a carton (500 rounds) of Federal .22 Long Rifle bullets I'm shooting through a Ruger Single Six revolver, a Remington Nylon 66 rifle, and a Browning Buck Mark. I've shot up about 400 of the bullets without a single jam or failure to fire. I have also used a whole lot of CCI ammo in these same guns with the same success.



Your first step in shooting is to buy a quality gun. My suggestions: The Ruger Single Six revolver is a single action, full sized .22 handgun. Inexpensive, adjustable sights, high quality, and fun to shoot. The Browning Buck Mark is a semi auto .22 handgun. Just a damn fine pistol. The Marlin model 60 is a semi auto .22 rifle that is a trouble free gun. A Lever action .22 Henry is another quality rifle.



Welcome to the sport, always nice to meet a new shooter.

Answer 4

I'm going to ignore failures such as failures to feed, smokestack jams and the like because they often are the fault of the gun or the magazine, not the ammo.



Centerfire rifle, pistol ammo: I've never had a freshly manufactured round from a quality commercial manufacturer that failed to fire when well-struck by the firing pin. The failure rate for good ammo is minuscule. I have had a few problems with decades old ammo, mostly old military ball, but that is to be expected with ammo that is 50 years beyond its expected use.



.22 Long Rifle: This is a different beast. I have had terrible problems with Remington Thunderbolt, Winchester SuperX and Federal High Velocity. All three brands have produced numerous misfires in my High Standard Victor. Despite a strong hit from the firing pin, at least 20-25 rounds per 500 simply fail to fire. I was using the ammo for practice and casual matches, but it was so awful I sold it and switched to Eley Sport for everything. It costs a lot more, but it's accurate and doesn't cost points and aggravation because of misfires.

Answer 5

New and well preserved ammo should give you no problems. Ammunition quality is very high these days. If you do your part in protecting it from the environment, will last long, long time. You may be experiencing problems with your guns. Dirty bores promote misfires due to the fact that rounds will not go all the way in. When struck by the firing pin those rounds move forward and soften the impact, promoting misfires. Weak springs, by definition, will have the same effect. You may also be experiencing ammo related misfires. The fact that some rounds fired when struck a second time, leads me to think this may be your problem. Strange as it may sound, .22LR guns are "finicky" when it comes to ammo. Since you only used Remington, try another brand. As a matter of fact, try several brands. You may find one that goes "bang" every time... and stick with it!

Answer 6

I know you said you're starting with .22, but here's my recent experience with FTF. I modified my Glock 19 with a Ghost trigger upgrade. In the conversion, I also changed the firing pin spring. This mod improved my accuracy, precision, and speed. Huge, huge improvement (oh, and changed my sights back to factory from fiber). I shot my regular cheap target ammo (Monach/Academy brass 115g) after the mod and it worked fine. This morning, however, I shot about 100 rounds with 30% (not an exaggeration) FTF. Turns out the lighter spring doesn't like the ammo. But this morning I was using Monarch Steel Case ammo. Almost every other round didn't fire and was ejected when I cycled the slide. I picked up the round, fed it manually, and about 80% of the time it fired, 20% FTF again. They did have small dimples on the primer.



Talked to my instructor friend and he said it was the steel case ammo and, appropriately, suggested I fire a box of my carry ammo just to make sure it all works. I use Hornady Critical Defense and it would suck to find out at the wrong time that 40% of that wasn't working either.



Bottom line: just make sure what you're using works with your setup AND if you modify your setup, recheck your ammo combination.

Answer 7

Failure to fire CAN happen with any gun/ammo combination, but it seems that semi-autos are more prone to this problem than revolvers.



In .22's IF it happens with one brand of ammo try a different brand.

Some work better with one brand than another.

(I have one .22 that will simply NOT fire RELIABLY with remington ammo for some reason, but works fine with everything else.)



Other than that, the primary cause especially in 22's is dirty ammo or dirty weapon.

It does NOT take more than a very little dirt to mess up things as these are very small rounds, compared to larger center-fire rounds.

Answer 8

I haven't been able to figure out why .22LR FTFs.

but what I do know is that my .22LR revolver misfired only 3 times out of 1000 rounds, mixed ammunition from 3 different manufacturers (Winchester, Remington-Peters, Federal).

and my Ruger 10/22 misfired a round pretty much every magazine (10 rd magazines)



from 0.3% to 10%, I cannot figure it out,

my Marlin 925 bolt action .22 misfires occasionally, maybe 1 in 30 rounds. my Voere .22lr (single shot bolt action) misfires once every 50 or 100 rounds.

when I fire faster with bolt actions they misfire more often. when I space out my shots they misfire less.

with the revolver it doesn't matter.



the 10/22 works different too - misfires 1 in 50 rounds (on average), but during rapid fire it can misfire 2 in 10 rounds.



the correlation I see is slow fire- very reliable .

rapid fire- extremely unreliable

the slower you go the more reliable it is.

all of my .22lr rifles are working properly. they all shoot from the same blend of 36 or 40 grain HP 1200-1300 fps ammo.



with semiautos there seems to be more FTE and stovepipes. but i only had one semiauto, so I that just my experience.



