johnny the boy
CGN Regular
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Had one a few years ago. Did not cycle well with drum mag. Ok with stick mags tho.Wood version and it was around $450.00.
NEW Pietta PPS50 SBR 12" Barrel 22LR NON-Restricted
- Thread starter MarstarCanada
- Start date
The guy I bought mine from years ago sold it at a great price because it didn’t work properly. I have been using the thunderbolt with it and it’s running fine after a few hundred rounds so far with drum mags
This current one is plastic, and is made by Black Dog Machine LLC. I haven't used the drum yet, but I did load it up fully last night. You can tell the feeding isn't smooth. Will it cause problems? We will see tomorrow.
Both of the ones I own are plastic
Mine was at least 8lb..
I would have bought one years ago as I've always thought the PPS was one of the cooler looking submachine guns from the WWII era... but the longer barrel didn't look right. These knew versions take care of that!
It's not surprising that some guns might have issues given that they are semi auto .22lr and running drums and longer sticks brings even more possible function issues. The fact the gun has been around for decades and many people have not had issues suggests that most issues can probably be sorted by anyone that is handy and comfortable troubleshooting and tinkering.
I look forward to hearing the reports on the current batch!
It's not surprising that some guns might have issues given that they are semi auto .22lr and running drums and longer sticks brings even more possible function issues. The fact the gun has been around for decades and many people have not had issues suggests that most issues can probably be sorted by anyone that is handy and comfortable troubleshooting and tinkering.
I look forward to hearing the reports on the current batch!
This past Thursday, I picked up my wood stock 12" PPS 50, two 30-round stick mags, and one 50-round drum mag.
My first impression, is that the rifle is very short and light. I have several SBR 22's, but this is the shortest and lightest in my collection. The length of pull is short, and it feels more like a youth gun - not a negative for me. For reference, I'm a 5'6" guy, legs and arms proportionate. The rifle shoulders very nice, and it points well. The wood, which appears to be beech, is quite nice with surprisingly good grain for this price point and for my expectations. Initial fit and finish looked pretty good!
The two (purchased extra) 30-round stick magazines are plastic, and the build quality seems just ok. They appear to be made by Pietta. I noticed an incorrect screw (too long) was used to assemble one of the magazines near the feed lips, making the end of the screw stick out past the body of the magazine. Because of that, I wasn't initially able to seat this magazine in the magwell. So, I cut down this screw and reinserted it into the magazine body, and that issue was fixed. Inserting and removing the magazines is quite stiff at first, but eases up a bit through repetition. You have to align the magazine into the magwell channel quite deliberately, making mag changes somewhat cumbersome especially at first.
The 50-round drum magazine that came with the rifle is made by Black Dog Machine LLC, and is made of plastic. The build quality seems pretty good, and it feels hefty in a good way.
Loading both stick mags and the drum are pretty easy and took little time.
I field stripped it and oiled it so I would be ready to hit the range.
I took it to the range today, and I put around 700 rounds through it.
I used CCI Mini-Mags CPRN 40gr 1235 fps velocity, and Blazer RN 40gr 1235 fps velocity.
On each stick magazine's maiden voyage, and using the Mini-Mags, I had a ton of failures from stovepipes to double feeds - about every second round. After this quick 30-round "break-in" of each magazine, the gun functioned surprisingly better. I was getting 2-3 malfunctions (double feeds & stovepipes) per 100 rounds or so. When I tried the Blazer ammo, I initially experienced a malfunction every 2-3 rounds on the first mag, similar to the initial Mini-Mags. Afterwards, the gun would function, but not as reliably as the Mini-Mags. The most common issue with the Blazer ammo, was that it wouldn't feed properly into the chamber. I don't know what you'd call that particular issue, but here's a pic below of what it looked like when I removed the mag from the gun.
After this first happened, the mag itself would no longer feed ammo properly. It's like the spring lost tension and wouldn't push the follower upwards. The gun would fire a round, but not be able to strip a new round from the mag since the ammo wasn't pushed high enough in the mag to be chambered. I couldn't fix it by shaking, or adding/removing ammo from the mag. I completely disassembled the mag, but nothing looked broken. I reversed the spring, cleaned, and reassembled. Then it worked fine again.
As for the drum magazine. Oh boy lol. Every 2-3 successful rounds, I was getting a malfunction. Mainly double feeds, but some stovepipes too. This was consistent after a couple hundred rounds of Mini-Mags. Changing to the Blazer ammo didn't make any difference. I did get one surprising 15 round string, but that's the best I could manage.
When I was approaching 600 rounds, I could tell the gun was getting dirty and was starting to malfunction more.
Overall, the gun worked better with the Mini-Mags. The best I could get was 2-3 malfunctions per 100 rounds or so. To me, this seems reasonable for a gun like this. I'm expecting this will probably be as good as it gets since CCI/Blazer is quality plinking ammo (but who knows).
I wasn't testing for accuracy, but the gun seemed "pop can accurate". The sights were on target, I hit what I was aiming at, but I didn't measure any groups.
At the end of my shooting, I noticed the two screws securing the front sight post had wiggled their way loose and were nearly falling off. I fixed it with some blue locktite afterwards.
