It finally happened. A CCI failure to fire.

I do not recall the last time I had a CCI-SV cartridge fail to fire, until yesterday. I wouldn't be able to guess how many tens of thousands of rounds of CCI-SV ammo I've shot over the years, finally had a failure. In the middle of shooting a box of 100, had one click. At first thought it was a light strike, but it looked like a good hit. Retried three more times, nothing. Continued on, all fired. One round must have gotten through with no primer, or bad primer. Not complaining, it shows the quality of CCI rimfire ammo. Also learned something from the experience, I flinched! So I guess it was a good thing this happened.

If you want some ball and dummy exercises with the .22, buy some Remington! 

Had some CCI SV   that was to large in diameter.  Seems like the bullets base, on seating/crimping, bulged the case.  

Only had a few rounds that would not fully chamber, so far,  from a 500 round brick. Easy to check with a micrometer.

Used a couple K of both old and new stock CCI this summer in a S&W K22, a Ruger MK III 22/45 and a Remington 513 bolt gun.  Average was somewhere between 2 and 3 misfires per hundred rounds with both new and old stock.  Would think it was the gun if it was only one gun involved, but with three different guns it seems pretty certain it is the ammo.  Have noticed that the more recent manufacture tends to fail a bit more frequently, but never kept records on lot or failure rate so it may or may not be true.

CCI SV has been my go to .22 ammo for the last 5 years and I have had only 1 ff in many thousands of rounds, shoot it both in my S&W 17-4 and my model 41.

A few years ago I had a brick of CCI with several misfires, but otherwise I've never had any significant.  I do have a lot of remnants of Remington failures.  I agree with the earlier poster that Remington is a good ball and dummy training ammo.

I always recommend that you pull the misfires apart to see why.  I've found that most of the time the priming compound is in the powder, but occasionally only the area where the strike happened is empty.  Of course I can't determine when the compound escaped the rim, but have entertained many possibilities as the culprit.  One such possibility that was suggested is that sometimes the compound is too brittle to stand up to the shock of an auto-loader.  I have had some ammo that fit this possibility because it failed in my 208s, but not my Free Pistol.

A few years ago I decided that CCI SV would be my lowest level target ammunition and I really liked the price/performance. I started sorting the ammunition by rim thickness with a Neal Jones Rim Thickness Gauge. In limited Ransom Rest testing it showed no improvement but I believe its value is in reliability. I sort into five classes: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 with maybe 90% falling between 2 and 3. The 0's, 1's and 4's I give to a friend to go plinking with his sons. I believe by sorting CCI SV I can get reasonable reliability without the price of my next favorite reliable 22, Eley Club. I also notice more consistent recoil than unsorted ammunition.

Testing premium ammunition (Eley, RWS) with a rim gauge shows less variation in rim thickness. It seems you get what you pay for, but since I see RR 50 Yards 20 shot groups at 1.5" for CCI SV versus 1.25" Eley Club I like to save the Club for big events.



Just a FYI, I am really big for prep for reliability due to a background in aerospace and racing. If I can subtract or control more variables I get better performance.

I've had exactly 1 failure to fire with CCISV and it was at my last outdoor match of the season. I have not lost confidence in the ammo because of one miss-fire. Roddy checked my alibi and it was 100% the ammo's fault. The rim had a dent in it you could get a truck stuck in. Commercial Fishermen "sometimes" exaggerate but it was a solid strike. I don't plan on worrying about it.
  My son brought a box of "Thunderduds" to camp this year and it was sad to see him try and get through a magazine. I took pity on him and gave him some mini-mags.

Len

Ed Hall wrote:A few years ago I had a brick of CCI with several misfires, but otherwise I've never had any significant.  I do have a lot of remnants of Remington failures.  I agree with the earlier poster that Remington is a good ball and dummy training ammo.

I always recommend that you pull the misfires apart to see why.  I've found that most of the time the priming compound is in the powder, but occasionally only the area where the strike happened is empty.  Of course I can't determine when the compound escaped the rim, but have entertained many possibilities as the culprit.  One such possibility that was suggested is that sometimes the compound is too brittle to stand up to the shock of an auto-loader.  I have had some ammo that fit this possibility because it failed in my 208s, but not my Free Pistol.

Same here, I had a case from a few years ago that produced several duds (at least a dozen).  Got through that case, and the duds went away.

I've had two in a case, both during rimfire EIC matches...lol

w4t wrote:
Been pleased with it and the Fed. Auto Match in practice in the 41. 

Best,
Chase

Chase,

Fed Auto Match works well in my S&W41 too.  However, the ammo is 1200 ft/s, which is a bit hot imho, so I stopped using it.
I heard others change the recoil spring.

Doug