vancityguy said:
seems like its hit or miss with these little suckers
Personally I think it is more hit and miss with the users than the guns, but I don't want to start a flame war here, and I've only shot significant numbers of rounds through my one "AG" gun, so I can't comment on all P22's, but 15,000 rounds in a year and working better than ever? ... hey I'm more than happy with mine. For accuracy I can get all 10 shots into a 3 and 1/2 inch circle at 10 or 12 yards basically 100% of the time if I concentrate. the best groups I have ever gotten is all 10 shots into a Loonie-sized (1 inch) group at 10 yards (Note that this is common place with Rugers and Brownings, but still). I've done this a few times. Rapid firing, these days I can get about 8 out 10 shots into a 5 inch circle at 10 yards firing the gun as fast as fast as I can from a simulated "draw" (I actually don't have a holster for this gun). At 25 yards, most groups are 5 inches or worse, but that is pretty much how it is for all handguns with the exception of really excellent target pistols and revolvers with long barrels.
You do have to clean these guns rather religiously, but the same applies for the Mosquito and others. If you keep it cleaned and lubed, you should be able to fire 500+ rounds without any failures before having to do more cleaning. That has been my experience anyway.
The firing pin channel on the P22 is exposed in a way that you don't see on many other handguns, and never on a centrefire handgun. It's a big open channel that is much larger than the firing pin, so there isn't really much of a breechface and the channel gunks up after a lot of rounds. The Mosquito's way of doing it is more like what you would see on a centrefire, except that as a rimfire the firing pin is much larger so the channel has to be much larger. I can take some pictures if you guys want.
If you own a P22 you have to clean out firing pin channel every 500 rounds or so (basically every time you take it to the range). Don't disassemble the slide to do this. Just get some tweezers or some kind of little stick to scrape all the gunk out of there, then mop up with a Q-tip. Then push the firing pin all the way forward (from the back) using something small. I usually just cut the head off a Q-tip and use that to push the firing pin forward. You have to push down the firing pin safety (the little "button" on the underside of the slide) to get it to move forward. It should come out about half an inch. Make sure that is all cleaned off. Don't try and oil anything, just get as much black out of there as you can.
I think that failure to do this is where most of the fail-to-fires come from. Fail to feed is not really an issue with the P22, IMHO - fail to feed is the Mosquito's weak point, but not the P22.
The other thing that can get a bit crudded up is the trigger and sear. You can clean this best by taking out the two main roll pins and pulling the receiver out of the grip. I only do this about once per 8-10 trips to the range though. You can get it pretty clean from the top (without disassembling the gun beyond field stripping) if you take your time.
I love my P22, modified and cared for as it is. Lots of people, after watching me blasting away tons of rounds rapid fire, hitting the targets, and having no stoppages of any kind, have come up to me and asked what kind of gun it is and where they can get one. I think it is an awesome gun. I'd recommend it to anyone.
Some photos:
A video of me on youtube firing CCI Stingers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcg9aZ7Gfqw