I recently unloaded a pair of Ruger 10/22 factory rotary magazines that had been left loaded for years. One filled with the Federal hyper-vel of some years ago, probably the Spitfire. I remember they did good duty on an armadillo or two. The Federals seemed Ok, though the wax coating on a few is going white, & a couple looked a hair off. I'm sure I topped up the Fed mag at least once, but that would have been at least 4 yrs ago.
The other mag was loaded with some circa mid-late 1980's Winchester Super X copper plated 40 gr solids, left full & undisturbed for about 9 yrs- and all 10 rounds came out bent!
Note that I wrote bent bullets. That's because the little rimfire cartridge cases all seem to be in A-OK shape, as well as the joint between case & bullet. On these Win SX rounds, about 1 mm in front of the case mouth, there is a thin, *deep* groove around the bullet. All are bent at this groove, with bends ranging from slight to severe. Hmm... My curiosity was piqued, & since I have a good amount of this ammo I looked at some from 2 other boxes, selected at random. Nope, all OK there. (The Win ammo was bought at 2 different stores, probably within a few days, & all had the same lot #'s.)
I had also unloaded an aftermarket triple-capacity mag(less spring tension than the factory rotarys), it was filled with CCI Mini-Mag HP's. Went back & checked the CCI's- all look pretty good.
Strong springs, left loaded a long time, on ammo with a quirk. Other .22lr has a groove in the same place, but all I've looked at so far isn't nearly as deep as these old Super X's. I've now bent the worst ones back to straighter than they were- and plan to use these in a revolver!
Your mileage may vary, but: If you have a .22 LR magazine that's been loaded for a long time, you might want to check for this.
The other mag was loaded with some circa mid-late 1980's Winchester Super X copper plated 40 gr solids, left full & undisturbed for about 9 yrs- and all 10 rounds came out bent!
Note that I wrote bent bullets. That's because the little rimfire cartridge cases all seem to be in A-OK shape, as well as the joint between case & bullet. On these Win SX rounds, about 1 mm in front of the case mouth, there is a thin, *deep* groove around the bullet. All are bent at this groove, with bends ranging from slight to severe. Hmm... My curiosity was piqued, & since I have a good amount of this ammo I looked at some from 2 other boxes, selected at random. Nope, all OK there. (The Win ammo was bought at 2 different stores, probably within a few days, & all had the same lot #'s.)
I had also unloaded an aftermarket triple-capacity mag(less spring tension than the factory rotarys), it was filled with CCI Mini-Mag HP's. Went back & checked the CCI's- all look pretty good.
Strong springs, left loaded a long time, on ammo with a quirk. Other .22lr has a groove in the same place, but all I've looked at so far isn't nearly as deep as these old Super X's. I've now bent the worst ones back to straighter than they were- and plan to use these in a revolver!
Your mileage may vary, but: If you have a .22 LR magazine that's been loaded for a long time, you might want to check for this.
