out of battery?

[Anser anser]

Havig decided to take this Ar-15 gifted to me in .22rf out for a wee zeroing session i had a bit of a surprise. It stove piped on some subsonics--no surprise there, but---on changing to standard velocity CCI rounds i got an ear ringing shocker. Now i have never used semi auto rifles. i always used bolt or on one occasion i owned a remington pump .22rf that accounted for numerous bunnies. This bremmer ar-15 is not my cup of tea but i thought i may as well have a day out with it since im selling. The pics tell the story. I remember the lad that owned it said he had changed the trigger spring as he had a big badda boom experience. I thought no more of that until i had the gun out. If its out of battery in these pics im pondering why. Anyways ive stripped and scrubbed out the chamber and cleaned al that can be cleaned .Still--im not comfortable .Anyone had this happen with a rimfire?If its a feed issue id suspect these plastic magazines but thats supposition not based on anything else.The strike on the rim is acceptable so i dunno how it could be out of battery yet still have a good indent. Rounds do /did drop in the chamber with a gentle push perhaps it was just a clogged up dirty chamber .Anyways ,another reason to go for bolt action i reckon. btw it was a thin slit on the brass, i had to pry the cased out of the chamber hence its a wider gouge on the case than it was originally after the round was fired off

 

[Donkey Basher]

I’d be looking at the bolt group & firing pin to see if it’s sticking out of the bolt face. I’d also be looking at the trigger to see why the firing pin has not been held back as the bolt group goes forward as that looks as if it was a slam fire.

 

[Anser anser]

no slam fire, happened when trigger pulled only. Pin sitting well back in place.

 

[Donkey Basher]

These are quite old bits of kit now so given you’ve confirmed it wasn't a slam fire I’d be thinking either a weak recoil spring that’s not pushing the bolt all the way home, or, wear/play in either the bolt guide of the bolt itself that’s allowing it to skew/jam as it is pushed home, or, a combination of both. That said, the fact that the bolt is far enough forward to allow the hammer to strike the end of the firing pin is a concern. If it were mine I’d get it consigned to an auction ‘sold as seen’.

 

[Jim Hutton]

Never seen a 22rf fail like that and I have shot thousands of 22rf rounds. Manufacture problem with a thin and Fatigued brass maybe.

 

[gixer1]

I’ve seen this in a semi-auto that was extremely poorly maintained and dirty.

Worth stripping the whole thing and scrubbing it all clean, lubing it and then test it again.

Smith and Wesson MP 15-22’s had an issue with out of battery detonation, and many were recalled to have the bolt changed.

Regards,
Gixer

 

[finnbear270]

I’ve seen this in a semi-auto that was extremely poorly maintained and dirty.

Worth stripping the whole thing and scrubbing it all clean, lubing it and then test it again.

Smith and Wesson MP 15-22’s had an issue with out of battery detonation, and many were recalled to have the bolt changed.

Regards,
Gixer

Gix, "Anyways ive stripped and scrubbed out the chamber and cleaned al that can be cleaned" OP.

 

[Anser anser]

These are quite old bits of kit now so given you’ve confirmed it wasn't a slam fire I’d be thinking either a weak recoil spring that’s not pushing the bolt all the way home, or, wear/play in either the bolt guide of the bolt itself that’s allowing it to skew/jam as it is pushed home, or, a combination of both. That said, the fact that the bolt is far enough forward to allow the hammer to strike the end of the firing pin is a concern. If it were mine I’d get it consigned to an auction ‘sold as seen’.

It's good and solid where it needs to be. Shows no wear and slides with no movement other than what it's designed to

 

[finnbear270]

Have you looked to see if any carbon ring buildup?, may sound daft, but what else could prevent correct cartridge chamberering?

 

[Anser anser]

Some bullet heads can be slightly over sized in told in the .22 rf.just another possibility

Have you looked to see if any carbon ring buildup?, may sound daft, but what else could prevent correct cartridge chamberering?

 

[gixer1]

Gix, "Anyways ive stripped and scrubbed out the chamber and cleaned al that can be cleaned" OP.

Sometimes a deeper clean is needed. Some 22’s are tight chamberings and using different types of ammunition can cause an issue - I tried some CCI in a CZ LRP and it was not happy to chamber at all.

 

[M@tt]

This happened occasionally with some rimfires, and funnily enough I've seen it a lot with Bremmers.

We videoed a rifle shooting about 20yrs ago and managed to catch it doing this. This was before we had the fancy slomo cameras of today.

When firing fast the round didn't seem to have time to fully enter the chamber and the bolt hadn't fully closed before it detonated. it appeared the cartridge was getting stuck just out of battery and the rim must have been squashed enough to ignite the charge.

