Polishing a feed ramp on a .22

I have a new buckmark that has been a lot of fun to shoot. But about once per mag a round will get hung up when feeding. If I bump the slide it will go forward and it’s fine. Seems like ammo is hanging on the feed ramp a little and getting in a bind when the slide tries to go forward. It does it with multiple kinds of ammo. How should I go about polishing it?

Clean it well and then try different ammo. Let the chamber soak overnight with Wipeout. Use a brush in the chamber to remove residue. Gumout Carb cleaner is good to soften caked up lube and crud if that is an issue.

22 ammo selection has significant influence on function and accuracy. What kind are you using? Eley and Lapua make ammo specifically for pistols. Might be worth trying a box of each as controls.

If you just have to polish it, use a copper bore brush by hand on the ramp. DO NOT break out the beer and Dremel tool!

One other potential issue is a bad mag. Try some different mags and see if that makes a difference.

I’ve shot CCI mini mag, standard velocity, federal bulk, federal hp, blazer, and federal auto match. It’s done it with all of it except for CCI stingers (theory below)This is what happens.



The reed ramp goes up the the chamber, and there is a little lip there. The feed ramp doesn’t go up with a clean transition to the chamber. I believe the rounds with a lead nose are catching on that lip, slowing down slightly, then getting in a bind. As I said, if I tap the slide, it’s all good. The stingers don’t seem to hang up because they have a copper nose. The stingers also grouped better than everything else, which makes me think maybe some of the lead nose rounds are getting deformed when they hang up. Stingers are hard to find, and expensive, so I don’t want to just shoot them only.

How many rounds does it have? If a lot, a new recoil spring might be needed.

You have it in front of you, so I defer to you, but trying a good cleaning and lube first, especially since it new and breaking in, is a safer go slow approach to troubleshooting. Altering the ramp geometry is irreversible.

This is helpful for finding ammo. Good luck.

http://gunbot.net/ammo/rimfire/22lr/

Dremel, polishing compound and a soft brush. You aren’t going to mess anything up with that combo.

Could be that the bolt face needs cleaning or a bit of polishing too.

Less than 500. I just bought it last week.

Here’s what it looks like. This was pre cleaning. But it was clean when I took it out today and it still gave me the same problems.

Contact CS to figure it out. You should not have to mess around and polish a new gun to make it reliable. My SW22 Victory is reliable with every ammo, except the CCI tactical that seem to have too much lube and I get the same type of malfunction as you.
You should not have to go the Lapua/Eley route nor polish anything to make the gun cycle.

True


Also true, but not always the case.

As silly as it seems, that hadn’t even occurred to me.

Elk castle in ft worth is an authorized browning service center. I’ll go see them in the morning.

Kevin for the win.

Dropped it off at elk castle this morning. I could tell after cleaning it last night that there are 2 distinctly separate grooves on the feed ramp. The rounds aren’t all feeding consistently because it seems like some of them come in at an angle. He said they may have to send it to browning. Hope I don’t have to wait 8 weeks or something, but who knows. I just hope they fix it. I’ve heard lots of guys tell stories about getting guns back from manufacturers and being told “nothing is wrong with it”

my Buckmark is a jam-omatic too.

I just hope they can fix it. I’m intending on doing heavy modifications to this pistol for competitive use, but if this doesn’t fix the feeding issues and improve accuracy, I’ll pick up a ruger. Which sucks, I like the buckmark soooo much better.

Why?

It feels a lot better in my hand, I can buy a new barrel and ship it to my door without having to pay for an ffl transfer (and they are a lot less expensive), the factory trigger is much much nicer (especially with the sear spring mod). And I thinks it’s aesthetically nicer, but that’s not a big deal.

Right call. I could tell a story about my first and last experience with a feed ramp and a dremel tool but not in the mood to embarrass myself tonight.

The good ol dremel...it can be a great thing, or it can be a curse. Well acquainted, myself!

There is such a thing as "too smooth." Where two surfaces rub, excessive smoothness can actually cause more surface-to-surface contact, resulting in an increase in friction. Microscopic pores in one or both surfaces decrease contact area and can reduce friction. Whether or not that has any relevancy to feed ramps, I can only guess, but it's an interesting fact. Or not.

I had a Ruger 22/45 and was happy with it. When it was stolen I decided to replace it with a Buck Mark because it too felt better in my hand than the Ruger. The Buck Mark factory trigger was noticeably better and was more accurate. If I get another .22 pistol it will be a Buck Mark. If I were going to mod it out then I’d probably go with a Ruger.

Based on the pictures I posted on rimfire central, the buckmark experts told me it is a bent guide rod. You can see it in the pictures. So I called elk castle to have them fix that first before they try anything else.

Well, I’ll never use elk castle again. I called on the 22nd to let them know that I was pretty sure it was a bent guide rod, and if so, go ahead and replace it. I then called on the 27th just to check in and see if they were sending it to browning, or if it could be fixed in house. He told me he was going to test fire it that day and he would get back to me, but that he checked and it definitely wasn’t the guide rod. Hadn’t heard from him since, and had to drive right by elk castle while running some errands today, so I dropped by to see what suppressors they had in stock and to check on the gun. He told me he shot it, and it didn’t give him any problems, so they were giving it back to me. I looked at the pistol and could see the guide rod was bent, and he said it wasn’t, that all buckmarks look like that. I said fine, and brought it home knowing dang well it was bent from looking at pictures online. The guide rod was 1/8” lower and and an obvious downward angle.

So anyways, I get home, strip it apart, take the guide rod out, and I swear to god it was so bent it looked like somebody formed it around a 5 gallon bucket. That was the severity of the bend. There is a zero percent chance he even took my pistol apart. It was impossible to miss if you took it out of the gun. Good news is, rimfire central assured me that it’s pretty common, and bending it back by hand and giving it a roll test on a table to make sure it’s straight would make it good as new.

I’ll stay away from elk castle from now on. As a customer, I specifically told him what needed to be fixed, and I guess he just didn’t feel like doing it. I can’t imagine he put more than 10 rounds through it based on how clean it still is either. Headed to the range now to test it out and see if it’s better.

Yeah. They get paid for that poor service too.

The ONLY reason I used them is they are the only authorized Browning Service center on this side of the metroplex andnif it has to be sent back, they could do it.

I got a bad first impression at Elk Castle myself...several times. I think I've been in there once in the last ten years, and only because I happened to be in the neighborhood anyway to see what they had in the pawn shop next door.

I've never had a Buckmark apart, so this may or may not be helpful, but when I need to straighten things like pin punches I roll them back and forth on a suitably hard surface while tapping on them with a light hammer. For those purposes it works okay, but only you would know whether you'd like to try that method.