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Had a few rounds explode in my Ruger SR22 pistol.

Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:41 pm
by SickSilverado
At first we had a few casings fail to eject. I believe the first was a cci minimag, the next few were winchester vermin super x (something like that). I took the gun apart and tapped out the brass with a brass rod. Cleaned the gun and lubed with Rem oil. Then this one time I put in a fresh mag and the first shot goes off fine, the second appeared to have gone off in the gun. Blew smoke from ejection port and hit me in the face with something(I was wearing glasses). Turns out it blew the back of the casing out. I disassemble and clean and try again. Samething except this time it blew apart the bullet nose on the following round too. I believe the last 2 rounds may have been cci velocitors. I gave it a thorough clean this time and used Ballistol. Made sure I loaded only minimags. Everything works like normal. Not sure what it was, but I for sure got blasted in the face twice. Any idea what I may have done to cause this? Gun is stock and cleaned after every use. Has maybe 2000 rounds through it. After about 80-100 rounds we usually start having FTE's but today it started around 50 or 60.

Re: Had a few rounds explode in my Ruger SR22 pistol.

Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:45 pm
by Greybeard
Ruger customer service needs to know about that.

Re: Had a few rounds explode in my Ruger SR22 pistol.

Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:51 pm
by Middle Age Russ
I can't speak specifically to the chamber dimensions of the SR22, but some 22LR chambers are not meant to handle the so-called Hyper velocity ammo. The overall dimension of the cartridges aren't really different, but the hyoper-velocity cases are a bit longer. Brass case over lead projectile will not deform into the leade or rifling as readily as just the lead projectile, so you end up with cases that don't want to seat fully in the chamber, or don't want to extract, as well as overpressure situations. If the gun handles standard velocity (SV) and High Velocity (HV) rounds OK, I just wouldn't use the hyper-velocity ammo in that gun.

Re: Had a few rounds explode in my Ruger SR22 pistol.

Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2019 7:18 pm
by SickSilverado
20190331_152235.jpg

Re: Had a few rounds explode in my Ruger SR22 pistol.

Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2019 7:23 pm
by SickSilverado
20190331_152238.jpg

Re: Had a few rounds explode in my Ruger SR22 pistol.

Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2019 5:06 am
by boxermoose
Looks like an out of battery detonation issue.

Usual suspect is a sticky or broken firing pin. Send the picks to Ruger and get a RMA authorization to return it for inspection

Re: Had a few rounds explode in my Ruger SR22 pistol.

Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2019 3:54 pm
by Grumpy1993
Greybeard wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:45 pm Ruger customer service needs to know about that.
Doesn't Ruger customer service recommend against hypervelocity ammunition?

Re: Had a few rounds explode in my Ruger SR22 pistol.

Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2019 4:52 pm
by DocV
Grumpy1993 wrote: Mon Apr 01, 2019 3:54 pm
Greybeard wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:45 pm Ruger customer service needs to know about that.
Doesn't Ruger customer service recommend against hypervelocity ammunition?
The SR-22 that I found online says high-velocity is okay. I did not find a recommendation against hyper velocity ammo.

Re: Had a few rounds explode in my Ruger SR22 pistol.

Posted: Tue Apr 02, 2019 11:50 am
by jmorris
Manual says not to only when using a suppressor but quite a few posts on the Ruger forum advise against it.

Re: Had a few rounds explode in my Ruger SR22 pistol.

Posted: Tue Apr 02, 2019 1:42 pm
by Maxwell
:iagree:
Greybeard wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:45 pm Ruger customer service needs to know about that.
:iagree:

Re: Had a few rounds explode in my Ruger SR22 pistol.

Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2019 5:34 pm
by SickSilverado
I probably misread, but I thought there were guys having trouble with standard velocity rounds not cycling the pistol. That's why I went with mini mags. Plus mini mags are always in stock here, SV is not as popular.

Re: Had a few rounds explode in my Ruger SR22 pistol.

Posted: Thu Sep 05, 2019 7:27 am
by SickSilverado
Just wanted to post the conclusion to this. Ruger replaced my barrel, extractor, and slide. I inspected the gun before shipping it to them and it looks like there was an indentation made on the chamber from dry firing. Guessing that's reason the casings fit so tight in the chamber. No more dry fires without snapcaps for me.

Re: Had a few rounds explode in my Ruger SR22 pistol.

Posted: Thu Sep 05, 2019 11:25 am
by K.Mooneyham
Grumpy1993 wrote: Mon Apr 01, 2019 3:54 pm
Greybeard wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:45 pm Ruger customer service needs to know about that.
Doesn't Ruger customer service recommend against hypervelocity ammunition?
Though the OP got the problem fixed, I wanted to post this for anyone who might search this forum and think that the SR22 can't handle hypervelocity ammuntion. Here is the info from the SR22 manual itself:
The RUGER® SR22® pistols are compatible with all factory ammunition of the correct caliber loaded to U.S. Industry Standards, including high-velocity and hollow-point loads. However, sub-sonic or match-grade ammunition may not have sufficient energy to cycle the slide. If you find that the slide does not cycle fully, try another brand of ammunition.
It doesn't specifically mention the word "hypervelocity" but, OTOH, only cautions against ammunition that might be too WEAK to cycle the slide. I'm not a lawyer or a gunsmith, and YMMV, but Ruger is pretty good about warning customers about ammunition they don't want you to use.

Re: Had a few rounds explode in my Ruger SR22 pistol.

Posted: Thu Sep 05, 2019 9:28 pm
by SickSilverado
Ruger included a paper stating that they test fired it with 100 rounds of CCI MINI MAG and I believe Aguila super extra before shipping it back to me.