Norinco NP22 (Sig P226 clone)

JesseB123

Regular
Rating - 100%
10   0   0
Location
Victoria
Well! This showed up yesterday and what a great day it was :)

The gun was the last of the mail to show up after the ammo, drop leg rig and holster came so I was as antsy as could be.

It looks great, and I'm very excited as this is my first centerfire handgun.

Disassembled it, cleaned and oiled everything, checked functionality, all's well.

I took it to the range today and was immediately disappointed for a variety of reasons, but I can narrow these reasons down - the gun was made in China.

I got into this relationship with expectations, and in my experience, expectations usually lead to disappointment. I'm stubborn and wouldn't listen to the advice I'd read through all these helpful forums and thought mine would be different.

I squeezed a few round off and almost immediately had a FTE, which took some time to clear. Kept going about my business. I made it through 50 rounds with 5 Fail to Ejects. The next problem was the front sight. The white dot set in the dimple was blown out at some point, leaving a black pit of emptiness. The groups I got at 7yds were atrocious, barely landing on a 8x11 sheet of paper, never mind near the targets printed on them. I've gotten quite good with my .22 handgun, and hope that this is error on my part - just being new to centerfire.

Anyways just thought I'd share.

Here's some pictures, I know I sure like when someone's post has pictures in it.

IMAG0234.jpg


IMAG0218.jpg


IMAG0218.jpg


https://www.dropbox.com/s/hhl0oji94da6zn8/IMAG0218.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gv6yg3zy0n6e201/IMAG0223.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rjlevljqlc40veo/IMAG0234.jpg

Didn't take the holster to the range.

P.S
When I took the gun to the range today, the Pistol range was overrun by LEOs training. This is no problem with me, but I've been doing too much reading in the legal sections of this website and I was stressing super hard, felt like everything I was doing was wrong unfortunately, or I was going to jail because of a paper crime, or a technicality in the system (even though I do everything by the book..). But I overcame that, asked them politely if anyone was using the IPSC alleys, they told me to do my thing and everything was fine. I wish I didn't feel compelled to be stressed for no reason.
 
Last edited:
Where are the pics? I haven't seen the NP22 in person but you can't really expect much when you are saving over $1000 vs a real Sig. Also I would not expect flawless performance from any new gun. All guns need to be broken in, some more than others. Give it a chance and it may surprise you. The worst thing you could do is try to sell it at a loss on the EE - the great thing about cheap gus - there will always be someone looking for a cheap gun.

Strip it, clean it, shoot it, repeat. Get that factory crude off the gun and shoot the hell out of it. If still no go, there are many cheap fix and tunes you could try.

Also what ammo are you using? Some cheap Norinco ammo can be pretty dirty and sticky.
 
Tried to fix the pic links

I'll do my best to persevere :) overall first impressions weren't great, I hope it surprises me.

I'm using American Eagle 124gr FMJ
 
Ya if it functions even at 80% give it time. Its brand spanking new!!! And its not a polymer striker fired gun. Guns with hammers just need a little bit of love. Thats all. My Norinco .45 was pretty dumpy out of the box but it tightened right up after about 300 rds.
 
a .22 (which gun is it?) with no recoil will be very different than a recoiling 9mm, make sure you have a firm grip, it will help with your targets. I could get all 10 shots on 11x8 paper at 25 yards with mine

as for FTE?????? no idea, mine was perfect in 1000 rounds, not a single issue (might again be grip - look up "limp wristing")

as for the dot, get a crayon, fill it back in and take a lighter to melt the crayon a bit and voila, new white dot

as far as I am concerned, it is the best pistol clone china makes
 
I squeezed a few round off and almost immediately had a FTE, which took some time to clear. Kept going about my business. I made it through 50 rounds with 5 Fail to Ejects. The next problem was the front sight. The white dot set in the dimple was blown out at some point, leaving a black pit of emptiness. The groups I got at 7yds were atrocious, barely landing on a 8x11 sheet of paper, never mind near the targets printed on them. I've gotten quite good with my .22 handgun, and hope that this is error on my part - just being new to centerfire.

yeah, we call that flinching. You're anticipating more recoil than you're used to so your hand tries to start pulling the gun down as you pull the trigger to be able to stop the recoil effectively moving you off target.

Then if you "limp wrist" it and let the recoil move the gun too much that eats up the inertia so then there isn't enough energy to fully cycle the slide all the way back.
 
