Mark 4 22/45 Lite Extraction Issue

[sdrr72]

Have a brand new Mk4 22/45 Lite.  Bolt has Volquartsen extractor and firing pin.  I bought a spare bolt off Ebay from them with those parts preinstalled.  It was only $10 more than the parts alone, so I figured why not.

 

First trip to range to sight in red dot, I fired roughly 150 rounds with no trouble at all.  CCI high velocity coated ammo, recently purchased.  After that, I started having failures to extract fired cases.  Almost always the first case fired would stick in chamber.  Cycling the bolt would clear it, and I never had a case stick in the chamber when manually cycling the bolt.  Manually cycling the bolt threw the fired casing with authority, making me feel like the extractor was fine.  I'd fire a few more rounds with no issue, and half the time per mag have another case stick or not clear when ejecting. 

 

Went home and thoroughly cleaned.  Looked at chamber and it appears the Volquartsen extractor has slightly "dented in" the part of the chamber where it grabs the case edge, causing a burr where the case sticks when fired.  This is a guess, but there is bare shiny metal at that spot where there was no bare shiny metal before.

 

Ordered a Tandemkross "chambermade" to clear out the chamber, and hoping this clears up the issue.  Anyone else see this before or have other advice?

[Nugget]

I bought a mk3 22/44 lite used from a “friend” who said it was ammo finicky. I found out later that ammo finicky means it doesn’t like any kind of ammo. I went through all the fixes, extractor,mags,chamber…no good. I finally bought a volquartzen competition bolt and have never had another problem with extraction again.

[SteelCityShooter]

Any chance whoever installed the VQ firing pin neglected to install the cross pin in the bolt that limits the firing pin's travel?  With that pin in place, dry firing is safe.  Without it, dry firing can let the firing pin go forward enough to hit the chamber edge and leave a burr.  

[ItsKirby]

I replaced my LCI and extractor….. that fixed most of the problems. I would say 2 FTE out of 100 but i was also using federal brick ammo from walmart that is 10yrs old. I tried remington golden bullet brick and did not have any issues with that ammo. The LCI was the big culprit for my 22/45 light

[AzShooter]

Glad you found the ammo it likes.  I've got cases of CCI ammo but I've been using Remington Bucket Of Bullets for the past year.  They are very clean and work real well in my Smith Model 617.

 

Keep up the good shooting.  

 

Steven

[sdrr72]

Thank you everyone for the replies.  My bolt is an eBay buy directly from VQ that came preinstalled with their pin and extractor (pro-tip:  add it to your wish list and wait a week or two, they offered me 10% off which made it almost the same price as the pin and extractor alone).  I did not disassemble to check, but I hope that is not an issue.

 

After using the TandemKross chambermaid, my issues largely went away.  I am using exclusively for competition CCI coated high velocity, so I hope ammo is not the issue.  My failures went WAY down after the chambermaid.  Not perfect, but hey, this is rimfire...

 

Shout out to TandemKross.  I have mostly their parts in two 22/45's, and they have really good stuff.  Trigger packs are exceptional.  And if you are in competition, the Halo ring is the best.

[Matt1911]

Try some Mini mags and Federal standard velocity. That High velocity stuff you’re using may be an issue with your gun.