Split .22LR cases

babun

Just took out the cheapie Rohm SA six shooter .22LR pistol yesterday and had troubles.
Was shooting remington .22lr Yellowjackets, {33 grain at 1400fps=nice hot loading for the .22}, No troubles, cases fell out or pushed out easy with the ejector rod.

Then loaded up some CCI #12 birdshot shells to hunt the copperhead snakes.
Every one of the nickle cases split length wise from the rim to almost the mouth .
:shock: :shock:
Cases stuck in chambers, had to use a little force to push them out.

Now this gun is not the best thing made and I noticed the chambers in the cylinder are somewhat large for the .22lr's, but no trouble with the high pressure Yellowjackets,
just the shot shells.
Now the shot shells are about 7 years old, but I've shot .22's 10 times older than that and didn't have splits.
Never used these CCi's in another gun before, so I shot 3 thru a friend's S&W revolver---
No splitting but the cases looked like they were almost going to.
Could it be a combination of larger chambers and brittle cases together??

Rocky Raab

I think you analyzed it correctly. Nickel cases ARE brittle, and in an oversize chamber...

truthful

Nickle plated cases are kinda the fad-of-the-day but it is not all that uncommon for them to split or have cracked case mouths when plain brass cases with the same history and load do not.

Rocky Raab

If the anecdotes are true, nickel plating of cartridges came about back in the day when cops carried .38 Special ammo in looped cartridges belts. That ammo virtually never got used or even taken out of the loops, and the tanned leather caused brass cartridges to develop ugly green corrosion, which eventually prevented those rounds from chambering. Plating solved that.

remingtonoaks

Did you buy the gun used? If you did are you sure that it doesn't have a 22 magnum cylinder? I had bought a Ruger SA 22lr that was said to be a 22 lr, but it did the same thing as you described. I then looked over the cylinder and it did say 22 magnum. Because this is the cheaper brand, it may not be marked. To me, it sounds like maybe it has a 22 magnum cylinder.

To test this, take a 22 magnum ammo and insert it in the cylinder, if it's seats all the way down then you know it's a 22 magnum cylinder, because a 22 magnum will not seat all the way down in cylinder

Let us know what you figure out if you would please. I'm curious to know to

rufesnow

remingtonoaks wrote:

Did you buy the gun used? If you did are you sure that it doesn't have a 22 magnum cylinder? I had bought a Ruger SA 22lr that was said to be a 22 lr, but it did the same thing as you described. I then looked over the cylinder and it did say 22 magnum. Because this is the cheaper brand, it may not be marked. To me, it sounds like maybe it has a 22 magnum cylinder.

To test this, take a 22 magnum ammo and insert it in the cylinder, if it's seats all the way down then you know it's a 22 magnum cylinder, because a 22 magnum will not seat all the way down in cylinder

Let us know what you figure out if you would please. I'm curious to know to

+1,


Other than the length. Main dimensional difference between 22 LR and 22 Mag, is the diameter. Between .015 & .020.


SOP for the shade tree gunsmiths. Is to drill out the cylinder and extractor star, if it's long enough. So that 22 Mags will function.

Scoff if you want to, but folks do it. I ran into a guy at a local gun show. Who was selling, a Colt Officers Model Match target revolver. He quite honestly told me, that it had been converted to 22 mag. In the above fashion. Couldn't hardly believe it.

remingtonoaks

Also, I just checked, and I don't know if it will work. But if it has a Bubba gunsmith conversion done to it, Heritage arms offers 22 long rifle cylinders for their SA 22 pistols for about $29, again, I don't know if it would fit or lineup line up properly with your firearm, but.... You may want to check to see if their cylinder will work with your firearm...

babun

That .22MAG was the first thing I was worried about.
Tried to put a .22 mag into the cylinder, won't even start to go into it.

I think the cylinder just has oversize holes===It is a $125 gun.
I'm afraid to put my $300 set of inside ball micrometers into it. May not like what I see.
Yesterday we tried the nickle .22shotshells in another cheapie gun, a Chiappia {sp?} copy of the colt six shooter. No splits, but differently close to splitting.

May find some old style Winchester .22 shot shells made of brass to "cure" it.

charliemeyer007

$12.50 is more in line with the quality of that brand of 'gun'. The old 22 shot with the folded crimp were not loaded very hot by today's standards. You might try some standard speed loads. I agree nickel cases are weaker for reloading purposes.

babun

charliemeyer007 wrote:

$12.50 is more in line with the quality of that brand of 'gun'. The old 22 shot with the folded crimp were not loaded very hot by today's standards. You might try some standard speed loads. I agree nickel cases are weaker for reloading purposes.

Winchester and Federal crimped all brass shotshells contain less of the #12 shot than the CCI's, which are more common.
Why would I try standard speed loads??? All shotshell .22's are loaded each to one level only. No high speed or std speeds.
The gun handles hot .22lr loads with on troubles. Only the nickle cases break.
I don't reload for the .22lr.
But if you think about it, almost all ammo makers sell their Highest performance ammo in nickle cases.