A close friend of mine wanted to buy her first firearm, and decided on a 22 rifle. Given her budget and preferences, I gave her a lot of suggestions of guns to take a look at, and which ones to avoid. She bought a new Ruger 10/22 carbine with a wood stock for $199. We took it out to shoot and the thing was a jam o matic (stove pipes and FTF) and the front sight fell off. She was pretty bummed. I told her not to worry, it just needed some loc tite and some breaking in.

I took it home, loc tited the front sight, and polished the hell out of inside. Especially around the ejection port. Took it back out to the range, and it jammed a few more times the first 100-150 rounds. I polished a little more around the ejection chamber, and didn't have anymore problems the last 200 rounds or so I fired it. I still think it should be tossing ejected shells a bit farther, but I don't want to mess with it if it is working.

I think it is finally broken in now, but Ive never heard of a 10/22 with these types of issues. Is this common on newer rifles, or did she just get a bad example from the factory?

A picture of my friend unboxing her first firearm.

Sounds like bad ammo. I didn't read "mini mag" in your post.

I used three types of ammo, and they all ran flawlessly in my Marlin model 60 and Ruger Mark II

If a plinking gun wont shoot brick ammo, I don't have much use for it. Plus, the ammo didn't make the front sight fall off or cause the the poor casting marks on the rifle.

These days it seems quality can be hit or miss with any brand or model. I've not read many complaints about 10/22s so that does surprise me.

Hopefully you got it polished enough and ran enough rounds through it so that it will function OK from now on.

I hope your friend will be that excited every time she goes shooting. Good luck!

They don't seem near as polished as they were 15 years ago.

Walmart gun. The cheapest they make. Expect a bit of work but it is a shooter when you get it right. Find the ammo it likes, I suggest Automatch as the only bulk to use. Put a three piece Power Custom trigger kit with adjustable sear in it next.

I have several 10/22's. None jam all shoot one hole groups.

Ammo quality seems lower than the past.

They aren't even close. You should see my 1969 10/22. It has a beautiful blue anodized receiver and it's a shooter. When I added the sparrow, it started shooting cheap ammo accurately.

Thanks Colt for introducing a young person, especially a lady, to the shooting sports! It seems fewer and fewer are venturing from video games and actually gaining an interest in real firearms. Kudos!

Your experience with the 10/22 is rare, I hope. I have many and the only one I had that experienced ftf or fte ran like a hose after I replaced the ejector with an aftermarket titanium one. Might give that a try.

That's a rare experience. I have had several 10/22's and you can't beat them. Only time one jammed was when I put that cheap remmington ammo in it. Just bought a new tactical 10/22 to put the suppressor on and it did great right out of the box. Never had to polish a single one. Rarely even clean them. Ha

BS answer... outside of a couple of models that were Walmart exclusive, they don't build a different base model gun for Walmart than they do for the local gun store. Even with the Walmart exclusive rifles, the differences were in the stock or the rifle had a stainless finish instead of blued... but there was no difference in quality.

Honestly, I've never heard of a 10/22 with those type of issues, regardless of ammo or any other factor. I've probably put 10k rounds through mine and it's never jammed that I can remember. Tons of different types of ammo (although auto match is all I shoot now).

Thunderbolts will jam in nearly anything.

There's a bad one every few thousand by every maker I bet.

Automatch is good bulk and so is Federal blue or red 550 packs.

So you build a lot of 10/22's?

I think I have only owned 4 since the mid seventies but the one my friend bought for his grandkids and asked me to install a scope on was disappointing to say the least.

I bought a Talley base and when I tried to install using 15lbs on my torque wrench the first one stripped out before I even got it snug. I backed off to 10 lbs and stripped the second one... I took it to Derrick at Horizon and he tapped for larger screws....cheap cast metal.

I would not buy one of the new ones if they are all made the same.

Receiver screws stripped? Is that 15 ft/lbs or 15 in/lbs? Might need to check the wrench. The one I have now was born in 2011 and has the factory supplied rail mounted to the factory receiver holes snugged properly with some blue LT and it's fine. The wrench for something simple may be an added variable not required with such a light firearm with such light recoil.

I own a Remington 552, Marlin 60, Henry Golden Boy, Marlin Xt-22, Ruger Mk II, and a SW semi auto pistol in 22 LR - and I have never had any problems shooting Remington thunderbolts in any of them. Once I polished this 10/22 it fed a little over 200 rounds of Remington Thunderbolts without any problems. I mean, you get the occasional bad shell from any bulk ammo, but this 10/22 had some issues.

On this 10/22, the scope mount screws were caked in under the finish.

I just did a safe check and the magazine in my 10/22 has yellow jackets in it.....the only thing worse than Thunderbolts. Remmy rimfire is pretty sorry. I guess I got some loosies and figured the best place to put them was in the gun so they'd be used up first. WAIT....Winchester red box .22 is super lame too.

Auto-loading .22's can be picky, or not. It's the way it is no matter the brand.

Don't have to build it to call BS on the "Walmart guns are crappier than LGS guns" line. The base model 10/22 sold at Walmart is the same as the base model 10/22 sold anywhere else.

I definitely wasn't impressed when I got home with my 10/22 and the barrel was so canted that the sights were about 15 degrees from being lined up with the receiver. Easy enough to fix, but pretty sad QC on Ruger's part. After doing some reading it sounds like this is common these days.

Your reply sounds logical. However, I recently heard of a Mini-14 bought at Wal-Mart. It had issues. Ruger gave them the name of a local Ruger authorized dealer, (not Wally World), and told him to take it there to be sent back. Of all the audacity!!! Needless to say the local "Authorzied Dealer" told him to take it back to WM and good luck.

Here is a list of all dealer exclusives

http://ruger.com/search/group/?cat=de

My first 10/22 was a store bought stainless 10/22T. It is a beaut but it went back to Ruger twice before it started shooting right. That's the only one I bought new. Since then I pretty much buy them one piece at a time and build my own designs.