blowing out the back of a .22 casing

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Arkham and I experienced a REALLY weird failure on our last trip out to shoot.

The last shot with his Ruger SR-22 felt weird to him. We stopped to check the weapon, and it seemed okay, but afterward, it wouldn't chamber another round.

Turns out the brass from the last cartridge was still in the chamber, but the entire back of the cartridge was blown off. It was virtually impossible to see, until we examined it closely at home.

Removing the damaged casing from the chamber was a simple matter of pushing through the barrel end with a bamboo skewer. The casing remains came right out.

We were shooting a mix of ammo, so I'm not 100% certain which one it was that had this failure.

I have never seen this happen before, and never even heard of it. Weird. :wtf:

Re: blowing out the back of a .22 casing

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I don't know the answer to the question of whether it was completely in battery when it fired. I wasn't shooting it. Arkham reported only that it 'felt strange' when it fired.

I wasn't watching him, but loading a magazine when it happened.

It has never gone full auto, double fired, anything like that. It has a relatively low number of rounds (under 1000, I'd guess). A few failures to fire mostly from ammo issues, not from the gun. Maybe one or two stovepipe jams. Nothing out of the ordinary.

I think both too much primer and out-of-battery fire are possible. It looks like ONLY the rim portion is missing. Here's a pick of the damaged cartridge, sitting next to a full cartridge. Note that the rim portion is facing UP. It's pretty cleanly sheared. Sorry for any shakey-cam bad focus.

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Re: blowing out the back of a .22 casing

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fknauss wrote:I saw a case separation on a 22 at an appleseed a couple months ago.

I think 22lr QC is all shot to shit because they're so busy cranking rounds out the door.
This... They can sell as much as they can possibly produce and do so at a ridiculous price. Beyond keeping guns from out-and-out exploding I would imagine that QC is about ninth on a list of five top priorities, particularly for certain brands that weren't known for being all that great to begin with.

Re: blowing out the back of a .22 casing

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Are you sure this was a blow-out and not a rip-off?

Just wondering if the chamber was dirty and the case stuck and the extractor ripped the rim off rather than ejecting the round.

This can be an issue in leverguns when shooting 38s, followed by 357s. The dirty chamber glues the long cartridge in place and the extractor rips the rim (or breaks).

Obviously you're not shooting different length rounds, but 22lr is pretty dirty (esp the cheap stuff). I would check and clean just to make sure. Since the brass on 22s is so thin (and cheap), ripping the rim off cleanly wouldn't be that hard to do.
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Re: blowing out the back of a .22 casing

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This might be related:

I shot some .38's out of my .357 Winchester 94AE. Then I shot some .357mag out of it. One case got stuck in the soot, and when I ejected, a little ring of brass was left in there for which I exchanged $45 to my gunsmith. It's the soot, he said. So there might be that soot thing, gluing the brass to the chamber, causing the problem.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: blowing out the back of a .22 casing

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I suspect that it was indeed related to carbon build-up in the chamber. If you routinely clean with only a boresnake or a patch worm, a carbon ring can accumulate that can lead to failure to seat the round. Since this is a 10/22 action, it is hard to access the chamber with a brush so it often gets overlooked.

I use one of these tools. You can buy one or make one yourself. I keep one in my range bag along with a patch worm kit for quick clean-ups if needed. This guy's 10/22 combination bolt and extractor tool is worth the money too.

http://www.gunsmithertools.com/brush-n- ... mber-tool/
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