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Why is it so hard to have a 100% reliable bolt 22lr?

K

Kevin1

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Full Member
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Apr 26, 2011
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Allen, TX, USA
I saw many recent posts complaining about the reliability of some of the bolt 22lrs.
I have/had many bolt 22lrs. All of them (except one brand) were more or less plagued with feeding/extraction issues.


Savage: I had a Mark2 G. It functioned perfectly for the first few thousands rounds, but then started having ejection issues with some ammo (copper plated ammo was ejecting fine).

Anschutz: They feed well but are notorious for week ejections. My latest 1710 works pretty well though.

CZ custom with cone breech: Bullet can sometimes hit the breech and not feed. The gun has perfect extraction.

Vudoo: This is a complete rifle with a KRG chassis purchased new. It works ok with center X. But even then, I get around 5% of FTF. For some reason, sometimes the round hits the breech, is deformed and doesn’t feed. I have to remove the mag to clear the round. I’ve tried to follow the video instructions on how to load the mag, but I still have the FTF issue. The extraction has always been 100%.

CZ factory: I have/had a few CZs (452, 455, 513). ALL have 100% perfect feeding and ejection!


I don’t compete and can live with some ejection/extraction issues, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why is it so complicated to have a 100% reliable 22lr bolt gun. In my personal experience CZ seems to be the only manufacturer that has figured this out.
 
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Remington 37’s, and Winchester 52’s have ran flawlessly for me.
 
others will chime in

i have a vudoo in a AIAX chassis and between my 10 and 12 year old plus myself we have put thousands of rounds through it, no feeding issues what so ever

used
center x
midas
sk
rws
wolf

i can say that some ammo is harder to close the bolt on, but it is brand dependent
 
My Vudoo’s fed flawlessly as well. I only ran a couple thousand rounds through the three of them in total. Not a real test but sure cannot criticize them. Wonderful rifles.
 
Kevin1 said:
I saw many recent posts complaining about the reliability of some of the bolt 22lrs.
I have/had many bolt 22lrs. All of them (except one brand) were more or less plagued with feeding/extraction issues.


Savage: I had a Mark2 G. It functioned perfectly for the first few thousands rounds, but then started having ejection issues with some ammo (copper plated ammo was ejecting fine).

Anschutz: They feed well but are notorious for week ejections. My latest 1710 works pretty well though.

CZ custom with cone breech: Bullet can sometimes hit the breech and not feed. The gun has perfect extraction.

Vudoo: This is a complete rifle with a KRG chassis purchased new. It works ok with center X. But even then, I get around 5% of FTF. For some reason, sometimes the round hits the breech, is deformed and doesn’t feed. I have to remove the mag to clear the round. I’ve tried to follow the video instructions on how to load the mag, but I still have the FTF issue. The extraction has always been 100%.

CZ factory: I have/had a few CZs (452, 455, 513). ALL have 100% perfect feeding and ejection!


I don’t compete and can live with some ejection/extraction issues, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why is it so complicated to have a 100% reliable 22lr bolt gun. In my personal experience CZ seems to be the only manufacturer that has figured this out.
Click to expand...

How new is your Vudoo? There was an issue with a batch of magazines where the factory incorrectly screwed with the mold dimensions causing the rounds to not lift properly and jam. My Vudoo was like this, after replacing the mags it has fed flawlessly - assuming it's not user error like me short stroking the bolt.

But the barrel/action I've never heard issues with on the Vudoo, only the issue with the mags recently. Aluminum mags have never had issues that I've seen/encountered.

The biggest plus is Vudoo will support and take care of you. My Tikka had issues, and Beretta's could never resolve it. And it was a pain to try to talk with them.
 
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Montgomery Wards sold one for under $50 55 years ago.
 
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not sure what you are asking is humanly possible besides death and taxes I can't think of much that is 100% guaranteed to work 100% of the time for ever thought that vortex warranty is pretty close at least as long as the company is still around . What you want vrs what can you afford . everything is made to break now a days .
 
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littlepod said:
How new is your Vudoo? There was an issue with a batch of magazines where the factory incorrectly screwed with the mold dimensions causing the rounds to not lift properly and jam. My Vudoo was like this, after replacing the mags it has fed flawlessly - assuming it's not user error like me short stroking the bolt.

But the barrel/action I've never heard issues with on the Vudoo, only the issue with the mags recently. Aluminum mags have never had issues that I've seen/encountered.

