Wednesday, August 11, 2010

I blame Canada

Apparently karma didn't like me ragging on the Canadian chap who's M&P15-22 blew up on him, and decided that mine would try it's best to emulate his today.  Last round of my last mag, extra loud BANG! and a lot more smoke close to my face than normal.  I'm fine, but bummed that my favorite range toy is broked.

The bullet continued on it's merry way downrange, scored a decent enough hit, and the bolt locked back on the empty mag as designed, however the extractor went on it's own merry way to the FSM only knows where without so much as a "dear John" letter to the poor dejected bolt.













Yeah, it's gross.  That's 1,000+ rounds of .22lr worth of general crud, and to the benefit of the little Smith, it was still running great until the KB.

Ammo was Winchester Xpert22 bulk ammo.  I normally don't like un-washed .22lr, but it was free.  The round does have a firing pin mark.













I've sent an email to S&W, along with the pics, so we'll see what they've got to say.  All I really want is a new extractor so I can get it back out to the range.

I currently do not plan to sue.

For those of you just joining in (I still get visitors over from TFB at least every-other day): It's all been fixed, with a few updates stuck in.

7 comments:

Jennifer said...

Well that sucks. I'm sure they will get you taken care of though. Their customer service has been excellent when I've had to deal with them.

Fred said...

I've already got a response to my email, just gotta find a time I can call them (short-handed at work right now...) and get a shipping label sent out.

My hopes are high though, I can't recall ever seeing or hearing anything negative about S&W's customer service.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if there is a problem in the design or if we are just shooting these a lot more than our ARs because they are too much fun for too little money?

My 15-22 did at least 200 rounds this weekend without a hickup or an inadvertent bang.

Fred said...

I'm sure the number of rounds we're putting through them is a factor, I mean I'm not all that great with statistics (as I've mentioned in the past...) but I'm sure that putting 10 times as many rounds through is going to increase those chances of something going south.

I don't think it's a design issue however. Well, maybe they could figure out a way to make the extractor a little beefier (all the OOBs I've seen on them have blown out the extractor,) but I feel it's simply the nature of a rimfire cartridge. Exposed primer + extra dirty = more potential for OOB dets. (and not my mediocre cleaning kinda dirty, just .22lr auto-loaders in general.)

More on this later, I hear the mailman on the porch and there should be a couple boxes of 1911 bits in his hands....

Fred said...

Little update here for those interested.

I'll hopefully tear it apart and go over everything tomorrow after my classes and see what I can see.

Lenny said...

Interesting...This just happened to my son's 15-22 last weekend and he was using...Winchester Xpert22 ammo.

BIGinwv said...

Read page ten of the owners manual. S&W clearly states their recommendations on which ammunition to use and which ammunition NOT to use. I didn't see the Winchester Xpert22 listed but did notice a target load listed. Don't know if that that has anything to do with the malfunctions?