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One time a couple weeks ago I noticed that my friend was often stopping to clear her M&P .22 compact. I asked her what the problem was and it was FTE - not every round, but quite often. She had used Federal ammo and thought changing to CCI would make a difference, but it didn't.
Thinking it might have been a faulty extractor, I was going to tell her to phone S&W and send it back to be fixed, but I know that you need to do your own problem solving, so I told her to come over and we would give her gun a thorough cleaning.
OH MY........dirty doesn't describe it. She had been "cleaning" it but didn't really understand what thorough cleaning on those .22's means. There was the usual gunk built up at the end of the barrel, around the opening to the bore, and the corresponding area around the firing pin, but the barrel was really bad inside and everything else needed to be scrubbed vigorously with toothbrushes after going over all with dry patches. She tends to gently brush and I have to keep reminding her to put pressure on the brush and SCRUB.
The area around the extractor was also of particular interest. We had quite a pile of dirty tooth brushes when all was said and done. And then, of course, when we went over everything with a lightly oiled cloth a lot more black gunk came off.
End result was a pristine clean gun. The next time she took it out, she shot 40 or 50 rounds totally trouble free.
"A clean gun is a happy gun" is not just a cute saying. It is a reality. I told her she needs to give it a good cleaning after 100 rounds or less, which is about every other time she shoots it. And I also "mentioned" that it is good practice to clean a gun every time you shoot it. She is not a cleaning freak like I am, so might just do it every other time and that should be OK. Fact is no matter what kind of .22 ammo you use, it is dirty stuff, and the wax coating the various manufacturers use adds to the gunk build up.
It really does not take a lot of build up just inside the bore to make it a tiny bit tighter and have those brass casings stick like they are glued in when they expand!
Anyway, I'm happy that her gun is A-OK again.
Thinking it might have been a faulty extractor, I was going to tell her to phone S&W and send it back to be fixed, but I know that you need to do your own problem solving, so I told her to come over and we would give her gun a thorough cleaning.
OH MY........dirty doesn't describe it. She had been "cleaning" it but didn't really understand what thorough cleaning on those .22's means. There was the usual gunk built up at the end of the barrel, around the opening to the bore, and the corresponding area around the firing pin, but the barrel was really bad inside and everything else needed to be scrubbed vigorously with toothbrushes after going over all with dry patches. She tends to gently brush and I have to keep reminding her to put pressure on the brush and SCRUB.
The area around the extractor was also of particular interest. We had quite a pile of dirty tooth brushes when all was said and done. And then, of course, when we went over everything with a lightly oiled cloth a lot more black gunk came off.
End result was a pristine clean gun. The next time she took it out, she shot 40 or 50 rounds totally trouble free.
"A clean gun is a happy gun" is not just a cute saying. It is a reality. I told her she needs to give it a good cleaning after 100 rounds or less, which is about every other time she shoots it. And I also "mentioned" that it is good practice to clean a gun every time you shoot it. She is not a cleaning freak like I am, so might just do it every other time and that should be OK. Fact is no matter what kind of .22 ammo you use, it is dirty stuff, and the wax coating the various manufacturers use adds to the gunk build up.
It really does not take a lot of build up just inside the bore to make it a tiny bit tighter and have those brass casings stick like they are glued in when they expand!
Anyway, I'm happy that her gun is A-OK again.