The biggest plus is Vudoo will support and take care of you. My Tikka had issues, and Beretta's could never resolve it. And it was a pain to try to talk with them.
Click to expand...

I know that you need a special follower for Eley ammo to work, but didn't know about the dimension issue. Is there a way for me to identify if my magazine (I only have one) is part of a defective batch? FYI, as mentioned earlier, the gun was shipped in 2/2020.
 
Kevin1 said:
I know that you need a special follower for Eley ammo to work, but didn't know about the dimension issue. Is there a way for me to identify if my magazine (I only have one) is part of a defective batch? FYI, as mentioned earlier, the gun was shipped in 2/2020.
Click to expand...

So you got your Vudoo when I got mine. Yes if you're having issues with your Vudoo feeding it is most likley due to the polymer magazine batch. There was an issue with the factory that made a batch of magazines where the mold got mucked with. @RAVAGE88

My friend, his friend, and my own all got Vudoo's in March 320x serial #'s and the polymer magazine we got had issues. Does it look like this?

1599178824357.png
 
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littlepod said:
So you got your Vudoo when I got mine. Yes if you're having issues with your Vudoo feeding it is most likley due to the polymer magazine batch. There was an issue with the factory that made a batch of magazines where the mold got mucked with. @RAVAGE88

My friend, his friend, and my own all got Vudoo's in March 320x serial #'s and the polymer magazine we got had issues. Does it look like this?

View attachment 7415507
Click to expand...

Yup, that looks exactly like that. To clear the round, you can't just pull the bolt back. You have to remove the mag and then manually remove the round. Mine is a 31XX number and is pretty close to yours.
 
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Kevin1 said:
Yup, that looks exactly like that. To clear the round, you can't just pull the bolt back. You have to remove the mag and then manually remove the round. Mine is a 31XX number and is pretty close to yours.
Click to expand...

Yep pulling back does not work. Have to drop mag to get it cleared. If you know anyone with an older mag (year+ old) borrow it and you shouldn't have any problems. I got lucky and bought a used mag from a friend, and his was flawless through my rifle but my new one was having issues which is why I diagnosed it as a mag issue.
 
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Because the rounds are tiny.
It’s harder to get all the moving pieces into a bolt face 1/4” in diameter. It’s also harder to carry out all the little direction changes the round goes through as it feed from the mag into the chamber in an inch of travel. Just harder to perform a complex mechanical action in a smaller working envelope.
Should a top shelf rifle run flawlessly? Yeah probably for what they cost. But that’s my take on cause.
 
Built for match shooters. Match shooters seem to have a high tolerance for mag issues. See The proliferation of AICS mags in centerfire rifle comps for examples thereof.

My 10/22s run without a hitch, and one of them grew up on a diet of mixed brand walmart ammo. If a blow back semi auto can be reliable, a bolt action should be also.
 
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I have never has a feed or extraction issue with my 22lr Steyr-Mannlicher, a very accurate and reliable bolt action 22.
 
What Anschutz has issues with ejection? Mine runs awesome, but to be fair its one of the single-shot models that has a huge ejector built into the receiver (Anschutz 1907). I just haven't heard of this before.
 
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I’ve had feeding issues with my vudoo as well that was bought in March from mile high. Vudoo got me taken care of and then I had MHSA weld the mag catch so the mag sits flush against the bottom of the receiver for no vertical play. This is in a AIAX post 14 chassis as well. 99% reliability feeding. I think the one percent is me sucking at running a bolt
8F70DAAF-AD16-4853-98C3-03C39C4BCFAF.jpeg
8434D938-2A34-4D03-A1A5-FB6B34F80571.jpeg
347A4CED-AAD1-4E59-8A4B-E5CD790052A5.jpeg
 
I have a T1X that I have put about 1K rounds thru, 100% everything so far.
 
Get with vudoo and they will make it right.

I liken my vudoo to my AI. It runs fine all the time. I’m 20k rounds or so into mine and I can’t remember the last feeding issue I had. Across multiple stocks/chassis
 
Have never had a feed issue with any of my factory CZs. One of my Bergara B14s has been 100% in 2500 or so rounds. The other had a good bit of FTE in the first few hundred rounds and one FTF last time out that I think was ammo related. It has 1500-2000 on it.
 