It happened a lot with eley ammo available at the time, so much so that we spoke to eley and the guy there said eley don't make a semi-auto round, despite the boxes we had being called Semi-auto Match (in his defence, they were on sale for a very short while and had since been withdrawn).

 

[robgal]

Sometimes a deeper clean is needed. Some 22’s are tight chamberings and using different types of ammunition can cause an issue - I tried some CCI in a CZ LRP and it was not happy to chamber at all.

I have a CZ452 and it will not chamber CCI subs, far too tight

 

[Anser anser]

I have a CZ452 and it will not chamber CCI subs, far too tight

i read a fair amount on some .22rf bullets simply being too fat especially the banded to chamber in some guns---id be happy if its this simple a solution but finding out if other rounds chamber 100% of the time will require a long piece of string

 

[MarinePMI]

Bolt bounce most likely. (Bolt hits the breech, firing pin slams into the case as the bolt bounces off the breech; then you have an unsupported case head as the powder ignites).

What's the pressure on the bolt (when it's in battery) feel like?

 

[Faust]

Havig decided to take this Ar-15 gifted to me in .22rf out for a wee zeroing session i had a bit of a surprise. It stove piped on some subsonics--no surprise there, but---on changing to standard velocity CCI rounds i got an ear ringing shocker. Now i have never used semi auto rifles. i always used bolt or on one occasion i owned a remington pump .22rf that accounted for numerous bunnies. This bremmer ar-15 is not my cup of tea but i thought i may as well have a day out with it since im selling. The pics tell the story. I remember the lad that owned it said he had changed the trigger spring as he had a big badda boom experience. I thought no more of that until i had the gun out. If its out of battery in these pics im pondering why. Anyways ive stripped and scrubbed out the chamber and cleaned al that can be cleaned .Still--im not comfortable .Anyone had this happen with a rimfire?If its a feed issue id suspect these plastic magazines but thats supposition not based on anything else.The strike on the rim is acceptable so i dunno how it could be out of battery yet still have a good indent. Rounds do /did drop in the chamber with a gentle push perhaps it was just a clogged up dirty chamber .Anyways ,another reason to go for bolt action i reckon. btw it was a thin slit on the brass, i had to pry the cased out of the chamber hence its a wider gouge on the case than it was originally after the round was fired offView attachment 451820View attachment 451821

I had a similar experience with a Winchester 42g sub sonic 22lr in my CZ455 varmint. Cycled the bolt, target the bunny, squeeze the trigger and OMG an almighty report with smoke wafting around the breach and magazine. The casing ejected ok. On inspection the cartridge case had split in a similar manner. It had never happened before and hasn't happened since that one time. An inspection of the rifle reveal no cause or damage So the reason was put down to a faulty round.

 

[MarinePMI]

I had a similar experience with a Winchester 42g sub sonic 22lr in my CZ455 varmint. Cycled the bolt, target the bunny, squeeze the trigger and OMG an almighty report with smoke wafting around the breach and magazine. The casing ejected ok. On inspection the cartridge case had split in a similar manner. It had never happened before and hasn't happened since that one time. An inspection of the rifle reveal no cause or damage So the reason was put down to a faulty round.

Hmmm...what you're describing sounds like a bad round. By that I mean, a case that had an overage of priming compound in the rim. It happens occasionally, but is pretty rare in decently made ammunition.

That or an over annealed case (rim becomes too soft). Again, rare. But humans run the machines, so anything is possible.

 

[rarms]

I had the same thing a couple of times with a V22 maybe 15 years ago. That was a .22 AR15 style rifle too.

I think mine was down to the original owner 'lightening' the hammer. He has made the front face concave in an effort to lose weight, and it appeared that the part that contacted the firing pin could do so without the rest of the hammer that would normally stop it doing so.

Somewhat disconcerting, and remember to check the barrel for obstruction as I'm sure it left a slug in the barrel once due to that

 

[moeggesit]

Had the same a few years ago in three different rifles a few weeks apart. 2 were Ruger 10-22 and the other a Walther semi auto. Hundreds of thousands and only those instances and all around the same time with different batches of ammo.

Semi auto is supposed to have a safety to prevent out of battery firing but sometimes it’s not working and sometimes set incorrectly.

Pull the bolt back slightly and see if it fires (without ammo )

 

[Smellydog]

Many an auto is fiddled with in an attempt to get it to cycle sub sonic ammo, some end up where the hammer can hit the firing pin out of battery.
Crud on the bolt face potentially could increase head space so that the rim is less supported. As the rim lets go it forces the bolt open more and then allows more of the case to blow out.
Other than that it's a **** design...