Cold and Windy Today

so I decided to do some shooting in the shop on my indoor rimfire range. I had a box of .22 rimfires that I picked up on the range over the last 3 or 4 years. These were unfired .22's that had not been tried and discarded. Just apparently dropped. I pick them up whenever I see them and toss them in a box. I had over 100 and thought this would be a good day to use them up.

Using my old Single Six Ruger, I set up to shoot about 15 feet at a dime-size spot. What I was practicing was pulling the gun, catching the front sight and trying to hit the little spot. I was not working for speed, just consistency.

Somewhere into this exercise .. not sure how many I had fired .. I loaded the gun, stepped into place, pulled it, thumbed the hammer back and pulled the trigger. At the shot there was quite a bit of smoke out around the back of the cylinder and I felt a gas blast hit my left (supporting) hand. It did not hurt .. I was just aware of it. I continued shooting the remaining rounds, then unloaded the gun and found this:

I thought I blown a case head. I don't think I ever had one split almost full length. Anyway, nothing was hurt and I just kept on shooting.

Every once in awhile I would have a round or two that failed to fire and I would toss it in a pile by themselves.

At one point I was doing some fairly rapid shooting and into the string I pulled the trigger and heard a "pifffle' and saw smoke from out of the cylinder gap.

I was in control enough to stop. I pulled the cylinder and sure enough, the barrel was plugged. I got a rod and pushed it down the bore. The bullet was in the breech end of the barrel, just past the throat. It had not obturated and was easy to push out.

It was an old Stinger. I had several of these that just barely got to the target.

I fired .. or tried firing all the ammo I had picked up. About 10 or 15 of them would not fire. I ended the session by shooting 1 .22 WRF and 3 .22 WRM's that I had found.

Checking the sixgun I found it quite clean and other than pushing a brush through the chambers and wiping it down, I left it alone for next time.

Some recovered WRM bullets.