The more accurate you make it the more finique it can be. My 7722, 1022, Marlin tubular fed, all fed flawlessly until I failed a clean or have crappy ammunition.

I'm not sure of this ejection issue people speak of with orange heads. The match 54 I had never failed to eject. That said it ejected within about 12 to 18 in of the port... Designed to not hit the neighboring shooter. I'm like u.s. guns like my 40 x metal swing case four positions down... LOL

Now my Russian toggle bolt rifle, it has feeding issues. The magazine doesn't fit exactly tight in the action and sometimes the angle isn't right for it to feed. A little piece of tape will shim it up and keep that from happening... doesn't completely resolve the problem but cuts out about 80% of the feeding issues. The funny thing is it's only about it two or three degree angle difference between working well and having issues.

Really wish I had access to a 3D printer to make some up with the corrected angle and dimension...

Savage with ejection issues after a few thousand rounds... Replace the worn part.

Sounds like the fix for the voodoo is to Simply call them and get a replacement magazine... Probably should buy three or four
 
My Vudoo has ran at 100% and it is a great little rifle.
 

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Kevin1 said:
I saw many recent posts complaining about the reliability of some of the bolt 22lrs.
I have/had many bolt 22lrs. All of them (except one brand) were more or less plagued with feeding/extraction issues.


Savage: I had a Mark2 G. It functioned perfectly for the first few thousands rounds, but then started having ejection issues with some ammo (copper plated ammo was ejecting fine).

Anschutz: They feed well but are notorious for week ejections. My latest 1710 works pretty well though.

CZ custom with cone breech: Bullet can sometimes hit the breech and not feed. The gun has perfect extraction.

Vudoo: This is a complete rifle with a KRG chassis purchased new. It works ok with center X. But even then, I get around 5% of FTF. For some reason, sometimes the round hits the breech, is deformed and doesn’t feed. I have to remove the mag to clear the round. I’ve tried to follow the video instructions on how to load the mag, but I still have the FTF issue. The extraction has always been 100%.

CZ factory: I have/had a few CZs (452, 455, 513). ALL have 100% perfect feeding and ejection!


I don’t compete and can live with some ejection/extraction issues, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why is it so complicated to have a 100% reliable 22lr bolt gun. In my personal experience CZ seems to be the only manufacturer that has figured this out.
Click to expand...

Since the 452 I have probably owned over 50 CZs. And never had a single issue with any magazine, extraction, or feeding problems. Amazing.
 
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Totally off topic, but the first two photos make it look like you MAY have a crack in your front scope ring/mount. Just FYI
 
Not exactly a "bolt" gun but I've never had a round fail to feed in my Izhmash and it cycles a lot faster than a "bolt" gun. Seems feeding reliably is an area manufactures need to work on.

Topstrap
 
The 1st CZ457 I bought was an American sporter, and after working for some time on extractor/pusher parts on a couple of converted 40Xs to get them to feed smoothly, yet still eject reliably with V-22 mags, the way that 457 cycled with decent smoothness & 100% reliability really impressed me. The American's OEM bbl was crap where accuracy's concerned, but I liked the features of the 457 action enough so that I went to the expense & effort to fit, chamber, contour and CeraKote a Shilen ratchet rifled blank for this rifle, and still have it. Accuracy with that Shilen after chambering with my EPS reamer is very good, and it's a joy to shoot. Also have three V-22s with more than a dozen mags, from the very early ones made before the V-22 actions were released that I use in converted 40Xs, to the later ones that I bought a couple of years ago, and they're all g-t-g.
 
I called Vudoo and they were kind enough to send me a new mag.
I cycled SK+ live rounds with the new mag, and everything works fine. I did the same with the old mag, and I had various issues.
The opening to insert the ammo on the new mag is larger by 0.003” and I think it makes all the difference.
On the old mag, even loading was a little hard. The rims of some of the SKs would almost get stuck , and Eley was practically impossible to load.
 
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Kevin1 said:
I called Vudoo and they were kind enough to send me a new mag.
I cycled SK+ live rounds with the new mag, and everything works fine. I did the same with the old mag, and I had various issues.
The opening to insert the ammo on the new mag is larger by 0.003” and I think it makes all the difference.
On the old mag, even loading was a little hard. The rims of some of the SKs would almost get stuck , and Eley was practically impossible to load.
Click to expand...
Poly or aluminum?
 
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