Trouble in paradise!!

I managed to get up early and scoot out to the range for some quality time with my new Magnumlite rifle in .17 Mach 2. The results were both encouraging and unnerving.

The encouraging part is that this rifle will shoot. This is a very blurry cell phone shot of a 10 round string at 100 yards, with 6 rounds in one tight cluster that is ~1 MOA and the rest being flyers that are my fault. So, the rifle will do its job if I do mine. Problem is that I rarely hold up my end of the bargain.

As good as the accuracy was, I had numerous functioning problems (between 1-2 out of nearly each magazine of 10 rounds). I shot 200 rounds this AM, that translates to about 30-40 function failures. On closer examination of the spent cartridges, I noted that almost every case showed signs of overpressure - primarily bulging case heads ("mushrooming", as I call it). I even had two case head separations. The ammo in use was Remington Premier Rimfire, .17 Mach 2, 17gr AccuTip-V Boattail (#PR17LR). If only I had a chronograph, I could make a determination regarding the consistency of this ammo. At any rate, I don't blame these failures on the gun or the magazine (yet) and I already have 3 other brands of ammo on order to see if they exhibit the same problem. However, I will be contacting both Magnum Research and Remington to get their responses to the situation. Here are some pics of the spent cases:

Took the kids to see Wall E this afternoon. While I didn't really care for the not-so-subliminal "humans are killing Mother Earth" message, it was good for a few chuckles and the kids all seemed to like it. I would recommend it for those who have young children. Lots more cleaning today - spent most of the time on the car and a little on the Hi-Power. Time to settle back for a nice cold Vanilla Coke. :-)