I've tried different kinds of ammo, in my experience subsonics like CCI CB Long & Short and Remington Subsonic has extremely low rates of misfire. Remington Subsonic will barely cycle a semiauto. the CCI CB L/S will not. I have probably 60 different kinds of ,22lr and 8 different manufacturers on hand. there's no magic brand that works 100% of the time.

even with centerfire ammo I've had a few misfires. very few, but it does happen. happens with my CZ5-2 alot. much less than a .22lr but too much for centerfire ammo. its probably a weak firing pin, the gun & ammo is like 55 years old. and I had two boxes of Remington 7.62x39 totally not work with my Norinco SKS & Wasr-10. they stove piped and misfired, and all that kind of stuff. either I got two bad batches or commie guns don't like American ammo.



acceptable misfire rates for .22lr: once every 50 rounds.

acceptable misfire rates for self defense/home defense handgun: max 5 times per case/tin of ammunition. (1 tin/case is around 1000 rounds) often with .22lr its not the ammo.



the whole .22lr reliability issue is very finicky stuff. all I know i with the 4 .22lr guns I own is that my revolver will always shoot. everything else, its meh and with my 10/22, its hell no. I sold the 10/22.

Answer 9

I'm going to try to keep this simple: Your first problem is the Walther P22. Get rid of it and find yourself a good Ruger Mark III or Browning Buckmark. This will solve part of the problem.



When I was a young man (50's, 60's & 70's) we never had problems with 22 caliber rimfire ammo. It was all, 'Eley primed' and worked perfectly. Then, somewhere in the late 90's, all sorts of sordid crap began to happen to rimfire ammo. The American factories stopped using more expensive Eley priming and all of a sudden frequent misfires began to appear.



With the advent of the chain superstores, (Wal-Mart) the problems with crappy 22 ammo significantly increased. You know, 'Always the cheapest price; always the crappiest products, too!' As Americans began to purchase more and more of their ammo from, 'super stores' at, somewhat, discounted prices the quality and performance of all popular calibers began to suffer. None were hit harder than 22 LR.



Perhaps, strangely, the crappy ammo syndrome merged with the almost complete lack of all cartridges and reloading components that occurred to American consumers between 2006 and 2009. Then, with equal strangeness, the overall quality of commercial cartridges suddenly began to improve. Rimfire cartridges - which were always available, but in grossly inferior quality - and inferior, 'range quality' centerfire cartridges began to reappear.



During the middle of this first decade I experienced 22 caliber rimfire failure-to-fire rates of as high as 15 to 20 percent. Right now, the problem seems to have disappeared. I can go to Wal-Mart, purchase a, 'brick' of rimfire ammo and have all 500 of them go off.



'Range quality' centerfire ammunition performance, also, seems to have improved. Previously I used to get 2 or 3 dudes out of every 1,000 45 ACP rounds I fired. At the present time I'm not getting any centerfire misfires at all. (Just significantly weaker, crappier, centerfire ammo than I ever used as a young man.)



If you want to stay ahead of the, 'failure curve' with 22 LR rimfire ammo my suggestion would be to use Eley-primed ammunition, exclusively. (And get rid of that Walther 22; it's almost as bad as that, 'Mosquito thing' SIG sells.)







PS: By the way, a few paragraphs in your question would have been nice. ;)





ADDED:



http://www.spentbrass.com/pistol/walther/p22/articles/complaints.php



The slide on P22's is made of, 'pot metal'; and I hate pot metal guns and gun parts. (Think, Hi-Point!) The price is wrong, too.



Here's, 'The Bible' as it's called for the Walther P22: http://www.rimfirecentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=f5c0cc7df0bf58e56285aa731a3b42d2&f=48



We have monthly steel plate rimfire pistol matches at one of my very large (800 + member) gun clubs. Many of these guys can afford any pistol they feel like showing up with. The bigger show-offs in the group all arrive with long barreled Volquartsen-modified Ruger Mark III's. Last time we attended one of these matches, a Volquartsen Ruger was given to my wife to use during the match.



Wow, was the fellow who loaned her that pistol sorry! She used it to shoot the dickens out of that match. Me? Well I'm, something of, a, 'gun snob' too. I field an old long-nosed Smith & Wesson Model 41. (It looks almost brand new; but, it ain't.)



It's the same pistol I used for home self-defense throughout the late 70's and most of the 80's. (I could have used anything; I've owned them all; but, because of its low flash signature and rapid rate of highly accurate fire, I very deliberately chose to use this Model 41.)



Breaking down a Ruger Mark III ain't that big a deal. Do it once or twice with the owner's manual on the bench and after that it's, 'child's play'. Remember, you're talking about a very strong, very accurate pistol - No pot metal junk. If Ruger's Mark III pistols weren't so very well made, an entire industry in aftermarket parts and customizations wouldn't have sprung up to service them.



I don't know, 'Why' you want to carry a 22 LR for self-defense; but, I once did; and several of my acquaintances at the time did, too. In the right hands, it's doable. Of course I, also, used to carry 3 magazines and an additional 30 rounds; AND, I was able to shoot it with surgical precision. (More or less, still am.) ;)



A P22 isn't a, 'cradle-to-grave' pistol. Like a Glock, a Ruger Mark III is!

Answer 10

I have had failures to fire with virtually every type of 22 ammo and .22 firearm I have ever used.

Answer 11

Walther P22 Misfire