What did you put on the frame rails - oil or grease? Generally oil is too thin on those type of guns and grease keeps it running good.
I'm surprised at the problems, since those guns generally have a good reputation.
 
Brad, How is the barrel lock up on your NP22?
How is yours Jess?

Nice and tight

a .22 (which gun is it?) with no recoil will be very different than a recoiling 9mm, make sure you have a firm grip, it will help with your targets. I could get all 10 shots on 11x8 paper at 25 yards with mine

as for FTE?????? no idea, mine was perfect in 1000 rounds, not a single issue (might again be grip - look up "limp wristing")

as for the dot, get a crayon, fill it back in and take a lighter to melt the crayon a bit and voila, new white dot

as far as I am concerned, it is the best pistol clone china makes

Most definitely incorrect grip, and almost certainly 'limp wristing'. I'm not flinching (I surprised myself with oddly loaded mags just to test this). I'm gonna have to find some courses to tune myself to this new shooting.

The science behind the inertia and FTE could be quite correct. After some shots, I noticed that the gun was positioned with the right side twisted to face me and aimed up where the recoil left it. Anyways, that stuff isn't for a NP22 thread.

I guess I'll have to change my bad impressions of the gun to admittances of my bad shooting :) Thanks for the new insight! I really like how great the gun feels and looks. So if you're all confident it's me, then I can't wait until the gun performs the same great way once I figure my shiz out.

As for the front sight, the crayon was the first thing that popped into my head since I've read of people doing just that to their AR receivers.

What did you put on the frame rails - oil or grease? Generally oil is too thin on those type of guns and grease keeps it running good.
I'm surprised at the problems, since those guns generally have a good reputation.

I used light gun oil. What kind of grease would you use on this? I've never encountered a situation needing grease on a firearm.

Thanks for all the awesome replies!
 
huh, bought mine (np22) brand new from wholesale sports (interesting experience) but its been nothing but awesome? couple hundred rounds through it with absolutely no issues in any way. when i got it i just removed the top half, light cleaning, some oil and slapped back together, maybe cleaned it once since then. its the best feeling norinco gun i own, i own about 5. any chance something happened on your initial cleaning? you an NFG member? thats usually where i go to shoot my restricted toys.
 
Everything will iron out with time. You have one of the best pistol clones from Norinco from what I've read. If it's your first pistol, don't get too hung up on groups at first. Understand that your grip is what controls the pistol and puts the rounds in the same vicinity. I've seen first time shooters who understood sight picture fully, and had years of rifle shooting miss the target completely at 7meters first time out. It takes about 10 times more rounds to be proficient with a pistol than a rifle. So if 500 rounds would start ironing all the bugs out of your marksmanship deficiencies with a rifle, I'd expect you to have to fire 5000 rounds to control all the difficulties in proper pistol grip and control fully. The white out on the front sight, I wouldn't worry too much about that. If you shoot bulls eye, six o'clock looks great with a black post. Except for nite sights,....I don't shoot at the range at night, and XS Big Dots for pure combat use, a square black front sight in a patridge set is absolutely fine. As stated pistols need resistance to allow them to cycle properly, especially if it has a spring that is set up to handle 147s all day, and you limp wrist the gun.
PS I have the 226, but I bet if we were on the same range, you'd be running right along with the Np-22.;)
 
A good way to test for flinching of any kind is to get some snap caps and randomly load them into your mags ( if you only have one or two then get a friend to load them up for you, more than that and its easy enough to forget where they are ).
 
My NP22 shoots great. I have never had a FTE or FTF.
Today I had 3 newbies out to my club and had them shooting it and my S&W M&P9. Surprisingly, after letting them all shoot 3 mags out of each of them, they all picked the NP22 as their favourite gun to shoot. My son loves it too. Everyone seems to like the trigger.
I woud suggest more time shooting yours.
 
Mine has worked flawlessly with 500rds through it, shoot as accurately as the wife's beretta, and trigger is way smoother
 
I just picked one up last week. I've put approx 300 through mine so far. It functions flawlessly. The only problem is that the sights were off from the factory. I tried moving the rear sight but it wasn't happening. . I took it to a gunsmith and hopefully will have it back this week. I actually enjoy shooting itmore than my Glock!
 
Back
Top Bottom