I bought my Beretta U22 NEOS about 3 weeks ago and ran an entire brick box of Federal .22LRs through it with...maybe 2 misfires out of the entire box. Wonderful. Loved the gun. Getting good groups, accurate, consistent shooting, all that.

Then I bought a box of Remington Gold bullets. About 1 in 10 failed to fire. Of course, I could put them back in and fire them fine a second time, but still, I wasn't happy with such a high failure rate.

But, I think "fine, it is, after all, bulk ammunition--$9.00/brick at that.)" So, I went back to the store and bought another brick of Federal bulk ammo--this time a slightly different kind because they were out of the stuff I bought the very first time. I had about a 1:10 failure rate on that also!

On both the Remington and Federal ammo with the high failure rate, I notice that it looks like the firing pin is just barely nicking the rim. Almost like the rims are too shallow (?) I know there are margins and tolerances within any given caliber, and I'm guessing that if I went back and bought the same stuff I got with the gun, or maybe even CCIs (which I hear are "longer"), it will be fine again.

My question is: is this normal? Is my gun "ammo-picky" and normal for that, or should I send it in for repair or some type of firing pin alignment? This is my first semi-auto rimfire (I'm used to shooting a 9mm that never misifres), so I'm unsure of what I should expect.

Thanks, as always, for any input.

/Wade

Probably, the gun is just a bit ammo-picky. .22 ammo varies quite a bit from manufacturer to manufacturer, and one place where you'll see that variation is in rim thickness. In fact, if you measure rim thickness in a single box of ammo you'll be surprised at the variance in all but match-grade stuff. Also possible, though, is a bit of gunk buildup in the firing pin channel, so a bit of attention there would be worth trying. And I've seen similar problems when gunk built up around the chamber mouth, in effect "cushioning" the rim from the firing pin blow -- and this wasn't a lot of fouling, mind you, just a bit in an inconvenient spot.

Pisgah mentioned one of th ethings I have found to be a common problem. .22LR ammo is dirty and just that tiny bit of gunk can cause exactly what you are experiencing. You said your first brick shot well. Did you clean your pistol thoroughly after that? The bits of gunk he mentioned can do it to you.

That being said, it could still be ammo picky.

Clean the heck out of it and then buy a few more boxes of ammo with the express purpose of experimenting. See? Here is where you HAVE to do A LOT MORE shooting. Fun huh? :) Find out what ammo it likes and where it's problem gunk spots are and how often it likes those places scrubbed and cleaned. It'll make you happy.

+1 on the cleaning. Scrub the heck out of the chamber, face, breech face, and especially around the extractor/groove. Use a very very light application of oil or better yet dry lube.

I do make it a point to clean after every outing. I use a boresnake and Hoppe's Semi-Auto solution on all exposed areas--but I will double-check to make sure I got everything. I also bought another brick of the "good" stuff today, so I'll be interested to see how that performs as well. Thanks for the input...

Considering the gun is clean and it does turn out to just be that ammo-picky--should I be alarmed then?

If there are differences in the primer strikes, then something is preventing the pin from going all the way forward, or going forward fast enough.

Maybe a burr or something.... just a thought.

UPDATE: After the last time mentioned, I cleaned the gun like I always do, then started shooting the bulk Federal that was misfiring again. This time I ran 250 rounds through without a single misfire. (!) WTF? That pretty much tells me it was a cleaning issue. I'm going to keep an eye on cleaning from here on, particularly the firing pin and the area it goes through (sorry, I'm new and not great w/ terminology).

I'm a little embarassed, as I've been shooting my 9mm for years and cleaning--I should know better, I guess, but it does appears that this rimfire is a little more sensitive to tolerances than my big clunky P95. :)

Thanks for all the input, guys.

/Wade

Autoloaders sometimes need a break-in period to smooth out the burrs.

Well, I'm 4 bricks broken-in, have cleaned the bejeesus out of this thing several times and am still occasionally getting very faint primer strikes--where it's barely being nicked--even on CCIs.

Took the gun back to Cabela's to have it sent in. Darn the luck, I'm going to have to shoot my 9mm for the next 3 weeks. :)

I love the .22 when it works right. 's just not working right. :(

Not having a great first experience with Berettas. But I'll reserve final judgment until I get it back and find out what the problem was and more importantly, if it's fixed.