Half moon smoked 22 rimfire cases

[Tokarev]

I had this Marlin 981 with microgroove barrel for over 6 years and the last 2-3 times I shot her, the extracted cases had crescent smoked area on one outer side of the case. The smoked area grew larger last time compared to the 2nd last., it's about 1/3 of the case length and 1/3 of the circumference of the case. This rifle knows almost exclusively Remington Thunderbolt ammo, at least for the last 5 years.

[mrbill2]

I wouldn't think you have a problem with your gun. I've had this happen to me. Turns out that I had some bad brick of ammo. This will happen when the powder or primer might be a little on the short side or the brass is too hard to seal the case in the chamber. Try some diffrent ammo and see if the problem goes away.

[Bren R.]

Remington has had serious QA problems for more years than I care to remember.

Golden Bullet, Thunderbolt, Rem Target... I've had more dead primers, undersized bullets and case problems with Remington than all other manufacturers combined... including Winchester T22s which have also shown problematic priming.

I stick to Federal Gold Medal in my pistols, my 10/22 likes Winchester Super-X PowerPoint hollowpoints, and the target rifles get fed either Lapua or SK ammo.

The extra expense far outweighs the frustration to me.

Bren R.

[Tokarev]

Indeed, better quality ammo has just a hint of smoking in that area.
CCI standard velocity 40gr is just a bit greyish at the crimp, whereas Rem Thunderbolt was blackened as I described above.
And the accuracy with CCI is about 2-3x better at 50 yards than with Rem at 40.

Shame on Remington!

[35remington]

I'm sorry you wasted 5 years on such poor ammo, but at least you know better now.

[Tokarev]

Rem wasn't that bad 5 years ago.

[35remington]

Mine certainly was. For example, I quit Remington subsonics for the very reasons outlined above.....squibs, inconsistent velocities, and the fact that the hollowpoints really didn't open on game. Remington Golden Bullets would regularly have 8 to 10 duds per 500.

Wet phone books the subsonic would expand upon. Tree squirrels and other such animals, no. Had a number of misfires on hunts as well.

Remington has been low quality for longer than five years. You're just a little late to the party. You may have got some lots that were okay, but getting a bad one was just a matter of time. QC there is pretty much as spotty as it gets.

[EMC45]

Remington rimfire is pretty junky. Golden Bullets and Thunderduds. For all the reasons mentioned above. I like CCI Blazer .22LR.

[uscra112]

Rem wasn't that bad 5 years ago.

Oh, yes it was. I've been intensively weight-sorting and modifying various cheap ammo for a couple of months now, out of curiosity. Started with several bricks of Thunderbolt, some of which I bought back in the Clinton administration, when I didn't know any better. Weight variance is horrible, no matter what vintage I pick. I generally can get three groups that vary no more than +/-0.2 grains within a group, but 20% of it is beyond even that, and the lightest group may center more than 0.5 grains from the middle group. Lightest to heaviest will be 3 grains in some boxes of 100. (Remember that the whole cartridge only weighs about 50 grains.)

I've got bricks with bullet diameter .2235 to .2245, but I've got one whole brick that's more like .226" - so large it won't even chamber in some of my guns.

I'm a retired automotive process control gaging guy - that's why this is so interesting. The weight variance patterns alone tell me that Remington's process control on bullet weight alone is practically non-existent, and has been for at least 20 years. One can infer that their control of brass hardness is probably no better. Never mind priming, charge weight, crimp uniformity, lube application, straightness, knurling uniformity, and-and-and.

(Just for comparison, Mini Mags will yield 95% or so inside ONE group having variance +/-0.2 grains, and the few outliers will be only 0.1 or 0.2 grains too heavy or too light to be included. Wolf Match will be 100% within +/-0.1 grain, and when I get to Eley match grades I can't measure the weight variance - my scale only resolves to 0.1 grain.)

[Tokarev]

You are right no money re brass quality. I used to make 8mm Lebel revolver cases from 32-20 rem brass and it was so brittle, that shortening was a royal PITA, then after 3-4 firing they would split. Switched to Win then Starline and no issues whatsoever.

Can't comment anything about Rem bullets as I don't remember every buying factory bullets/ammo other than 22 t-bolt made by them.

However in this particular Marlin 981T it's just that last brick I bought that smoked the cases and printed large 3" groups at 50 yards, the previous stockpile of Rem t-bolt that I bought 5 years ago was quite all right.

I tried the Mini-mags last weekend. They have lots of lube and are hard to chamber by hand one at a time, but feed all right from the magazine. Their trajectory is 3" flatter than CCI standard velocity and groups about the same size. Next weekend I will be trying high velocity, the long barrel should let them perform just fine IMHO.