Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires Help with Ruger 10/22

I just picked up a brand new Ruger 10/22 and two 25 round Butler Creek magazines. I loaded them up with Federal American Eagle rounds. The rifle failed to cycle correctly even once. I would fire, then have to pull the bolt handle back to clear the case that failed to eject. It happened everytime. The factory ten round mag was a little better, but still had some issues. Any help? Thanks!

Sounds like the cartridges are a little on the weak side. Did you try any other ammunition? Betting that might cure it...lets say...CCI mini mags during break-in period... just a thought.

Stephen,

I'll echo what 21 suggested: Try some mini-mags. The 10-22 action is blow-back operated, and will hopefully do better with a little hotter ammo. As your action loosens up (likely somewhere between 500 and 1000 rounds) it should function fine with whatever ammo you feed it.

If you're still having problems, polish up the guide rod and use some dry lube spray (don't lubricate it with oil--it'll get gummy).

One question though: When you say it fails to eject, does the spent brass get removed from the chamber and then pinned half in and half out of the ejection port by the bolt coming forward (called stovepiping) or does the spent round simply stay in the chamber? If it's staying in the chamber, do you have any trouble getting it out or do you simply pull the bolt back and it gets flipped out?

It's not a mag or ammo issue really. All brand new 10/22s have that problem out of the box. Like Waders said, just let the action naturally loosen up by putting 500+ rounds through it.

The majority of the cases stovepiped, When I pulled the bolt handle back they cleared, but I was having to do it for every round. I will try some hotter rounds. Thanks for the help!

-Stephen White

Stovepiping is caused by a slow or incomplete cycling of the bolt. In my limited experience, hotter ammo and polishing the guide rod are the two easiest things to try first. Also check to make sure your scope base mounting screws aren't coming all the way through and rubbing the the top of your bolt.

As for magazines, I only use factory issue. Aftermarket mags caused all kinds of grief--especially if they didn't have steel lips on them. Buy some extra factory magazines (clear ones if you want something different) and install an extended magazine release on your rifle. Once your rifle gets broke in, try the aftermarket magazines again.

Several years ago I bought a 10-22 that performed much as you described. It was a stainless, laminated model, NIB. We had been shooting that one and another 10-22 so I decided to visually compare them and then I decided to hand cycle some cartridges to see if I could spot anything wrong. After cycling about the second or third round in the new rifle it would eject but not clear the receiver cutout or notch, in the stock. It would stovepipe and block the action. I tried the older one and could see where the top of the cutout was lower than on the new one.

A little filing or maybe it was Dremeling, cleared that up and it's run fine ever since.

check the bolt face too, sometimes they get out of the factory not 100% clean, if that extractor isn't clinging to the rim fast, it will stovepipe as well.