During post-range cleaning, I noticed that the gun had a ton of fouling/carbon around the breech, though easily removed. But much more caked on than any other SA .22 I own, even shooting the same ammo. Wear looked pretty good, with nothing noteworthy. The charging handle, once removed for cleaning, became quite loose once re-inserted. I wonder if this will wiggle it's way loose the next time I'm shooting. Field stripping was reasonably straight forward, and didn't take long. Though I saw some comments on YouTube saying otherwise. YMMV.
Overall, the gun was really fun! I think this is a good gun if you don't mind tinkering with it, and finding ammo it likes best. The drum mag looks badass, but I'd skip it since mine is a jam-o-matic, and other people seem to report the same thing.
A fun time for $670, but would be a blast for $400.
My first impression, is that the rifle is very short and light. I have several SBR 22's, but this is the shortest and lightest in my collection. The length of pull is short, and it feels more like a youth gun - not a negative for me. For reference, I'm a 5'6" guy, legs and arms proportionate. The rifle shoulders very nice, and it points well. The wood, which appears to be beech, is quite nice with surprisingly good grain for this price point and for my expectations. Initial fit and finish looked pretty good!
The two (purchased extra) 30-round stick magazines are plastic, and the build quality seems just ok. They appear to be made by Pietta. I noticed an incorrect screw (too long) was used to assemble one of the magazines near the feed lips, making the end of the screw stick out past the body of the magazine. Because of that, I wasn't initially able to seat this magazine in the magwell. So, I cut down this screw and reinserted it into the magazine body, and that issue was fixed. Inserting and removing the magazines is quite stiff at first, but eases up a bit through repetition. You have to align the magazine into the magwell channel quite deliberately, making mag changes somewhat cumbersome especially at first.
The 50-round drum magazine that came with the rifle is made by Black Dog Machine LLC, and is made of plastic. The build quality seems pretty good, and it feels hefty in a good way.
Loading both stick mags and the drum are pretty easy and took little time.
I field stripped it and oiled it so I would be ready to hit the range.
I took it to the range today, and I put around 700 rounds through it.
I used CCI Mini-Mags CPRN 40gr 1235 fps velocity, and Blazer RN 40gr 1235 fps velocity.
On each stick magazine's maiden voyage, and using the Mini-Mags, I had a ton of failures from stovepipes to double feeds - about every second round. After this quick 30-round "break-in" of each magazine, the gun functioned surprisingly better. I was getting 2-3 malfunctions (double feeds & stovepipes) per 100 rounds or so. When I tried the Blazer ammo, I initially experienced a malfunction every 2-3 rounds on the first mag, similar to the initial Mini-Mags. Afterwards, the gun would function, but not as reliably as the Mini-Mags. The most common issue with the Blazer ammo, was that it wouldn't feed properly into the chamber. I don't know what you'd call that particular issue, but here's a pic below of what it looked like when I removed the mag from the gun.
After this first happened, the mag itself would no longer feed ammo properly. It's like the spring lost tension and wouldn't push the follower upwards. The gun would fire a round, but not be able to strip a new round from the mag since the ammo wasn't pushed high enough in the mag to be chambered. I couldn't fix it by shaking, or adding/removing ammo from the mag. I completely disassembled the mag, but nothing looked broken. I reversed the spring, cleaned, and reassembled. Then it worked fine again.
As for the drum magazine. Oh boy lol. Every 2-3 successful rounds, I was getting a malfunction. Mainly double feeds, but some stovepipes too. This was consistent after a couple hundred rounds of Mini-Mags. Changing to the Blazer ammo didn't make any difference. I did get one surprising 15 round string, but that's the best I could manage.
When I was approaching 600 rounds, I could tell the gun was getting dirty and was starting to malfunction more.
Overall, the gun worked better with the Mini-Mags. The best I could get was 2-3 malfunctions per 100 rounds or so. To me, this seems reasonable for a gun like this. I'm expecting this will probably be as good as it gets since CCI/Blazer is quality plinking ammo (but who knows).
I wasn't testing for accuracy, but the gun seemed "pop can accurate". The sights were on target, I hit what I was aiming at, but I didn't measure any groups.
At the end of my shooting, I noticed the two screws securing the front sight post had wiggled their way loose and were nearly falling off. I fixed it with some blue locktite afterwards.
During post-range cleaning, I noticed that the gun had a ton of fouling/carbon around the breech, though easily removed. But much more caked on than any other SA .22 I own, even shooting the same ammo. Wear looked pretty good, with nothing noteworthy. The charging handle, once removed for cleaning, became quite loose once re-inserted. I wonder if this will wiggle it's way loose the next time I'm shooting. Field stripping was reasonably straight forward, and didn't take long. Though I saw some comments on YouTube saying otherwise. YMMV.
Overall, the gun was really fun! I think this is a good gun if you don't mind tinkering with it, and finding ammo it likes best. The drum mag looks badass, but I'd skip it since mine is a jam-o-matic, and other people seem to report the same thing.
A fun time for $670, but would be a blast for $400.
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