Everyone who carries has probably heard the advice to practice a bit with their carry ammo, with the firearms that you will be carrying. Rotating ammo is a good idea, too, so none of your ammo dies from old age and gun oil. I recently tried some Federal Punch .22 Long Rifle ammo in my Ruger LCP II. The little LCP II slips in and out of a pocket easily, so I often have it with me. These little guns can dry out quickly in a pocket, so you must clean and lube them regularly to keep them running. Mine runs great on CCI Mini Mags and Stingers. During practice sessions I also feed it Remington Thunderbolts, Golden Bullets, and various Federal long rifle rounds. The LCP is broken in and it runs reliably....
...until I tried Federal Punch .22 LR. The punch ammo, which runs fine in my Mk III and Mk IV pistols and 10/22s will not cycle in the LCP. I had to manually extract nearly every fired case. It took a bit of looking and figuring, but what I see is that the Punch cases are not just crimped into a groove of the bullets, the case mouth is ironed in and is thinned down in the process. Federal must be using a rotating crimping tool to make the crimp hold extra firmly. That ironed-down case mouth is then folding out so it drags in the chamber. Even more odd, the LCP II chamber is tighter than the chambers of my Mk Pistols. A fired case from the Mks will not fit into the chamber of the LCP. It is an unexpected problem, but one I can live with because Punch works fine in other firearms. Check out the photos and you can see what is happening. I plan to shoot a bit of video tomorrow, so check back and see if the problem repeats on camera for us!
Fired Punch case, unfired Punch, Mini-Mag.
Punch crimp closeup.
Punch fired case mouth closeup.
4 comments:
Nice close up photography. That punch case is significantly longer.
My guess- The problem is it is not a "standard .22 long rifle" case-
It is longer, and possibly running into the chamber throat .
My post above- comparison with other firearms is irrelevant- .22's in particular can be ammo sensitive, and other guns may be chambered differently. Some will actually note this- for example my Green Mountain 10-22 barrel says on the barrel, "unfired rounds may not extract"- they use a tight match chamber. Test the ammo you plan to use, in the gun you plan to use it in, x10 if talking about .22 long rifle.
Anon: I will be running more Punch as a test, but keep the LCP II stoked with Velocitors for carry until I am satisfied.
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