Ive been a gun crank as long as i can remember. also as long as i can remember i have heard that the rimfire is not as reliable as center-fire. heel bullets could allow moisture into the powder charge ect. ive had 3 failure to fire round in all my shooting. 1 12ga shotgun shell ( broken firing pin) 2 458 win mag (same lot#). So how many of you have had rimfire trouble. with the 1000s of rounds through my single six am i just abnormally lucky?

With rim fire it is 100% the ammo you use(with a little falling on the firearm i.e. to light of a strike and where it hits the rim( bottom vs top etc. since hitting the primer at the bottom helps reliability according to some people))

CCI prob 1 failure in 5k
Remington Thunderbolts 20-30 per 500 especially in semi autos since revolvers hit the primer area harder imo.

As MrChaos posted, it is absolutely a function of the quality of ammo first, and the gun second. I cannot recall whether I have ever had a misfire with Minimags with any gun, but something like the bulk pack "golden bullets" from Wally World, it is normal and expected. And it is not moisture but mostly the quality and quantity of the priming compound in the rim. About half of the clicks I get with a dud will fire if the bullet is ejected and reseated with a different rim position under the FP.

You are not abnormally lucky, but I bet you don't shoot the cheap stuff ;^)

Craig

I would tend to agree. I have had Winchester white box bulk, 10 boxes of 50 per brick, that FTF often in my 10/22 and 22/45 but fire fine in my Contender barrel.

While it is true that the major contributing factor is the priming compound you will find more misfires with older guns with worn firing pins or weak striker springs. Rimfires seem more sensitive to pressure than a centerfire primer. I've had mixed results with ammo, the Federal bulk packs are ballistically identical to the CCI mini mags and in my opinion are one in the same with the only difference being the "F" instead of the "C" on the back. I base this on chrono and accuracy testing as well as the fact that CCI is made by Federal. I've had the worst luck with the cheaper ammo like Remington and Winchester.

I had a Marlin model 60 and had bought some federal .22 ammo ,somewhere around twenty years ago and had probably 30 or so out of the 50 round box that wouldn't fire,I 've never experienced anything like this since so I just wonder if there was a screw up at the factory and just got a bad batch?-john

A lot of failures on rimfires is caused by the bullet not being fully seated in my experience. Usually a quick chamber cleaning will solve those problems.

I've had the priming compound "migrate" on rimfire ammo that was exposed to extreme heat. During a move once, I inadvertently left a few thousand rounds stored in an outdoor storage building for a year or more.

When I encountered a disproportionate number of the dud rounds associated with that batch, I found that if I rotated the struck rounds 180 degrees, they would fire 100% of the time. Lesson learned .....