Federal .22lr tons of near squibs?

[Higgins909]

I have a box of Federal .22lr 36 grain CP HP 1260fps. 550 red box. Lot 14E120 Load no. 790. I've maybe shot 200 rounds out of it. My first hundred or so I was having bad "primers" every other magazine. I went to the range for the first time in quite a few months and I was having a puff of blue smoke come out of the barrel and very little or next to no recoil. Don't remember if there was much sound. I was like this must be a squib as I never had one. So I field strip it to look down the barrel and see nothing other then it looking quite dirty. Out of maybe 4 10rnd magazines this happened 7~ times. I eventually gave up and went to try out some CCI mini mags I bought. They worked fine, in my Ruger Mark IV.

Is this just junk ammo?
Higgins909

 

[Moonpie]

It is junk.
Been a problem for years.
I refuse to purchase it.
CCI mini-mags work great in everything I have so they are always first choice.
The cheap bulk stuff works okay in manually cycled firearms if there is nothing else.

 

[Dawico]

22lr bulk packs seem to fit the mantra that you get what you pay for.

The more expensive bulk packs seem to have less issues than their cheaper counterparts. Spend even more to get into 50 or 100 round packs and the ammo is even better.

I have some of those red and black Federal bulk packs but haven't fired any yet. I hope mine aren't as bad as your experience.

 

[Higgins909]

Someone told me I should talk to Federal about it and they might make it worth it. Do you think they will do anything?

 

[Sam Colt]

Define “do anything.”

 

[Vaquero]

I've had excellent results from federal blue box bulk.

 

[Dawico]

I've had excellent results from federal blue box bulk.

Yes, those have been fine for me as well.

 

[Dawico]

Someone told me I should talk to Federal about it and they might make it worth it. Do you think they will do anything?

Worth a try.

 

[popper]

Shot a bunch of fed. Automatch today, no problems. Rem bulk is junk IMHO. Yrs ago I heard the match guys would buy by the palet and give the outside boxes away as they got too many cracked primer rings.

 

[robertc1024]

I've had excellent results from federal blue box bulk.

Likewise. My only bad experience was with Winchester - some 500+ white box brick.