Just how reliable is a 22lr pistol?
Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2021 4:54 pm
Last night I finally got around to cleaning my Bersa Thunder 22lr pistol. I love this little pistol and my son and I shoot it a lot at the farm. I finally got around to cleaning it last night after about a year and installed a new recoil spring. Normally I just wipe down the outside with oily rag and squirt some lube onto extractor, internals and rails when I finishing for the day.
In last 6-8 months we had fired one 500 round box of Federal bulk ammo, 500 rounds of Remington bulk ammo and one 555 round box of Winchester bulk ammo...plus some CCI Minimag Solid, Minimag HP and CCI Velocitor. I kept a record of every failure I had with this pistol during that time on my phone and here is what I found:
Federal bulk - 2 FTE, 1 FTF out of 500 rounds
Remington - 3 FTE, 2 FTF out of 500 rounds
Winchester - 9 FTE, 6 FTE out of 555 rounds
CCI All type - Zero failure of any kind out of about 200 rounds
That Winchester 555 bulk ammo was obviously under powered compared to Federal and Remington based on muzzle blast and felt recoil.
I guess about 1% failure is to be expected from Federal and Remington bulk ammo but I'm not surprised by zero failure with CCI ammo. I have seen CCI Minimag go about thousand rounds in my Ruger 10/22 with no failure of any kind years ago.
Recently my son discovered my Ruger Mk3 auto so he's starting to shoot that pistol a lot so I started keeping records for it. So far it's only fired about 100 rounds of Remington bulk ammo and so far zero failure. We'll see how reliable it is as it gets dirty.
In last 6-8 months we had fired one 500 round box of Federal bulk ammo, 500 rounds of Remington bulk ammo and one 555 round box of Winchester bulk ammo...plus some CCI Minimag Solid, Minimag HP and CCI Velocitor. I kept a record of every failure I had with this pistol during that time on my phone and here is what I found:
Federal bulk - 2 FTE, 1 FTF out of 500 rounds
Remington - 3 FTE, 2 FTF out of 500 rounds
Winchester - 9 FTE, 6 FTE out of 555 rounds
CCI All type - Zero failure of any kind out of about 200 rounds
That Winchester 555 bulk ammo was obviously under powered compared to Federal and Remington based on muzzle blast and felt recoil.
I guess about 1% failure is to be expected from Federal and Remington bulk ammo but I'm not surprised by zero failure with CCI ammo. I have seen CCI Minimag go about thousand rounds in my Ruger 10/22 with no failure of any kind years ago.
Recently my son discovered my Ruger Mk3 auto so he's starting to shoot that pistol a lot so I started keeping records for it. So far it's only fired about 100 rounds of Remington bulk ammo and so far zero failure. We'll see how reliable it is as it gets dirty.