Second Range Trip with the Smith & Wesson M&P22 Compact

Yesterday I took the M&P22 back to the range to try several different types of .22LR ammunition. I intended to chronograph them but the battery in my Garmin was dead, so that will have to wait.

After my first range trip I Loctited the rear sight's windage adjustment screw. It stayed in place this time. After I confirmed zero I shot at least my rounds at the 25 yard plate rack.

I fired 380 rounds in total yesterday, in the order below.

In summary, the functioned perfectly with CCI Stingers and Remington Golden Bullets from a bucket I bought around 10 - 15 years ago. It didn't like Remington Vipers and it had some bobbles with Federal Punch. Federal Champion bulk pack and CCI Standard Velocity worked well with one failure of the slide to lock back on empty with each.

Details:

• Federal Punch 29 grain flat point solid. 50 rounds. 3 or 4 failures to feed (FTF).
• CCI Stinger 32 grain HP. 50 rounds. No malfunctions.
• Remington Viper 36 grain truncated cone solid. ~80 rounds. Numerous FTFs and failures to lock back on empty.
• Federal Champion Value Pack 36 grain HP. 50 rounds. One failure to lock back on empty mag.
• Remington Golden Bullet 36 grain HP. 100 rounds. No malfunctions. CCI Standard Velocity 40 grain solid. 50 rounds. One failure to lock back on empty mag.

So far I've put 571 rounds through the gun since buying it a little over a week ago. It seems to have a preference for CCI Mini Mags, CCI Stingers, and Remington Golden Bullet HPs.*

I have 5 more magazines on the way, along with a barrel nut to replace the thread adapter, since I'll be shooting this mostly unsuppressed. The barrel nut won't require removal for field stripping.

With two range sessions under my belt with the Smith & Wesson M&P22 Compact I can say that so far I'm very pleased with this pistol. It would make a great little kit gun for those who prefer autoloaders. Also, with the right ammo, it's reliable enough to rely on for self defense for folks who cannot handle a more powerful chambering, or who have hand issues that make racking the slide on a centerfire semiauto difficult.

*A note about Remington Golden Bullet .22s:

At one time I and many other experienced shooters would have considered Remington .22 Golden Bullets to be junk. However, around 15 years ago Remington greatly improved the quallity and I found it to be good, solid, reliable high speed .22 LR ammo. I don't know if that better quality carried over after Remington's bankruptcy in 2020. I'm getting down the last few hundred rounds from the 1400 round bucket I bought around 15 years ago. I'll have to get some current production Golden Bullets to try.

A Homemade Powder Dipper

 Reloaders have made their own dippers for measuring powder charges for decades. I made a dipper from an empty .22 Long Rifle case and some copper wire, and tried it out with three different fast burning pistol powders: Accurate No.2 (AAC-2), Alliant Bullseye, and Hodgdon Titegroup.

I was hoping to get a dipper that would throw very small charges suitable for use in small, low pressure cartridges like .32 S&W Long. However, the charge weights are a bit higher than I'd wanted.

To measure, I threw 10 charges of each powder and weighed them individually on a Frankford Arsenal digital scale. I then took the average of those 10 charges.

My results (It is likely that yours will vary, see below!):

• AAC-2: 3.08 grains
• Bullseye: 2.98 grains
• Titegroup: 3.68 grains

To put these into perspective, with AAC-2 or Bulleye, these charges are good for loading .38 Special 148 grain wadcutters. They'd be light loads under a 158 grain semiwadcutter or round nose bullet, because those aren't seated as deeply in the case, thus lowering chamber pressure.

In .32 H&R Magnum, 3.0 grains of AAC-2 would be a mild load with a 100 grain lead bullet. Likewise, 3.0 grains of Bullseye would be a mild load with 96 - 100 grain lead round nose bullet.

The Titegroup load would approximate a .38 Special (not +P) 158 grain service load. It could also be used to load 85 grain JHPs in .32 H&R Magnum.

VERY IMPORTANT WARNING:

Before you rely on this data consult with one or more loading manuals. Use at your own risk.

If you try this make sure to create your own charge table. The amount of powder a dipper will measure will vary depending on the case used, the manufacturing lot of the powder, and your technique.

Since this dipper measures out charges larger than what I was after, I plan to make another one with a .22 Short case to see what that gets me.